Interface Orbs

Open a new document (250x250 pixels was used in this example) and choose the Circular Marquee Tool. We need to first make a metallic background object, so hold Shift and create a circle. Create a new layer named One and fill your circle with dark gray (such as #333333). Keep your selection and make a new layer named Two above it. Go Select>Modify>Contract 2 pixels, then goSelect>Modify>Feather 5 pixels. Select a middle gray (such as #666666) as your foreground color. Fill your selection by hittingAlt+Backspace (Mac: Option+Delete). Create a third layer above named Three while keeping your selection. Choose white as your foreground color and select the Linear Gradient Tool. Make sure the Foreground to Transparent setting is selected. Click and drag from the top to the bottom of the selection (holding Shift) to fill in the gradient. Last, to brighten it up a little more, duplicate Three by goingLayer>Duplicate Layer, then hit Ctrl+E (Command+E) to merge the layer down. Phew, now that we have some metal, we can begin.

Create a new layer above what you have so far named Four. Use the Circular Marquee Tool to create a smaller circle (holdingShift). Fill the circle with a blue (such as #6699dd).

Hold Ctrl (Command) and click the new layer button to create a new layer below Four. Name this one SubFour. GoSelect>Modify>Expand 2 pixels. Now click on and choose Gradient Fill. Use a black to white gradient with the settings at the bottom. Turn the opacity of SubFour down to 80%.

Gradient Settings

Next, go back to layer Four, right-click it and apply a Blending Options Inner Glow with the settings at the bottom. Then, apply an Inner Shadow with the settings at the bottom. Now comes a rather experimental part. Create a new layer above Four called Dodge set the Blending Mode to Linear Dodge. Choose the Brush Tool with a 100 pixel brush with 10% Hardness and Flow of 40%. Hold Ctrl (Command) and click layerFour to load it as a selection. Choose a turquoise color (such as #2d8e97) and fill in this layer until you get a nice dodge effect. To do this, you will likely need to use some lighter colors as well for the bottom area. If needed, turn down the layer's opacity to around 80%. After you are satisfied, hit Ctrl+E to merge this layer into Four.

Inner Glow

Inner Shadow

Create a new layer on top called Five. Hold Ctrl (Command) and click on Four to load it as a selection. Fill this area with white. HitCtrl+D (Command+D) to deselect. Set the Blending Mode to Overlay. Hit Ctrl+T to bring up the Free Transform box. Hold Shiftand shrink the selection from a bottom corner to look like the sample to the left. Go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur width a radius of 2.8 pixels. Decrease the layer's opacity to 40% or as necessary.

Next, create a new layer on top called Six. Hold Ctrl(Command) and click Four to load it as a selection. Fill the selection with a light teal (such as #80f2e1). Hit Ctrl+D (Command+D). HitCtrl+T (Command+T) to pull up Free Transform and contract the shape to look like the picture to the left. Go Filter>Blur>Boxed Blur with a 5 pixel radius (if you have an older version of Photoshop, a Gaussian blur as done above will work). Set the Blending Mode of the layer to Soft Light and the opacity to 75%.

Create a new layer named Seven. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to create a rectangular box. Fill it with white by selecting white as the foreground color and hitting Alt+Backspace (Option+Delete). Then, use the Rectangular Marquee to select a narrow rectangle in the middle and hit Delete to clear the area. Do the same with a thin horizontal rectangle until you have four boxes like the left.

To spherize the white boxes, open up Liquify by hittingShift+Ctrl+X (Shift+Command+X). Make sure the Show Backdrop box is selected in the bottom right. This is difficult to explain, and I encourage you to experiment with Liquify to come up with a result you like. I started by selecting a 400 radius brush and using Pucker by clicking above and directly in the middle of the boxes and dragging up a little. Then I selected a brush with radius 172, and clicked on the middle of the boxes with Bloat to inflate them a bit. Then, I moved the brush to enclose all of the blue area and clicked a bunch to move the boxes up and bend them. When I was finally done, I also created a layer above Seven, loaded the selection fromSeven and filled it with a Foreground to Transparent gradient using white as the foreground color. I set the opacity of this layer to 90%. Then, I deleted the original layer Seven.

That's it! I added a my name on top for fun.

Ice Explosion Effect

To start, open up Photoshop and create a 400x400 pixel image. Fill the background with black by hitting D and followed byCtrl+Backspace (Mac: Command+Delete). Now we need to choose some ice-like colors for the foreground and background colors. I chose foreground: #e5eff9 , background: #255a95.

Start working on a new layer by hitting Shift+Ctrl+N(Shift+Command+N). Create an ellipse using the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Then, hit G to pick the Gradient Tool. Make sure the Radial Gradient is selected on the top toolbar. Click and drag inside a freshly selected ellipse to fill it in with a radial gradient. Repeat this step several times to create a few ellipses. I created another layer above the first new one and put some lighter colored ellipses in it using foreground: #f4f8fc, background: #99bee9.

For both layers of ellipses, go Filter>Blur>Box Blur, Radius: 8 (if you are using a version older than CS2, a Gaussian Blur of approximately Radius: 5 will work just fine). Then grab the Smudge Tool and select a grungy brush. Click and drag from the middle to the outer areas. I used various brushes that come with Photoshop.

On the layer with the smudged darker ellipses, goFilter>Blur>Radial Blur choose Amount: 100, Blur Method: Zoom. Hold Ctrl (Command) and click on the picture of the layer in the Layers Palette to load it as a selection. Make the foreground a dark blue (I used #0957af and the background a light gray (I used#e5eff9). Go Filter>Render>Clouds. On the Layers Palette, set the layer mode to Linear Light.

To make the center a little more interesting, I next created a new layer and put an ellipse in the middle that I filled with a slightly dark set of blue / light gray radial gradient (see image). Then, hitCtrl+D (Command+D) to deselect and go Filter>Distort>Waveplay around with the settings until you like the shape. Next, goFilter>Render>Fibers (I chose Variance: 29, Strength: 5. Follow that with Filter>Blue>Radial Blur Amount: 100, Blur Method: Zoom. Change the layer mode to Linear Light. I repeated this step with a second center ellipse.

Here is the step that separates the men from the boys. First make sure all the natural and special effect brushes that come with Photoshop are loaded. Create some new layers and use a mixture of these and any other grungy brushes you have on hand to turn your boring explosion into something really icy. This can take some time, but keep at it. You really can do no wrong. I made some layers of lighter opacity and set the mode on some of the layers to Pin Lightand Overlay to accomplish some different effects. The sparkles are really key, make sure to put some light colored ones around the outside and well as something that resembles frost. Use some blue frost-like brushes in the blue areas on the outside.

Last, we need to liven up the middle more by creating some burn layers. Create a new layer on top over everything so far and set the mode in the Layers Palette to Linear Burn. Select a middle of the range blue around #346fb2 (can always change the opacity later if it is too strong). Choose a sparkle brush and go to the Brushes Palette turn on Shape Dynamics and Scattering. Adjust the settings until you like what you see in the preview and click and drag around the center of your explosion. Now create another layer just like this and do the same with the oak leaf brush (turn the Master Diameter down a bit so that it produces somewhat of an icy texture). Adjust the opacity and experiment until you have a result you like. To see my final image, you can click the image to the left. In addition, you can apply the same techniques explained in this tutorial with red and yellow colors to create a typical fiery explosion. Hope you had a blast.