See How Easily You Can Create Your Own Holiday Ornament Digital Art Embellishment

Creating Digital Glass Ball Ornaments

in Adobe Photoshop CS2
by Sue Kristoff, Creative Team Member

Creating a digital glass ball ornament is a fun way to play around with lighting effects in Adobe Photoshop CS2 and an easy way to learn about Photoshop filters.


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This glass ball ornament consists of three shapes: a filled circle, a crown and a ring. The filled circle I drew using the circle tool, and the crown and ring were shapes from the Custom Shapes palette.

• Start with the circle representing the ornament. Draw a circle to the size you desire, then fill with your color of choice.
  
• You will be applying two different filters to this shape to get the effect of a shiny sphere. The first filter is Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.
  
• For my example, I chose the Omni light source from the drop down menu.
  
• Then adjust the location and size of the reflection.
  
• I also moved the sliders for Gloss and Material to the far right to represent a shiny metallic surface.

The second filter is Filter>Distort>Spherize. This filter will give your shape more of a three dimensional look.

• The next step is to create the top of the ornament.
  
• I first created a crown shape from the custom shape palette and rotated it 180 degrees.
• I chose a bright gold color to fill the shape, then I applied the same Lighting Effects filter that I used on the main part of the ornament.
  
• I then moved the crown shape into place at the top of the ornament.
  
• Finally, I created the ring at the top of the ornament by using a filled ring shape from the custom shape palette, filling it with the same gold color I used for the crown, then applying the Lighting Effects filter to the ring.
  
• I then moved the ring into place, and now I have a complete ornament!

If you save this image as a .png file, you now have a digital element you can add to your holiday layouts.


Layout Credits: November Sponsor April Staker Jolly Holiday kit