How To Design a 3D Glass Icon in Photoshop
Learn How To Design a translucent 3D Frosted Glass Box based on the Safari Icon in Adobe Photoshop.
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Step 1: Setting Up
Make a new document with these settings:
Next, select the fill tool (G) and fill it with #626262. Now, we need to make a new adjustment layer. Make a brightness/contrast layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast). Put it on these parameters.
We add this adjustment layer so as everything looks better in the later stages.
Step 2: Making the Circle
Select the circular marquee tool and use these settings:
Make a selection and fill it with #649ad2. Then, grab a soft eraser, on a low opacity, and erase some areas like this:
This is so that it looks more 3D, and later on, it’ll add a nice transparent feel to our icon.
When you’re happy, and you have a similar result to the one above, add these Layer FX to it, to make it look better.
You should now have something resembling this:
Step 3: Making the Circle 3D
In this step, we’re going to make the circle look 3D. The theory of this is simple. You think about where the light is coming from, then add shadows and highlights to fit your light source if you keep this consistent, then you’ll have a much better final result. Below is some light theory that should make it easier for you.
Lighting
Although this is not the best of diagrams, it shows basic lighting. If you stick to this, and have a constant light source, your piece will turn out far more striking and realistic.
OK, grab your circular marquee tool, set it to 10px Feather and make it 200px by 200px. There are many different ways of getting highlights/gloss and shadows. My favourite, and I think one of the best ways to get gloss is like this.
Change the layer mode to multiply
And then, with white as your foreground colour, add this Layer FX
Vary
You can vary this. When making your highlights, you can vary the opacity, or colour of the gradient you use. You can also vary the layer mode. Try changing some settings now, and see what happens!
Shadows are much easier to make, and in a way, more powerful. You can have more highlights than shadows, because shadows are more obvious. For a shadow, simply make a circle, you can vary this and the feather px. Then, you can set it to soft light, overlay or of course, normal, it really comes down to which one you like best.
With the shadows, you can make them very discreet, yet they still play a very important part in the eventual outcome of the icon. Highlights are less noticeable, so you can add more of them, but with shadows, they play a bigger part; and have more of an impact.
The worst thing you can do when shadowing is zoom in too far. When you do that, you can’t see the whole image, and so you can’t really tell if it looks right. Make sure that when shadowing, you can see the whole image, and you’re thinking about what you’re doing!
By now, you should have a well highlighted and shadowed 3D sphere, resembling this. Don’t worry if it looks a little strange at this point, it’ll all come together later on.
Step 4: Adding Detail
Now, that looks OK. I added some highlights on the right that add a lot; I used the highlight technique described above. In this step, we are going to make those really nice 3D looking lines. The way to do this is simple, which we’ll find out in a bit.
Select your pen tool and get a brush size of 3px wide. You want to use these settings for the pen tool.
Next, we want to start drawing paths like this:
Set your brush size to around 3 – 5pxNow, for PC users, press right click > stroke path, for Mac users; CTRL + click > stroke path. When you stroke paths, there are two types of stroke paths. With simulated pressures and without simulated pressures. Here is an example of both.
If it doesn’t work, you may need to reset your brushes here’s how to do that:
In the next step, we’ll work out how to make these lines aid the 3D look.
Step 5: Detailing the Detail
You probably have some white lines now, looking 3D, but not merging into the icon. Set the layers to soft light or overlay, you can also lower the opacity and/or the fill of the lines. You can also get a soft eraser to erase some areas to make it look more 3D.
If you look carefully, you will also see not only the very distinct circles, which I’ll tell you how to do later; but also the very faint ones. To make both of them, grab the circular marquee tool with these parameters:
You can then edit the layer styles. For mine, I simply set the opacity to 50%. But you could set it to soft light or overlay.
For the faint ones, but it below every ‘line’ layer, and set it to soft light or overlay and lower the opacity.
In the next step, we’ll make 3D paths, that really add to the image.
Step 6: 3D Paths
This is a really short step, but it adds a lot.
Firstly, get your pen tool open, and then follow these steps.
Experiment
Try out different paths and set some layers to soft light or overlay and lower the opacity.
Step 7: Making the Basic Box
If you want to have something to trace around, you can do so around here. But of course, if you want to make your own, go for it! When you’re tracing, use the pen tool, and make each side on a new layer. Then, fill the paths with white (#ffffff). Then add these layer FX to every side.
On the ‘front’ sides, set the fill to 15% and the ‘back’ sides to 10%. This’ll get it looking transparent.
In the next step, we’ll work on making it more 3D.
Step 8: Highlighting the Box
Remember that highlight technique earlier? Well, use that technique on paths like this. Make a new layer above each box ‘side’ and then make a path accordingly. To make ‘swirly’ paths, make two points, then; click in the middle of the path and drag it up/down left/right and it’ll make a nice path. Have a look at this example.
Then, select the right ‘side’ layer and press CTRL + SHIFT + I or for Mac users CMND + SHIFT + I, then press delete. In the next step we will look at adding more detail into the box.
Step 9: Adding Details to the Box
In this step, there’s not going to be much writing, more annotated pictures. I am using the techniques for stroking paths, highlights and shadows that we looked at earlier to make the box, and anything you seen in these pictures.
Making Softer Shadows
If you want to make those soft shadows, get a soft brush (airbrush) around the size of 9-12px, stroke the paths and then lower the opacitysoft light.
Step 10: Making Everything Glow
That looks good, but… Not full of that striking glow. To get something to glow, it’s really easy. Simply get an airbrush, 100-300px and just paint on white. For background highlights, make new layers at the bottom and highlight there. For more centralised ones, do it on top, and maybe in a smaller brush.
To get a better glow-type look, adding lots of layers on 5-10% opacity will look much better than two or three on 40%. You can also add blue highlights to give it more of a glow.
Step 11: Finishing Details
The icon looks good, but it’d be nice to add a bit more shadow. Make a new layer at the top (behind your contrast one) and fill it with black (#000000) and set the fill to 0%. Then add these layer styles and you have a nice shadowed look.
And you’ll have a nice shadowed look to your image.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we’ve learnt about strokes, layering, shadowing, highlighting, layer FX, layer modes, opacity and fill. Put together you can make so many amazing things in Photoshop, so good luck; and make sure you check Tutorial9 frequently for tutorials!
I hope you enjoyed creating your own internet icon!
A large version of the final image can be seen here.
55 Comments
Photoshop tutorials, from beginner to advanced. photo manipulation, icon design, text effects, interface, layout, painting, photo effects, psd tuts, maxon cinema 4d, designing.
Flag as inappropriatehttp://lernphotoshop.co.cc
Hi
Flag as inappropriateNice
very nice !!
richard
Flag as inappropriatewebmaster of http://www.screenmac.com ///follow me ;) @meletwil
more great tutorials, keep them coming!
Flag as inappropriateI already bookmark this page
Flag as inappropriateThx a bunch looks great
Flag as inappropriateit is nice
Flag as inappropriateReal good tutorial. Detailed step by step, thanks.
Flag as inappropriateWHOIS lookups were traditionally performed with a command line interface application
Flag as inappropriatethe outcome is beautiful. i will def be using this. Thanks so much !!!!
Flag as inappropriatehttp://www.keneilaclama.name
the outcome is beautiful. i will def be using this. Thanks so much !!!!
Flag as inappropriatethis is a great tutorial! thx so much for posting :) i will deffinatly be using this. the outcome is great.
Flag as inappropriateThe first step is misguided. I don’t know if it was made intentional but overall it’s great tutorial and thanks for sharing.
Certainly, I will follow this site’s tutorials.
Flag as inappropriatenice tutorials
web designer
http://www.scrapsforever.com
Flag as inappropriateI love tutorial9 ….
Flag as inappropriatein step 2, when you fill the selection to blue, it won’t work, and comes out grey? what am i doing wrong?
Flag as inappropriateThere is a mistake, at the beginning make your canvas RGB.
Flag as inappropriateSimply add highlights. You can use the circular marquee and pen tools and just the pen tool. Fill white and lower opacity/fill and set to different layer styles. If you need more help, email me. :)
Flag as inappropriateHi :) nice tut, but i dont understand step 3: How can i do the the circle/elliptical highlight stripes? :(
Flag as inappropriateare you hot?
Flag as inappropriatenice work
great tutorial.
Flag as inappropriateTnx!
Its wonderful! :*
Flag as inappropriateCool tutorial but you missed some steps. Advanced Photoshop users won’t notice those missing steps as much but people who are more starting out will certainly get confused.
Flag as inappropriateare u hot?
Flag as inappropriateHi
Nice work.
Flag as inappropriateDid anyone actually follow the tutorial?
Flag as inappropriateIf you start out with making the document in a grayscale color mode – how will you ever get a blue color? Step 3 is not explained at all. How do you get all the cool looking light effects into the sphere? A step by step explanation is needed. A beginner will have no chance of ever completing this tutorial. Also you should mention when you add a new layer (every time). I want to end on a positive note: I really like the end result.
This is awesome. It really looks like it is in 3D space. Very nice!
Flag as inappropriateGreat tutorial Will, the detail and strong use of lighting & shadows would definitely make this a good tutorial for beginners learning to texture and light well.
Flag as inappropriateYour tutorials are very well done and very easy to follow. Thank you for this.
Flag as inappropriatethis is great, but i can’t see the screen shots for when you say “so it looks something like this:”
Flag as inappropriateis this my computer messing up or the site?
thanks.
Thanks for tutorial, It’s very useful
Flag as inappropriatebut ,
I’m sorry, I don’t understand step 3
What I suppose to do with circular marquee tool
can you explain me please
In ‘Step 3′ you need to add gloss and shadows to make the circle look more 3D. You can do this by adding circular highlights and some longitudinal ones too. You can also lower the opacity and fill and even add some layer FX to make them look more subtle.
Flag as inappropriateThanks for sharing this perfect tut! very detailed!
Flag as inappropriatenice work – more of them!
It looks nice and real ! Very good explained tutorial :) thanx
Flag as inappropriateNice tutorial. I wrote one last year designing something similar, an internet globe icon:
http://flyosity.com/tutorial/how-to-draw-a-mac-internet-globe-icon.php
Flag as inappropriateRealy interest for me… I like photoshop methods
Flag as inappropriateFantastic tutorial – it’s especially helpful that you’ve included clear screenshots of the finer details with the actual tutorial.
Will play around with this as this is one thing I haven’t done before.
@ProjectCenter
Flag as inappropriateThanks for this well explained tutorial.
Flag as inappropriateOops. PSD link is broken. Intesting tutorial. Good attention to detail, covering the finer points to make a design have extra impact.
Flag as inappropriateYou’re right, it is broken. Hopefully David will sort this out.
Flag as inappropriateGreat tutorial. Was hoping to have a look at the source file as well, but the link doesn’t seem to be working? Anyone else having difficulty?
Flag as inappropriateSorry Andy (and others), the file should be working now!
Thanks for the heads up ;)
Flag as inappropriateGreat tutorial
Flag as inappropriateThanks for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateFantastic tutorial, hope to see some more from you. (;
Flag as inappropriatethanks for sharing nice and easy icon tutorial
Flag as inappropriateNicely done, I like how you did the lightening.
Flag as inappropriateGreat tutorial and very nice result. Thanks :)
Flag as inappropriateare you hot?
Flag as inappropriateGreat job! thanks a lot. just you forgot to change your color mode to RGB or CMYK mode in making new document!
Flag as inappropriateSweet tutorial! Thanks a lot. Learned a few nice techniques here =)
Flag as inappropriateGreat job. Thank you for the tutorial…
Flag as inappropriate