Create a Bola de Cristal (1)

Last week I was working on a project where I needed to create a sort of lightning effect like that Tesla Coil. I spent a couple of hours in Photoshop playing around with some filters to create the effect. So In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a Magic Crystal Ball with some nice light effects and textures happening.

Final Image Preview

Before we get started, lets take a look at the image well be creating. As always, the layered Photoshop file is available via our Psdtuts+ Plus membership. Also, Ive got some tutorials Im working on that arent about lighting effects that youll see soon.

Step 1
Create a new document, I used 1900px by 1200px. Fill the background layer with black. Then with the Ellipse Tool (U) create a circle. You can fill it with a dark gray, but the color wont matter because we will apply a Layer Style to this object shortly.

Step 2
To add the Layer Style, go to Layer > Layer Style. First, select Inner Glow and use: white for the color, Color Dodge for the Blend Mode, and 70% for the opacity. The second Layer Style will be Gradient Overlay, use Linear for the Style, and keep Normal for the Blend Mode. Now the colors will be #12232c and #313444. The last Layer Style will be Stroke, which should be set: 2px for the Size, 60% for the Opacity, and for the color use #a395cf. Feel free to change the colors and test new variations.

Step 3
Create another circle using the Ellipse Tool (U). The best thing is to create a Path with the ellipse tool. Adjust the shape the way you want. Then create a selection from the Path Palette. This circle will be the top reflection on the ball.

Step 4
Create a new layer and rename it to "reflection top." Then select the Gradient Tool (G). Use white for the color on both ends. Change the opacity though, one will be 100%, while the other will be 50%. Select Radial for the Style. Then create a radial gradient, as in the image below. For the Opacity use 70% Tip: Make sure that the 100% is the center of the gradient.

Step 5
Lets create a reflection at the bottom of the sphere. To do that, create a selection from the circle layer, which is the first one we already created. Create a new layer, and rename it to "Bottom reflection."

Select the Gradient Tool (G), and use the same settings as in the previous step. This time lets set the Opacity to 100% and 0%. Now create the gradient. Also, change the Layers Opacity to 50%. Use the image below for reference. Tip: You can resize this layer to make it slightly smaller so you can move it 1 pixel up.

Step 6
Create a new layer, and rename it to "lights 1." Make sure you have black and white for the background and foreground colors. Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. After, go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome. Use 3 for the Detail and 10 for the smoothness. Then rescale the layer, make it much smaller so the details will be smaller too.