No Muss, No Fuss Easy Spheres

  1. Open a new white graphic a little larger than you want your sphere to be.
  2. Add a new layer. Name it Sphere.
  3. Make a circular selection, antialias checked. Save your selection to an Alpha Channel.
  4. Set foreground to white and background to black.
  5. Set the Sunburst Gradient to Horizontal and Vertical 35.
  6. Set the gradient to Foreground-Background.
  7. Flood fill your circle. Do not deselect
  8. Right click on the layers palette and choose New Adjustment Layer>Curves.
  9. Enter 160 in the Input box and 90 in the Output box (or drag the center point)
  10. Click ok.
  11. Add another new layer and name it Color.
  12. Set the Layer Blend Mode on this layer to "Soft Light".
  13. Reset the flood fill tool to solid color and flood fill with a medium-dark color.
  14. If you flood fill with a light color, you may want to adjust the curve. Just double click on the Curve layer and adjust until you get a sphere that looks good to you.
  15. Save as a PSP file.

You now have a template for a sphere that you can color any way you want.