Introduction: Creating A Glass Effect

In this tutorial we will explore a technique for making our artwork look like it is made of a glass-like material.

1. Getting Started

Let’s start by making a new canvas (Ctrl+N). Set the dimensions to 500x500 pixels with black (#000000) as the background color.

Set up your guides, one splitting the canvas horizontally in half and a second one doing the same vertically.

2. Creating the Rim

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and set the style to Fixed Size and set the width to 400px and height to 400px, you could also use it in Normal style and hit ALT + Shift after you start drawing to draw from the center out. Make a new layer and use the marquee tool to draw a circle in the middle of the canvas on the new empty layer. Fill the circle with a gray color (#333333).

Tip: If you plan on resizing your art, it is better to create vector masks and use those instead of a bitmap fill.

Name this layer “end”; duplicate it and give it the name “top_end”. Make sure the duplicated layer is above the “end” layer.

Now, make a new layer and name it “inner”. Select the marquee, set the style to fixed, and change the width and height to 350px by 350px. Make a circle in the middle and fill that with a darker gray color (#202020).

Create a selection of the inner layer by pressing Ctrl + left click on the thumbnail of the layer, then select the top_end layer and press delete. This will create a hollow ring.

As we did with the inner layer, select the top_end layer by pressing Ctrl + left click your mouse, and go to Select/Modify/Contract Selection and contract by 2 pixels, then hit ok. Now press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection and hit Delete.

With the top_end layer selected go to Layer/Layer Style/Drop Shadow and set the following parameters:

Blend Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 100%
Distance: 0
Spread 2%

Size: 2px

Click ok after you’ve finished.

Make a new layer and name it “light_down”.

Select the “top_end” layer shape by pressing Ctrl + left click your mouse. With the shape selected move to the “light_down” layer.

In the “light_down” layer we’re going to fill the shape with the gradient tool. With a white to transparent color, fill diagonally from bottom right to top left. You should end up with something like this:

Select the marquee tool and with the arrow keys move the selection a little to the top left corner like in the image. When you are finished press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection and hit delete.

Make another layer and name it “light_up”. Select the “top_end” layer shape by pressing Ctrl + left click. With the shape selected move to the “light_up” layer.

Repeat the same steps we used for the “light_down” layer. Remember how we used the gradient tool? This time we’re going use the gradient tool closer to the circle and move from top left to bottom right.

Select the marquee tool and move the selection to right and down. When you have something like in the image hit delete (this time we are not going to invert the selection).

Make a new layer name that layer “black_detail”, set a black color and use the gradient tool and make two passes one from top right towards the bottom left and another from the left down towards the upper right.

Create a new layer set by clicking the folder down in your layers window and name it “back”. Inside place all the layers except for the inner layer.

Tip: A quick way to form a group is to link the layers and create a layer group from linked in your layer options fly out in CS or Shift or CTRL select all your layers and Set Create Layer group from selected in CS2.

3. Creating the Background Texture

Make a new layer and name that layer “fx” and then go to filter/render/clouds. Create a selection from the “inner” layer with the Ctrl+left mouse click.

Go to the layer “fx” and hit Ctrl+I to invert the image and hit Shift+Ctrl+I to inverse your selection. Hit delete.

Make a new layer and select the “fx” layer Ctrl+left mouse click, and use the gradient fill tool to add a little gradient like in the image.

Select the new layer and the “fx” layer and hit Ctrl+E to merge the two layers.

4. Lighting Effects

Make a new layer and name that “light1”, use the gradient tool and use a white gradient and make pass in the direction shown in the image:

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and set this to “Fixed Size” and the width and height to 500 px and make a selection like the one in the image.

In the “light 1” layer when you are happy with the selection, press “Delete”... and set the opacity for the layer to 25%

Make a new layer again and do the same last two steps; but this time make the gradient flow from bottom right to top left.

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool with the same values we set earlier; when you are satisfied with the selection hit “Delete”.

Select layer “light1” and layer “light2” and hit Ctrl+E to merge the layers.

Make a new layer and use the gradient tool with white and set the gradient to flow from top to bottom like in the image.

Click the “fx” layer and Ctrl+left mouse click and move to “layer 1”.

Nudge the selection with the arrow keys 3 hits down...

Hit Ctrl+I to invert the image and set the opacity to 90% on the layer.

Make another layer and repeat the last step, but this time, make the gradient from bottom to top.

Nudge the selection 6 steps up and hit Ctrl+I to invert it.

Select the “shiny top” layer and the new “layer 1” and hit Ctrl+E to merge the layers.

Make a new layer and select the “fx” layer to make a selection (remember use Ctrl+left mouse click) and use a brush 300 px for the bottom shine and a 200px for the top shine.

5. Adding Color

Select the “fx” layer and go to Image>Hue/Saturation (Ctrl+U) and use the values from the image, although you can experiment here with your own.

6. Conclusion

We are done. Check the final creation; we reduced the size of the image to to 250px per 250px. It is a good practive to work big to better see details and then size down the image to the final size

We have shrunken the image a couple of times and still looks good.

This concludes this tutorial on how to create a glass like effect on your artwork. The techniques used here can be adapted to create other types of surfaces or to add similar effects to other shapes in your work.