Learn how to create a metallic apple with reflections. This tutorial will show you how to warp objects, dodge/burn, and add reflections to metal.

Preview of Final Results

Tutorial Resources

Step 1

Open file “Metal Ball”. Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection of the ball. Hold shift while dragging to keep the selection a perfect circle. After you’ve selected the ball press Ctrl + C to copy and Ctrl + N to create a new document. Photoshop it’s smart enough to calculate the dimensions of the selection and input those variables into document creation window so all you have to do it’s to press Ok. Paste the image (Ctrl + V).

clip_image006

Step 2

Now we have the ball selected into a new document and the reason for this it is that the door in the middle of the ball kind of ruins the whole aspect of it. We need a nice, round metallic ball and this is the only decent image of a chrome ball I could find, except it has an ugly entrance of some sort that’s ruining its symmetry. Notice that the door it’s mainly in the right half of the image while the left half looks good. The solution to this it is to use the good half to correct the bad one. This technique I am about to use it’s useful when you are retouching or correcting symmetrical objects and it also works great on human faces.

Let’s begin by selecting the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection of the left half of the ball.

clip_image008

Step 3

Click on the ball layer to select it and press Ctrl + J to copy the selection on a new layer. I turned of the visibility of the ball layer temporarily so you can see the half ball layer.

clip_image010

Step 4

While on the half ball layer press Ctrl + T to enter Free Transform. Right-click and choose Flip Horizontally. Hold Shift and drag the half ball to the right to position over the original right half.

clip_image012

Step 5

Add a layer mask to the half ball layer (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) and Alt-click between the half ball and the original ball layer in the Layer palette to clip the upper half ball layer to the lower original ball layer. This means that the half ball layer will be visible only through visible pixels below, so if you did not placed the half of the ball exactly over the right half of the ball in step 4 you don’t need to worry about it now.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

27 responses to “How to Create a Photo-Realistic Metal Apple in Photoshop”

  1. werqw Avatar
    werqw

    boo boo bam

  2. Sharon Johnston Avatar
    Sharon Johnston

    Hi I couldn’t download the Metallic Ball. I received an” Imagine could not be loaded” message. Is there another way to download this image?

    1. Colton Stibbins Avatar
      Colton Stibbins

      Mrs. Johnston? you probably don’t remember me but I think I am one of your 4th grade students.

  3. Sharon Johnston Avatar
    Sharon Johnston

    I tried to download the metallic ball and was told Image could not be found..

  4. Jair Pereira Ibañez Avatar
    Jair Pereira Ibañez

    I like me!

  5. carl Avatar
    carl

    Enjoyed it!

  6. Lucie Ondrušková Avatar
    Lucie Ondrušková

    Great tutorial, I learned a lot!

  7. Normen Avatar
    Normen

    THX! I did an awsome metallic cherry :)

  8. Maidul Islam Avatar
    Maidul Islam

    Amazing. . Very nice, thanks for sharing…………….

  9. Kenna Avatar
    Kenna

    Nice tutorial. Only think I didn’t like is that you kept forgetting to tell us when to add layer masks…

  10. Habib Avatar
    Habib

    techniques and ideas was great

  11. Victoria Avatar
    Victoria

    The detail in this is amazing

  12. Lidka Avatar
    Lidka

    This is fantastic!

  13. xilan Avatar
    xilan

    forgot to fix the white triangles at the bottom of the apples curve

  14. diego Avatar
    diego

    amazing work!

  15. apple Avatar
    apple

    Great!

  16. apple Avatar
    apple

    Great! I learned from it..

  17. dd Avatar
    dd

    Very nice tutorial..
    khupach chhan explain kelele ahe

  18. shan Avatar
    shan

    fantastic!

  19. Salai Avatar
    Salai

    This is really good thank you sir.

  20. reo Avatar
    reo

    Nice, but the light sides (non-adjacent) of two non-metallic apples was left unfixed thus it didn’t jibe to the light source ‘you’ have indicated.

    1. goodquestion Avatar
      goodquestion

      no

  21. Gogo Avatar
    Gogo

    Exvellent tutorial!!! I like the fact that you are focusing on details!

  22. Lisa Lampe Avatar
    Lisa Lampe

    Impressive tutorial, Adrian!

  23. bijesh Avatar
    bijesh

    Good..!

    1.  Avatar
      Anonymous

      how do you un-desaturate

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Photoshop Tutorials

Get the latest Photoshop tutorials, download and updates delivered to your inbox.

Continue reading