| Glass Sphere without Filters - PI 4.2 | |
We
are going to make the following three glass balls
Click on the image to jump to the tutorial you want to start
with.
Glass Sphere (or waterdrop) without filters
1. Open a new image. I am using an image 200x200 with a white background. Then using your selection tool set to circle, with the options "draw from center" and "antialias" checked, draw a cirle on your background. Flood fill with any color. Right click on your selection and "convert to object". Hint - I like to start at 100x100 so I can easily redraw if I have to.
2. Select your fill tool, with a radial gradient. Set your foreground color to the color you want to use and the background color to black.
3.
Starting in the lower right quarter of your circle (where I
have an "x"), draw your gradient as far outside of the image
as you can go. The black edges are where I ended my circle.
4. Fill with the gradient. Your image should look like the following image. If you aren't satisfied, click undo and adjust the size of your gradient until you get the desired effect.
5. Right click and choose "Select Base Image." If you need to, move the gradient filled object out of the way so you can see your original circle. Using your magic lasso tool, select your original circle. Flood fill this with white. Right click and select Expand/Shrink, then shrink your image about 4-5 pixels, using the circle shape.
6. Set your selection tool to "Subtract", Elipse, draw from center, antialias. Cut away most of your original selection with this tool until your image looks something like this:
7.
Right click and convert to object. Move your gradient circle
back into position and make sure the white object is on top
of it.
8.
Right click on your white object, and choose properties. Set
the soft edge of about 10, depending on how you like the looks,
and transparency at about 50%. You can adjust these levels until
you like the results.
9.
To create our highlight, right click and select the base image.
Choose your selection tool, set to new, Ellipse, soft edge of
5, draw from center, and antialias. Draw a small ellipse somewhere
on the white part of the base image, and right click and convert
to object.
10.
Drag your ellipse on top of the images you are working on. Make
sure it is on top of all of them (i.e. you can see the ellipse.
Select your transform tool, set to "Rotate Freely".
11. Rotate your ellipse to the right until you like how it looks :-)
12. Right click on your ellipse and select properties. Set the transparency at about 20%.
13. On your easy pallete, click on each of the objects while holding the shift key down. This will select all of the objects. Right click and select "Combine as single object."
14. Right click on your object and duplicate it.
15. Now we need an image to make the reflection in the drop. You can use any image, but a nice nature scene works well. You can use a smaller portion of the image if you want also. Copy the image into the clipboard (CTRL-C or Edit-->Copy). I have posted three images I commonly use.
16.
Go back to your glass ball image, with the duplicated layer
active. Go to Edit-->Paste-->Fit into Selection. This will paste
your nature scene into the circle.
17.
Okay, I kinda lied...we are going to use on of PhotoImpact's
effects for this tutorial...not exactly a filter but close!
Select Effect-->3D-->Sphere. Do this twice. Then select Effect-->Blur&Sharpen-->Blur.
Use the default settings for these filters.
18. Line your nature image up on top of the original image. Right click and select properties. Set your transparency at about 50%, then play with the merge choices until you get a result you like. Usually Saturation is my favorite merge choice, but with the image I choose it didn't work at all. I used saturation as the merge choice for the image above, using the picture of the girl as my reflection. I have placed several images below with different merge choices.
 Inverse of Multiple |
 Lighting |
 Luminosity |
This tutorial is really a matter of trial and error. No two images will be done exactly the same. This works really well in Paint Shop Pro using overlay as the merge choice...but PhotoImpact doesn't have overlay :-(.
Here are the images I use most often for the reflection:
© 1999-2001 Tiffany Ring Deco-Ration!Web Design, licensed to About.com. All Rights Reserved. To submit your own content to this site, visit the article submission form.
