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Freebie, Tutorials by Tyler | June 29, 2009 | 38 Comments »

Create a Glowing Globe Icon in Photoshop

In this tutorial we are going to create a simple 3D glowing world globe icon. This can then be applied to a

logo or one color image instead of a map.

Step 1In Photoshop lets open up an 800x800px document. Our document doesn’t have to be huge because we are

only making an icon.

Step 2

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Now we are going to create the basic shape for our icon. Click on the Ellipse tool and hold down Shift, click

and drag a circle across the top half of the document. Holding down shift gives us a perfectly round circle.

Step 3If your colors are set at the default black and white, your circle probably came out black. We are going to

change this to a blue to give us a base color to work with.

To change the color, double click on the black square on the circle layer. This will open up a color palette, and

we can choose a color from there.

Step 4Now we are going to go and grab our map image from stock.xchng and open it up in Photoshop. Before we

bring it into our document we want to get rid of the white area. To do this, go into Select>Color Range. We

want to bring the fuzziness up to 200 and then click on the black area of our document.

Make sure you are using the Pointer Tool (top left in the toolbar) and click on the map and drag it into our

globe document.

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Step 5This Image is going to be way too big for our circle so we are going to shrink it down using. Before we do that

though we want to drop down the opacity to 50% so that we can see both the map and the circle so we can

judge where to line them up.

Now, using Control+T to transform our map we are going to shrink it down.

At this point if we drop the size way down we are going to lose it off somewhere hidden off the document. To

make sure this doesn’t happen look for the crosshair that is in the middle of the map, make sure that this is

on your document and when you shrink it down it, the map will stay on the screen.

Now, we are going to use the percentages at the top of our screen and drop them down to 15%.

Step 6We can bring the opacity back up to 100%.

Now to give the globe a rounded, 3D look we are going to make sure we are on our “map” layer. Now we

want to Control and click on our “Circle” layer to load that selection.

Go into Filter>Distort>Spherize and change the amount to 100%.

Step 7With the circle selection that we still have, we are going to do Control + Shift + I to get the inverse selection

and then delete. This will get rid of the extra map area we don’t need. Change the map layer’s blend mode to

overlay.

Step 8We are now going to give a little bit of shine to our globe. To do this we are going to duplicate our circle layer

and fill with white. Then using Control + T to transform the shape, shrink the shine circle down so we get an

oval shape like I have. Try to get the top edges of the circle and the shine to be parallel.

Step 9Now we are going to take that shine layer, change the blend mode to screen, drop the opacity down to 80%

and add a layer mask to it (second icon from the left on at the bottom of the layers palette).

Take a Linear Gradient and with black, click and drag the gradient up to get the shine to fade a bit, as I have

done.

Step 10Now we are going to do some layer styles to give the globe some lighting. First, we want to duplicate the

circle layer and drop the Fill down to 0%. This will get rid of the circle but we will still be able to see the layer

styles.

Drag the layer above the map layer.

The first thing we are going to add is the Inner Shadow.

Step 11Next we are going to add a Gradient Overlay. This will give us sort of an inner glow to our globe.

Step 12Your globe should look something like this so far.

Step 13Select the “Map” layer. We are going to add some layer styles to it.

The first thing we are going to add is a Gradient Overlay. This is going to add to give our shadow more

contrast.

Step 14Now add a Bevel and Emboss. This is going to give our map a little dimension.

Step 15Duplicate the circle layer again (Control + J), make sure the Fill is at 0%, and add an Inner Glow with

#00C9FF for a color. Bring this layer up to the top of the rest of the layers.

Step 16Now lets add a reflection. Link all the layers together by clicking on one of the layers and then clicking the

empty box to the right of the eye icon on each layer. Then do Control + E. This will combine all our layers into

just one layer.

Now duplicate the layer with Control + J and go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertically (If you just rotate it the

reflection will be backwards). Make sure the “Reflection” is just under the bottom of the globe, overlapping a

little bit.

Step 17Add a layer mask to the reflection, and using our black Linear Gradient, click and drag a gradient up until you

get something like I have.

Step 18Drop the opacity of the reflection to 50%.

Step 19Now we want to add shadow under the globe. So to do this we want to create a new layer (Control + Shift +

N). Get your Radial Gradient, and make a small gradient (which we are going to stretch out) using #01133B

for a color.

Step 20Using Control + T stretch out the gradient so it roughly covers the width of the globe.

FinalThere you have it, a Globe Icon. This can be applied to other one-color logos, text or images. Just make sure

you remember to change your reflection also.

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