Blinky2004

Well for most situations like this, i take the simple-hard road.
Simple cause i use a filter, hard cause i have to clean-up the effect a bit afterward. Nothing major though. It's easy.

I use the Layer Styles "Stroke" filter, then convert the results to a normal layer. Then edit the results to remove excess unwanted parts of the bent pipe.

The image below shows:

1) The standard bent corner pipe.
Explained in my previous post.

2) A 45 degree angle corner.
Duplicate a 3rd pipe and rotate it to 45 degrees. Line it up to the corner. Then cut off the unwanted sections.

3) Part 1 of a circle bend. Using your GRID w/Snap To, position your 2 main pipes so that they're an equal distance apart. Then on a new layer below your pipes, use a hard brush that's the right size to fit exactly into the corner between the 2 pipe ends. Click your brush 1x to create a large black dot there.

Part 2 is where you apply the Stroke filter from the Layer Styles window. So double-click the dot layer, then within the Layer Styles window choose "Stroke". Then choose "Fill Type=Gradient", and from the menu below that choose "Style=Shape Burst".
NOTE: when choosing your gradient, make sure it the exact same one you used to create your main straight pipe. Otherwise the corner highlights/reflections won't match up correctly.
Now at the top of the Stroke settings choose "Position=Inside". Adjust this amount until your bent corner matches the width of your pipes. (see eg. image 3)
TIP: click the cursor in the number box and press the up arrow key.
And lastly, once the filter is applied, and you're back in the layers palette, turn down the "FILL:" slider for this layer to 0. (top-right of the layers palette, below Opacity)
Now just right-click the Layer Style icon on this layer, choose "Create Layer" from the bottom of the menu, MERGE the 2 resulting layers together, then grab a hard circular brush for the Eraser tool and erase the unwanted parts of the circular pipe.
TIP: to make erasing the inner edge of the corner easier, tap the right square bracket key until your brush matches the size of the inside edge on your bent pipe. The inner extra part that you don't need.

4) The final results after clean-up. Time? Less than 5 minutes once you know the routine.

TIP: if the shades of grey/colour are a little off, like mine were, just open the LEVELS filter and tweak the middle greys until the shades match up better.

2 final suggestions here...
Create your pipes around 2x the size you'll need them to be when finished. If there are any anomalies showing where the pipes all meet, then scaling down to your final size should cover them up. Create a Merged Duplicate of your pipes for this, don't use your good original copy.

Don't overwork the bent joins of the corner pipe. You should leave a little roughness in there because you won't see a perfect bent pipe in the real world. Most will usually show some signs of stress from being bent. So don't make it too perfect, or too smooth.

[size=14px]The End![/size]

wbiss

That's great Lily! [righton] Won't take much to align up and blend!

Awesome Mark! [righton]

These are two different approaches that work equally well and I never would have thought of them without having seen them here.

Chillin

very cool Mark... [saywhat]

Hercules

Great tut Mark, thank you!