Tutorial: Nebula Inside a Glass Ball

Originally Published March 2009

In a recent article, we took a look at various fractal-generation tools. One of these, Apophysis, a “flame fractal” generator, was used to create the amazing image above of the imaginary “Reef Nebula.” For some reason, as soon as I saw this image, I pictured a glass globe with this nebula inside of it. I decided to see if I could bring that image to life, and write it up as a Photoshop tutorial. This is a stock image by Moonchilde-Stock. Please abide by their rules for use of stock images.

Step One

Create a new document in Photoshop, about 2000 pixels square. Hit the “d” key, then the “x” key. This will make black the background color. Now press Cmd+Delete, and your background layer is now black. You can accomplish the same thing with the Paint Bucket, but I just found this method, so I’m using it for practice. Open the nebula image, and hold the shift key down as you draw a big circle using the Ellipical Lasso tool. Make sure you have a hard edged selection (no feathering). Now, copy (Cmd/Ctl + C). Back in your new document, paste it (Cmd/Ctl + V). This will create a new layer with the circular selection on it. It should look something like this:

Step Two

Make sure the new layer with the nebula-circle is active. Double-click on it (or select Layer > Layer Style) to open the Layer Style dialogue. We’re going to apply an Inner Glow, using a nice deep blue color. I used a gradient running from blue to transparent, with opacity set to 64%. The edge is about 140 pixels wide (see screenshot for settings). I chose blue to complement the nebula’s coloring.

Step Three

Insert a new layer, and call it “Upper Highlight.” Use the elliptical lasso tool to draw a flat oval selection, as shown. To create the highlight color, use the Gradient tool. Use a gradient that goes from white with a touch of blue to transparent. Drag the tool from top to bottom of your oval selection. Turn down the layer opacity to about 64%.

Step Four

Add a second reflection to the bottom. This one is just like the top reflection you just created, but you’ll want to make it a little smaller, and lower opacity. Here’s what both reflection layers look like, with the nebula layer turned off.

Step Five

At this point, you should have a pretty convincing glass ball with a nebula trapped inside it. Let’s take it one step further, and add a tabletop reflection. Duplicate the nebula layer. Drag this layer down a bit, so you can see the second copy. Go to Edit > Transform > Scale, and flatten this copy. Then, go Filter > Gaussian Blur, to blur the reflection. To finish, I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, to boost the saturation a bit. And here’s the finished result. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!