A tube and font of your choice. I used the awesome artwork of Barbara Jensen for this tag! You can purchase a licence to use her work. Please visit here and check out the tubes section.
Open a new image 500 x 500 with a transparent background.
Open your tube and with your eyedropper tool select one colour for both your fore and background.
Select Preset Shapes > Elipse.
Draw a circle in the centre of your canvas with the following settings:
Go to effects > Plug ins > VM Tool Box > Crystal Ball and apply the following settings;
Depending on the size of your circle you may have to play around with the radius settings to eliminate the dark edge on your crystal ball.
**Go to your tube and select Edit > Copy. Paste on your canvas as a new layer, resize to fit your ball.
Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow. Apply the following;
Merge Visible and lower the opacity of the image to 76.
Duplicate the layer and resize by 80% with these settings:
Merge visable.
Move the resized ball to where you want it.**
Repeat the above steps between the ** as many times as you like, play with the size of each ball and arrange them where you think they look good. (Keep your balls to the left of your canvas.) When you are happy with your arrangement merge visible layers.
Resize image by 75% usinge the same settings as before. Duplicate layer and keep bottom merged layer selected.
Image > Mirror.
Lower the opacity of top merged layer to 78 (If your tube is not symmetrical you will need to reposition the layers to make them fit together.)
Merge visible.
This is what your image should now resemble;
Resize by 75% with the same settings as used previously.
Duplicate and close off top merged layer.
Go to Effects > Texture Effects > Mosaic Glass.
Apply the following settings;
Make your top layer visible and resize it by 90%.
Merge visible layers and lower the opacity of the merged image to 90.
Go back to your tube
Edit > Copy.
Paste onto your working image as new layer. Resize the tube as necessary to suit your image and position it to where you think it looks best.
Now for the text!
Using your eyedropper select two complimentary colours from your tube for your fore and back ground. Select the font tool and set it to the font of your choice. Apply the text using the following settings;
Position your text and convert to raster layer
Effects > 3D Effects > Inner Bevel.
Apply the following inner bevel settings;
Effects > 3D Effects > Drop Shadow. Apply the same settings for your drop shadow as used throughout this tutorial.
Note: I used the vector setting because I wanted to put my text for the example on an angle. If you do not wish to angle your text simply add a new raster layer and apply the text the same way only setting it to floating instead of vector.
Crop off excess background and resize as required.
Save as jpeg.
Try different tubes and alter the positioning of the balls to get a different look. This tut is only a guideline to get a general effect, use your imagination and see what you can come up with!
