SE Placement Specialist

The Map

What’s a globe without some sort of land-mass indication? We’re so used to the “map” that a globe represents, it doesn’t begin to look right without one.

First, switch your foreground and background colors so that the dark blue becomes your foreground color (you can do this very quickly by clicking the double-ended arrow in the top right corner of your foreground/background colors).

Next, grab this custom shape set (it will only work on CS, CS2 or higher) or go googling for a “world map” - you can do that from our search box.

Now, you get to apply the map. If you’re using the custom shape, just load it up, hold the shift key down to draw it out, and right-click to rasterize it when you’re done.

If you’re using a graphic, you need to remove all the background first, and then apply a color overlay (go to your layer styles, click “Color Overlay” and choose the dark blue).

Either way you’ve made the “map”, you will need to get rid of all the stuff that goes outside the lines of our globe. Click on your circle layer and use your magic wand to select outside the circle. Then, select your map layer by clicking on it and hit the backspace key on your keyboard. Wa-la! All the extra “stuff” is gone.

Bottom Light

We’re going to add some light to the bottom of our globe to make it seem to have depth in all directions - like a crystal.

Switch your foreground and background colors again, and then click to select your globe layer. We want this highlight to be above the globe but behind the map, so we’re going to make it draw right between the two layers.

Use your elliptical (circle) shape tool to draw a circle inside the globe’s circle. The bottom half of this highlight circle should go outside the globe lines, but the “sides” of the circle shouldn’t touch the edges of the globe.

When you’ve drawn your highlight circle, right-click and rasterize it. Then, perform the same steps we just did to remove all the extra stuff from this highlight that extends beyond our globe.

Then, set the layer style to “Overlay”.

Finally, hit “Filter”, choose “Blur”, click “Gaussian Blur” and set the amount to about 21. Click OK.

This is cool, but it doesn’t really “shine”. To make it do that, we’re going to add a layer mask.

Click “Layer”, choose “Layer Mask”, and click “Reveal All”. This will change your foreground and background colors to black & white.

The trick here is that black will “hide” parts of your white circle, and white will keep it visible.

Use your gradient tool to make the white circle fade smoothly away.

And with that … you have a gorgeous crystal globe! How easy is this to edit for different colors? Just go through changing your overlay colors.

Step-8

Original Article content credit goes to : My-Photoshop.com