Ball « Shapes « Photoshop Tutorials

Every shape needs a light source Every shape has shadows and highlights Never use dodge and burn for making shapes. Dodge and burn is only good for touching up highlights/shadows Ok we start by making a simple ball. Make a new canvas i made it 300x300 pixels and fill it with a dark gray color. Make your ball shape with the Elliptical Marquee Tool. My result: Ok. Now before you start shading/highlighting you need to determine where your lightsource will be. The lightsource determines where the shadows and highlights will be. Now select a slightly darker color and start brushing at the end of your shape. Now select a lighter color and start making the highlights. This is my result. Now we will smooth our ball. Select the Smudge Tool with 20% strenght and start smudging gently. Don't overdoit. Now we putt our shape into some space. Depending on where the lightsource hits the ball it will give a shadow behind it. You need to have some imagination to know where this shadow will be. Now i just added some background shading. Nothing special just to give it some more extra touches. This is where the Dodge Tool comes in. Select an airbrush around 10px. Just make a tiny dot this is the place where the lightsource hits our shape.