This tutorial is for creating a blue glassy orb, which is rather simple to do, so there shouldn't be any problems in getting yours to appear almost exactly similar to mine. Besides, there are about a billion orb tutorials on the net, so what's one more? I am also going to assume that you are not new to Photoshop, so I won't go into great detail in this tutorial.

Okay, let's begin.


Step 1
Start a new image (Ctrl+N) with these settings:

Width: 400
Highth: 400
Resolution: 72ppi
Color Mode: RGB, 8 Bit

Step 2
Select the Eliptical Marquee Tool and create a 300x300 circle.



Step 3
Set your background color to #01516B & foreground color to #FFFFFF. Now, with your Gradient Tool set to Radial, drag from the inside-top of the selection to just outside the bottom. Then repeat, but start a little further down the second time.



Step 4
With your circle still selected, create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N) on top of your circle. Set this new layer to Color Dodge. Now, with your Gradient Tool again, and using just the blue (#01516B), drag from the inside-bottom of the circle to the middle.



Step 5
Create another layer on top and set it to Linear Dodge at 55% Opacity. Once again, drag from the inside-bottom to half the distance of the previous layer.



Step 6
Create a new layer on top and fill it (the color isn't important). Now set the Fill Opacity to 0%. Open the Layer Effects Menu and add the following settings.



Your orb should now look similar to the following image.



Step 7
Create a new layer on top and fill it (the color isn't important). Now set the Fill Opacity to 0%. Open the Layer Effects Menu and add the following settings.





Again, your orb should appear similar to the following image.



Step 8
Deselect the circle (Ctrl+D). Create a new layer on top. Set the Opacity to 50%. Now, with your Eliptical Marquee Tool, drag an oval shape like the image below.



Step 9
Now with your Gradient Tool, drag from the inside-top to little more than half way down the oval. Deselect and add a Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur...) with a Radius of 2 pixels.



Step 10
Open the Layer Effects Menu on the original orb layer and add a Drop Shadow.





Simple as that. Orbs can be very versatile & have many, many uses in Photoshop when creating images. An example of just one thing that can be done with this orb is pictured below.



The PSD from this tutorial is also available in the 13Dots download area.

Wow awesome Starskreem, sincere thankyou's you have brilliant skills in PS thankyou for adding this.

Great!

Thanks a lot for adding this, easy to follow with a great result

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET !!! THEY UNLEASHED THE BEAST !!!!!

Great tutorial M8

Wow,great tut Star and a great result!

Thanks so much for adding this!

Awesome. fantastic results

Thanks for sharing with us.

Eddie

Great Tut and an awesome result.
Thanks for sharing
spd

Awesome tutorial, im going try and use it to make a logo for a friend for his website, thanks

thanks for this tut, man that really helped me out

Excellent tutorial...

Very nice mate! i reckon that would look good as a button on a website, or something similar, you know like maybe a flash button, the defualt color is the image u made then when you roll the mouse over, the colors invert or soemthing, just an idea mate, would be good to do that if you know flash,

if you gimme the permission to use your image, i could try and make it a rollover button, i could make my own image but would rather just resize yours lol, thought i would ask just so i dont end up as one of those annoying lazy ars*s who end up stealing peoples work and taking the credit for it,

Jay

( keep the good qwork up mate)

I can never do this right thanks for posting it in an understandable way!

I never tire of seeing these "orb" tutorials and each one seems to get better as they go along.

very impressive tut friend...nice variation.

Mike.

Newb question here.

I'm sure its something blazingly obvious but I'm having a problem with step 4:

Now, with your Gradient Tool again, and using just the blue (#01516B), drag from the inside-bottom of the circle to the middle.

How do you use just the blue?

Thanks for your time, and the wonderful tutorial!

-Knyghte

i think you just make the foreground and the background colour the blue..if you dont know what the background and foreground colour are..its the two boxes and the tools bar.

regards..

jay
Click to view attachment

After you set the foreground color to #01516B, click the arrow in the first circle (1) to open the drop down menu. Then just select the square that's circled (2). This will let you create a gradient using just the blue.

Hope that helps.

Perfect! That did the trick. Thanks for the explicit directions and quick response!

That's very impressive.
Thanks

lol i cant seem to do this tut... -_- idk what im doing wrong. but i certenly did it.

thanx for sharing

i was looking for something like this, thanks man!!

looks awesome! gonna give this a shot. your skillz be good

X

Yea, alot of these tutorials look very sweet 'expecially' the orb ones, i can say that i only started learning PS7.0 about 2 days ago and i have already learned lots. great gob

I too liked it a lot, will give it a try, Thank you so much for this.

i couldnt do it xD my new layers just makes it become a brighter and brighter blue



*edit* i figured it out - you forgot to mention in the steps to make it blue and have the other end with 0% opacity to make the thingy xD

nice tut man simple and effective
gives great results

wow now this 1 i like i always wanted to know how to make an orb

I Like this ;D

nice tut, one of the best orbs ive seen so far, i tried it, didnt get it perfect like yours but i will keep trying

can't seem to get it right :S

Your reply is of no help to us if you don't state what exactly it is your not getting right, please be more specific.

excellent tut. But It won't let me download the .psd. It says Maximum downloads exceeded.

wow thats great, going to give it a try now

that is one SEXY orb... oh baby... i think i just messed myself...

You need to be a member with atleast 20 non-spam, quality posts to download any files.

Thanks for the great tutorial

nice! just what ive been searching for. thanks!

Thanks for a nice easy to follow tutorial matey!!

Great tutorial!

Really nice! How did you make the last step?

Thanks

Awesome effect... so cool...

whoa.. amazing....

I love this effect.....very easy tut...Thanks

wow thats cool ^^

Very good tutorial, thanks. Hello and good yesterday.

Thank you for this awsum tut.

very kewl tute, used it to day to make this, what u think?
i changed it around a lil but i used ur tut to do it, thanx man!