Create a Glowing Globe Icon in Photoshop

In this tutorial we are going to create a simple 3D glowing world globe icon. This can then be applied to a logo or one color image instead of a map.

Step 1

In Photoshop lets open up an 800×800px document. Our document doesn’t have to be huge because we are only making an icon.

Step 2

Now we are going to create the basic shape for our icon. Click on the Ellipse tool and hold down Shift, click and drag a circle across the top half of the document. Holding down shift gives us a perfectly round circle.

Step 3

If your colors are set at the default black and white, your circle probably came out black. We are going to change this to a blue to give us a base color to work with.
To change the color, double click on the black square on the circle layer. This will open up a color palette, and we can choose a color from there.

Step 4

Now we are going to go and grab our map image from stock.xchng and open it up in Photoshop. Before we bring it into our document we want to get rid of the white area. To do this, go into Select>Color Range. We want to bring the fuzziness up to 200 and then click on the black area of our document.
Make sure you are using the Pointer Tool (top left in the toolbar) and click on the map and drag it into our globe document.

Step 5

This Image is going to be way too big for our circle so we are going to shrink it down using. Before we do that though we want to drop down the opacity to 50% so that we can see both the map and the circle so we can judge where to line them up.
Now, using Control+T to transform our map we are going to shrink it down.
At this point if we drop the size way down we are going to lose it off somewhere hidden off the document. To make sure this doesn’t happen look for the crosshair that is in the middle of the map, make sure that this is on your document and when you shrink it down it, the map will stay on the screen.
Now, we are going to use the percentages at the top of our screen and drop them down to 15%.

Step 6

We can bring the opacity back up to 100%.
Now to give the globe a rounded, 3D look we are going to make sure we are on our “map” layer. Now we want to Control and click on our “Circle” layer to load that selection.
Go into Filter>Distort>Spherize and change the amount to 100%.

Step 7

With the circle selection that we still have, we are going to do Control + Shift + I to get the inverse selection and then delete. This will get rid of the extra map area we don’t need.

Step 8

We are now going to give a little bit of shine to our globe. To do this we are going to duplicate our circle layer, then using Control + T to transform the shape, shrink it down so we get an oval shape like I have. Try to get the top edges of the circle and the shine to be parallel.

Step 9

Now we are going to take that shine layer, change the blend mode to screen, drop the opacity down to 80% and add a layer mask to it (second icon from the left on at the bottom of the layers palette).
Take a Linear Gradient and with black, click and drag the gradient up to get the shine to fade a bit, as I have done.

Step 10

Now we are going to do some layer styles to give the globe some lighting. First, we want to duplicate the circle layer and drop the Fill down to 0%. This will get rid of the circle but we will still be able to see the layer styles.
Drag the layer above the map layer.
The first thing we are going to add is the Inner Shadow.

Step 11

Next we are going to add a Gradient Overlay. This will give us sort of an inner glow to our globe.

Step 12

Your globe should look something like this so far.

Step 13

Select the “Map” layer. We are going to add some layer styles to it.
The first thing we are going to add is a Gradient Overlay. This is going to add to give our shadow more contrast.

Step 14

Now add a Bevel and Emboss. This is going to give our map a little dimension.

Step 15

Duplicate the circle layer again (Control + J), make sure the Fill is at 0%, and add an Inner Glow with #00C9FF for a color. Bring this layer up to the top of the rest of the layers.

Step 16

Now lets add a reflection. Link all the layers together by clicking on one of the layers and then clicking the empty box to the right of the eye icon on each layer. Then do Control + E. This will combine all our layers into just one layer.
Now duplicate the layer with Control + J and go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertically (If you just rotate it the reflection will be backwards). Make sure the “Reflection” is just under the bottom of the globe, overlapping a little bit.

Step 17

Add a layer mask to the reflection, and using our black Linear Gradient, click and drag a gradient up until you get something like I have.

Step 18

Drop the opacity of the reflection to 50%.

Step 19

Now we want to add shadow under the globe. So to do this we want to create a new layer (Control + Shift + N). Get your Radial Gradient, and make a small gradient (which we are going to stretch out) using #01133B for a color.

Step 20

Using Control + T stretch out the gradient so it roughly covers the width of the globe.

Final

There you have it, a Globe Icon. This can be applied to other one-color logos, text or images. Just make sure you remember to change your reflection also.