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Whew. I never thought today
would come.
I know, you are wondering
what great weight was lifted to prompt the relief indicated
above. Well, I just spent the last 5 months working on 3
separate book projects. I'm very thankful to have the
opportunity to write… it is the fruition of a life-long dream.
HOWEVER, the fact that writing a book requires time and effort
eluded me in the dreams of getting published.
The great thing about writing on Photoshop is
that, in the process, you learn even more about the program than
when you set out. It was during the course of working through
effects for the book projects that I stumbled on this little
process. I call it the Fastest Glass Sphere in the West… but in
reality it is simply an exercise in the use of the Polar
Coordinates filter.
1) Create a new image. Make it perfectly square,
say 600 pixels x 600 pixels, 100 DPI. For those people
accustomed to working with ruler measurements, that works out to
6 inches squared. Set your mode to RGB, and the background to
transparent.
2) Fill the image with Black, 100%, and
duplicate the layer.
3) With the duplicate background layer (or in
this case 'Layer 1 copy'), go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare.
Select the standard 50-300mm Zoom, and bump up the brightness to
150.
4) Go to Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates. In
the Polar Coordinates Pop-up, click on Polar to Rectangular.
5) Go to Image>Rotate Canvas>Flip Vertical.
6) Re-run the Polar Coordinates Filter
(Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates), but this time check
'Rectangular to Polar'.
7) This sphere makes an excellent foundation for
further effects, but we could clean it up a bit to make it more
'effects friendly'. First, we need to get rid of the excess
image information around the sphere. Select the Elliptical
Marquee. In the Marquee Options Bar, set the Style to
Constrained Aspect Ratio. Starting in the upper left corner ( a
few pixels from the actual corner) draw out your marquee with
the mouse to capture MOST of the sphere. We want a bit of the
sphere edge cut off, so leave a little outside of the marquee.
8) Go to Select>Inverse and delete the area
around the sphere.
There you have it. As I said before, this is an
excellent foundation for other sphere effects, and it comes with
all the reflections built right in!
Here is just one example of what a little
playing will render.
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