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...