Design Pitstop

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In this Photoshop tutorial, I will walk you through creating one of those mac-like shiny glass orbs. Trendy? Maybe. Damn cool looking? You bet your shiny glass ass it is.

1. Press CTRL+N to create a new document: dimensions 300×300
2. Press CTRL+SHIFT+N to create a new layer. Call it “Orb Base”
3. With the Orb Base layer selected, use your Elliptical Marquee tool to create a circle 200×200 pixels
4. Fill with RGB: 0,0,255

5. Keeping your selection, create a new layer. Call it Highlight
6. Contract your selection (Select->Modify->Contract) by 5 pixels
7. Choose the Gradient tool, set it to fade from Foreground to Transparent and set your foreground color to RGB: 255,255,255
8. Create a gradient from the top to about 75% down the selection, like so:

9. Distort (Edit->Transform->Distort) it to look like so:

10. Set “Highlight” Layer’s transparency to 85%
11. Duplicate the “Highlight” Layer, and call it “Glow”
12. Flip the “Glow” Layer Vertically (Edit->Transform->Flip Vertical), and move it about 10 pixels from the bottom:

13. Apply a Gaussian Blur (Filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur) of 15 to the “Glow” Layer.
14. With the “Glow” Layer still selected, open up your Hue/Saturation Controls (Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation or CTRL+U) and set the following values:

And there you have it, a shiny glass ball. Now, if you want to add a drop shadow, just do the following:

1. Create a New Layer between your background layer and your “Orb Base” Layer called “Shadow.”
2. On the shadow layer, make a selection like so:

3. Fill this selection with RGB: 255,255,255. You won’t see anything, since it is behind the orb layer.
4. Right-click the “Shadow” Layer, and choose Blending Options. Check “Drop Shadow” and give it the following values: Blend Mode: Normal, Opacity: 100%, Angle: 90, Distance: 57 px, Size: 43 px.

The Results:

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Tags: interface design, photoshop, tutorials

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