ladyfinger007

I've seen Jonbalza's steel ball tutorial http://www.balzasteel.com/tutorials/chromesphere.htm "adapted" by several sites.

You could play with liquify, blur, or maybe the spherize filters to lessen the "spiky" effect.

wbiss

Ah yes, thank you Mark...I have run across that procedure before.

When rendering the lens flare, Adam, pay close attention to where you place the flare centre. It should be close to the centre of your canvas. What little 'spiking' I did get, I simply got rid of by painting over with a big fat soft brush on a new layer place above. This allowed me to apply a gaussian blur and erase those areas that I wanted. Then when satisfied, I simply merged the two layers.

jpfitness

ha ha ha abrilliant Wendy but did you have to put them side by side [bustagut] [bustagut] [bustagut] he he he
sfm

Bubble

well.... i had never seen that method for making spheres before, so i gave it a burl, (u now the lens flare, polar co-ord, blah blah blah), and mine turned out NOTHING like these ones.

Very strange...

wbiss

Bubble, follow these steps:

1. Create a new document (square) with a white background
2. Create a new layer & fill it with black
3. On the black layer, render the lens flare Pay close attention to where you render it - see sample image
4. Go to filter->distort->polar coordinates and select "polar to rectangular"
5. Go to edit->transform-flip vertical
6. Go back to filter->distort->polar coordinates and
this time select "rectagular to polar"

Bubble

aahhh... of course, typical me really, was missing the first, most important step, "new document, filled with white..." - all the rest was there. (Not in the habit of making white docs, I tend to prefer to keep my backgrounds transparent).

Anyway, needless to say, that it now works, although i played with mine for a second, and now it kinda looks like an eyeball...

wbiss

B7 Looks like an eyeball to me too, bubble!
Ah well, at least you've nailed the technique!

jpfitness

it might look like an eyeball bubble but what a great looking image you made [righton] looks neat
sfm

adam11

Why do you have to have a white background? Also if you have to have the white background, is there a way to make it transparent after it is complete?

-Shawn

timwalker69

I did it with a Black backround, I think it looks nicer that way. But to make your backround transparant after you make the ball i think you have to take the circular marquee tool, hold shift+alt and then click ont he middle of the circle and select the circle. Then right click and hit "select inverse", then hit delete. I think that should do the trick