Designing a crystal ball in Photoshop

This is cool technique I’ve discovered which uses the Polar Coordinates filter in Photoshop to make a globe or a planet.

Start with picture (I chose one of some nice clouds). You may or may not at this point convert it into a square, but at some stage you will need to. As the edge of the picture will end up in the middle it’s a good idea to get it all the same colour. To do this draw a feathered rectangular Marquee (M) a little bit inside your picture frame, inverse the selection (Cmd/Cntl-Shift-I) and fill with a harmonious colour (see below top right).

Now, go Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates… check Polar to Rectangular, go Image > Rotate Canvas > 180º, and then Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates… check Rectangular to Polar and you should have something that looks like above bottom left.

To further increase the spherical illusion go Filter > Distort > Spherize, choosing Normal +100%. You will notice that this leaves a funny crossed shape in the middle of the sphere. I knocked this out with a feathered circular marquee filled with a blue that merges in.

After a bit of brightening, re-cutting out and adding a drop shadow, you will have created another world! This’ll work with any picture.