Crystal Ball »
By MaxW on Dec 6, 2004 in Photoshop | 0 Comments
Learn how to make crystal balls with ease.
1) Create a new document around 512 by 512 and then hit ” D ” to reset the colors.
2) Go to Filter –> Render –> Clouds
3) Go to Filter –> Distort –> Polar Coordinates . Check ” Rectangular to Polar ” and hit ok.
Click to enlarge
4) Now its about time to make it smaller. Go to Image –> Image Size and make it around 100 x 100 or 150 x 150.
5) Make sure that you can see your rulers for this next step. If you don’t have them you can get them by going to View –> Rulers or ” Ctrl + R “. Now, once the rulers appear, use the Move Tool 
(Hit
“V” to select this). Now drag from the center both from the top and
left to the very middle of the image so you get sort of a cross hair.
Click to enlarge
6) Now grab the “Elliptical Marquee” tool 
.
Select the very center and while holding Alt and Shift drag out until
you reach the edge of the circle to make a ball. Then go to Select>Inverse and hit Delete.
7) Now go to Image –> Adjustments –> Variations. Here its up to you but what I like to do is hit ” More Blue ” once and hit ” More Cyan ” twice.
Click to enlarge
Finally go to Filter –> Render –> Lens Flare . Select ” 105 mm Prime ” and place the crosshair somewhere around the top left corner, or the top right.
Click to enlarge
Finally your done, your crystal ball should look similar to mine below, take a look:
