World Icon Tutorial July 3rd, 2009
by Zeeshan

Hey In this tutorial i’ll show you how to make a glossy look world Globe Icon.

STEP 1= open a new document 1000 px / 1000 px and fill it with white

STEP 2= create a new layer (put it in the top and name it orb), make a round shape in the middle and apply these layer effects

STEP 3= create a new layer (put it in the top and name it map), place the map you want to use and apply these layer effects, reduce the opacity to 90%. Then apply the filter/distort/sferize amount 20% only in the orb surface.

Download Map

STEP 4= make a new layer (put it in the top and name it ellipse), create an ellipse and fill it with white, then reduce the fill to 0%

STEP 5= make a new layer (put it in under the layer orb and name it back shadow), use a brush with the following settings and scale it like in the picture

STEP 6= make a new layer (put it under the layer ellipse and name it sparkle), paint with white some dots only over the map, with a brush with these settings. Set the opacity to 70% and set “overlay”

STEP 7= duplicate the layer sparkle (place it under the other layer), blur it with gaussian blur with these settings. Set the layer to “difference”

STEP 8= make a new layer (put it under the layer map and name it sparkle back), paint with white some dots only outside the map, with a brush with the same settings in the step 6 but with a diameter 21px. Set the layer to ”overlay”

STEP 9= duplicate the sparkle back layer (place it below the other layer) and use a motion blur with these settings. Set the layer to “overlay”

STEP 10= make a new layer (name it clouds and put it under the sparkle back copy layer) with the size of the orb and apply filter/render/clouds; apply the same filter a few times with ctrl+F. Set the layer to “hard light”