This tutorial shows you a neat little trick on how to add a window type reflection that
resembles panes of glass reflecting off a surface. This is used in alot of skins and
layouts, adds a very nice touch and realizm. Since I didn't want to write one of those twosecond tutorials, we will also be discussing how to create metalic surfaces fast and easy.
1. First lets create the base of our interface, I'll coin this as the '5 second metal' trick
.. For simplicty reasons, we'll stick with a basic round shape. Create a new layer, name this 'BASE' and then draw out a circular selection with your circular marquee tool, fill it with #2B2B2B.Now keep your selection and create a new layer above your BASE layer and name it 'Bevel' ..Now go to Select>Modify>Contract> Set it at 2, then Select>Feather> and set it at 5. Now fill this layer with #5F5F5F. Keep your selection! Now create a new layer above your Bevel layer and name it 'Specular'.. Now grab your linear gradient tool.. Set your foreground to white and then set your gradient selector to 'Foreground to Transparent', Second one from the left on the top row. Now apply the gradient from top to bottom. Now we have our metal. Now you know how to do that, it shouldn't take you but about 5 seconds to create some decent looking metal.
2. Now lets create our trendy orb. Now create a new layer above your Specular layer and name it 'ORB_base'. Now draw out a selection for your orb and fill it with #3D6D9C.
Now duplicate your ORB_base layer and name it ORB_inset. Move it under your ORB_base layer in the layers pallete. Now ctrl+click your ORB_inset layer and then fill it with black. You can't see this layer right now because its hidden beneath your orb, but were about to change that. Go to Edit>Free Transform and up at the top, select the little chain link icon and then put 102% in the W box, it should automatically put the same value in the H box. Press enter to confirm the transform. Now lets apply a gradient overlay to this layer. Select the little 'f' in your layers pallete and go to 'Gradient Overlay' and apply the settings below.
You should have something like this:
3. Now lets go back to our ORB_base layer and work on it a bit. Click the little 'f' on your ORB_base layer and select 'Inner Glow' and applyTHESEsettings. Now go to inner shadow and applyTHESEsettings. Now ctrl click your ORB_base layer and then grab about a 100-200 px soft brush and set your foreground color to #3D6D9C. Now up at the top on your brush settings, set the mode to Linear Dodge and the Opacity to 30, flow to 60 and start dodging the bottom half of your orb.
4. Now create a new layer above your ORB_base layer and name it ORB_reflection. Now ctrl click your 'ORB_base' layer to select its alpha, now fill your ORB_reflection layer with white. Now go to edit>Free Transform> and using the handles transform it into place like mine and set the blend mode to Overlay and opacity to 30.
5. Now we want to create our 'Window Panes'...lets make a new document for this. We are going to create a brush for them, that way when we get ready to do this trick again, we don't have to create the window pane selections over and over. Create a new doc, 40X40 with a transparent background, now using black as your foreground color, create 4 black squares on each cornder leaving a vertical and horizontal transparent space, everybody has seen a window , so i'll assume you know what i'm talking about..But just incase somebody out there owns Photoshop but has no windows, here is a screen shot for you below. Once you get that monsterous task complete, go to edit>Define Brush and name it 'Window Pane' ...
6. Now create a new layer above every thing else and name this 'Window_Reflection'... Now set white as your foreground color and grab your window pane brush we just created and now create two stamps right in the middle of your orb.
Now this isn't all that convincing is it? So we need to sorta 'sphereize' these shapes. Well unfortunatley no matter now much you tweak on the Sphereize filter, it isn't gonna look all that great... Thats where liquify's Bloat and Pucker tools come in great. So lets go to Filter>Liquify .. Now on the left side, select the Pucker tool. Now on the right side set your Brush Size to about 450, we want a big brush, it makes it alot smoother. Now set the cross hair right in the middle of your two panes and up towards the top and then start it up, it will start pulling the panes inwards toward your cross hair.
Now lets bloat it a bit, select your bloat tool, still in liquify! Now set your brush to about 240 and position your brush like mine and start tapping it until you get the desired curvature. Feel free to experiment with this, its very useful. Now once you got your reflection like you want it, press ok on the Liquify panel to confirm. Now using your Edit>Free Transform tool tweak it a bit more until you get it like you want it and then position it into place and drop the opacity on the layer to about 35 or so.
Now I went back and added some touch ups
and added some text and a paint brush. Please experiment with yours.
