Nifty Ball Tutorial

Some Of famous effects in the net these days are the nifty balls…..So how they create em? very easy, follow this tutorial will show you some good tricks ;)Grab some good music : Blink, Sum 41, Hoobastank!! Lets Go!

[=== by nerio ===]

Nifty Ball Tutorial

Nifty Ball Tutorial By Nerio

[=== by nerio ===]

Some Of famous effects in the net these days are the nifty balls…..So how they create em? very easy, follow this tutorial will show you some good tricks ;)Grab some good music : Blink, Sum 41, Hoobastank!! Lets Go!Make new document, about 100px/100px with white background and make a new layer. Grab your eleptical marquee selection tool and make a perfect circle by holding SHIFT while making it! in the example i make it 90px/90px. Then make your colors as follows : foreground #343434 and background #CACACA.Now make a linear gradient inside the selection holding SHIFT to make it straight!

Don’t deselect yet, contract this selection by two pixels and make a new layer and feather the selection by 3px : Select—> Feather, then restore your default colors “d” then invert em “x” .Now change your colors : White to transparent then drag a radial gradient from the bottom of selection to the 1/3 of the hole shape, then revert the selection CTRL+I and hit delete. deselect and pass this layer From normal to Overlay!

Hopefully it was not confusing…....Now, CTRL+Click the first layer with the first circle on it to bring up its selection, then contract it by 2px, make a new layer, still with the same gradient as previously (white to transparent) make a good gradient; but this time it will be a radial gradient and draged from the top of this selection!

We will work a little on this reflect, so transform it CTRL+T like shown here.

Then get this layer some pixels down, where the light is no way touching the borders of the shape as shwon here .

Now, the fun part, we will give the hole thing some effects to give a nice shot at the end, .........How? with layer effects obviously!!! double click on the base layer to bring up the blending options and start with :Drop Shadow

then give it a nice inner Shadow, or what works best for you!!

Finally something like an inner Glow is highly recommanded here.

If you push up a little, you could turn this technic to your taste, not just a nice ORB or a nifty ball…....all is limited by your imagination!!!