How to Create a Snow Globe in Photoshop

Creating a snow globe in Photoshop is a good way to test your Photoshop skills. You don't need to paint a winter scene. You can use butterflies, falling leaves or pumpkins to make the celebrate any time of year. There are a number of ways to create a realistic snow globe, but these will get you started.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• An image for your background
• An image of an object to go inside your snow globe
• Wood texture image

Set Up Your File

1. Open a new Photoshop document. The size and resolution will depend on how you intend to use the image. Web graphics should be 72 pixels per inch. Graphics for print need to be 150 or higher.

2. Add a multicolored background. This works best with an image to show through your snow globe, but you could also create a gradient fill. The more contrast in your background the better. Make the shadows dark and the highlights bright.

3. Create your globe shape. Hold down the shift key while you drag the elliptical marquee tool to create a perfect circle shape. Adjust the selection's location with the arrow keys. Save the selection as an alpha channel since you will use it again.

Build Your Globe

4. Add the first globe layer by copying the selection to a new layer. With the circle still selected apply the Spherize filter. This will create a refraction effect to go with your glass. Name the layer "Globe" to keep track of it.

5. Insert a new layer named "Glass" above the "Globe" layer. Prepare to fill it by setting your background color to a light shade of the background color. Keep the foreground color white.

6. Paint your glass. Load your alpha channel into the layer. Fill it with a radial gradient. Make gradient moves from the background color at the edge to white toward the center.

7. Make your glass transparent. Apply a "Soft Light" lighting mode. Adjust the layer opacity until it looks like glass.

8. Open the file with your snow globe object. Select the object and copy it to a new layer between the "Globe" and "Glass." Name the layer "Object." Load your alpha channel into the new object layer and apply the Spherize filter.

Make Snow

9. Create a "Snow" layer between the "Glass" and "Object" layers. Load your alpha channel selection into this layer. Fill the selection with white.

10. Add noise to the snow layer. Make sure the settings are "Uniform," "Gaussian" and "Monochromatic." This will create black and white speckles.

11. Apply the "Cutout" filter. Set "Levels" to 1, "Simplicity" to 0 and "Fidelity" to 1. Apply the "Invert" adjustment. Don't worry that your snow looks like mud.

12. Open the "Levels" dialogue. Drag the rightmost "Input Levels" slider toward dead center (132) until everything is black. Drag the middle slider almost on top of the right slider (9.99) until snowflake like shapes appear.

13. Boost the "Brightness and Contrast." Drag both sliders all the way to the left until the selection is black and white.

14. Isolate the snow. Click anywhere in the black area with the Magic Wand tool. This will select all the black pixels. Delete them.

Apply the Finishing Touches

15. Put your snow in motion. With the selection still active apply the "Motion Blur" filter. Adjust the settings to your liking.

16. Add the base. Make an elliptical selection in a new layer underneath the "Globe" layer. Paste the wood texture into the selection. Duplicate the layer. Move the lower layer down a few pixels to add depth. Darken the layer with the "Darken" lighting mode.

17. Touch up your image. Add shadows and highlights with the dodge and burn tools. Clean up stray pixels.

Tips & Warnings

• Add more snow by duplicating and offsetting the snow layer. Rotate it slightly. For a more random look, creating a separate snow layer from scratch.
• Experiment with different pictures and snowflake designs. You can make a snow globe for every holiday.
• You need to already know the Photoshop commands and tools to make this tutorial work. This includes how to create alpha channels and where to find different filter and adjustment commands.

[9168]

on 9/3/2009 I'm trying to do this and have been unable to do step 9, (step 1 in "make snow"). I can't get the selection to fill with white. It keeps going back to the gradient that I created in step 6 (step 3 in "build your globe"). One of your tips said a snow layer could be created from scratch instead. Could you help me with this?
Thanks.
Maureen Arnold