Paint.NET Glass Ball Tutorial

You will need to open a new document, setting the size and resolution depending on how you intend to use the finished glass ball.

The first step is to click on the Ellipse Select tool in the Tools palette and, while holding the Shift key, draw a circular selection close to the center of the document, though it should be nearer the top of the page than the bottom to allow space for a shadow later.

The base circle will have a gradient applied to it so you need to select the two colors that will form the gradient. Go to Window > Colors if the Colors palette isn't open and select Secondary from the drop down menu in the top left of the palette. Now choose the color you want to use – I selected one of the pre-set green colors. Next select Primary from the drop down menu and set that as the same color as the Secondary color. Now lighten this by clicking on the More button and moving the S slider across to the left.

With the colors set, click on the Gradient tool and then click inside the selection near the top and drag downwards before releasing the mouse button to apply a gradient to the circle.

Going to Edit > Deselect will remove the selection for the base circle, which is no longer needed. You now need to add a new layer that you can add a highlight to by going to Layer > Add New Layer. With the Ellipse Select tool selected, draw a squashed circle within the top of the base circle as shown in the screen grab (click on the thumbnail). If you can't get the ellipse in the exact position you want, don't worry as you can move the layer later.

In the Colors palette, set the Primary color to white and then change the drop down to Secondary and then move the Transparency – Alpha slider all the way to the left. You can now use the Gradient tool to fill the ellipse with a gradient that goes from white to transparent.

Go to Edit > Deselect and then Effects > Blurs > Gaussian Blur. In the Gaussian Blur dialog that opens, set the Radius slider to about four, to soften the edge of the highlight, and click the OK button.

I switched to the Move Selected Pixels tool and slightly adjusted the position of the highlight. If necessary, do the same for yours.

Before pressing on, add a new layer that you will add the crescent shaped shadow to. The shadow will be a crescent shape, placed near the bottom of the ball. The shape is produced by subtracting one selection from another. Again, the crescent can be moved later if you can't position it well initially.

Select the Ellipse Select tool and draw a circular selection inside the background circle. Then change the Selection Mode drop down menu, in the tool options bar, to Subtract and draw another ellipse that covers all but the very bottom of the first ellipse (click on the thumbnail to see how I drew mine). This will remove most of the first selection and leave just a small crescent shaped selection.

In the Colors palette, set the Primary color to a darker shade of the color that is used at the bottom of the base circle. You can slide the V slider to the left to darken the color as required.

With the shadow color set, go to Edit > Fill Selection to apply the darker color to the shadow, ensuring that the upper most layer is selected in the Layers palette (go to Window > Layers if the palette isn't visible). This shadow also needs to have a blur applied to soften it, so go to Edit > Deselect, followed by Effects > Blurs > Gaussian Blur and use a higher setting than before. I set the Radius slider to twenty-two.

The final step is to add a drop shadow below the ball. Go to Layer > Add New Layer and again you use the Ellipse Select tool to draw a squashed circular selection that you can then fill with the same color as the shadow on the ball. Don't forget to change the Selection Mode back to Replace before this step.

With the ellipse filled, deselect the selection and apply an even heavier Gaussian Blur to this drop shadow. To make the shadow look more natural, go to Layers > Layer Properties and slide the Opacity slider to the left which will make the shadow lighter.

This is quite a simple glass ball tutorial when you actually look at the individual steps that come together for the final result. Once you are comfortable with producing this glass ball effect, you can look at applying the same technique to other shapes, such as rectangles with rounded corners. These glass-like shapes can be great for buttons on web pages.