3D Snow Globe - Photoshop Tutorial

With Christmas just around the corner (only 4 months away), it's time to start making your holiday graphics. Today, we shall make a snow globe with a winter scene inside.

This tutorial is intended for intermediate level Photoshop users.

Create a new image with the dimensions 270x250px. Fill it with any color, then give it a gradient overlay layer style as shown (everything default except colors and angle):

And here's a pretty blue rectangle:
Add a new layer and go to 'Edit > Fill'. Select pattern, then from the 'Patterns' group, select the 'Wood' pattern. Click "OK".

Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the top half of the new wood layer and hit the delete key.
Hit Ctrl+T to free transform the wood layer. Enlarge it and rotate the right side down about 15 degrees.

Go to 'Filter > Render > Lighting Effects', adjust the handle as shown, and move the 'Focus' slider all the way to the right. A wider focus will make the light more diffused. You may also need to adjust the 'Intensity' depending on how strong you want the light effect to be. I was going for a subtle effect.

The result should look about like this:
Draw a circle with the ellipse tool and give it the following 'Inner Glow' layer style. In the Layers window, set the fill for this layer to 0%. This way the fill color will be hidden and only the Layer Styles will show.

This will make the outline of your globe.
Using the paint brush with a round brush and white, draw the blob of snow shown. You will cut off the bottom so it all stays in the globe in the next step.

Make a selection that surrounds the globe by using 'Ctrl+click' on the icon for the globe layer in the Layers Window. See image for where exactly to click:
The selection ("marching ants") should look like this now:
Go to 'Select > Inverse' to reverse your selection area. Now everything except the area of the globe is selected.
Select the snow layer by clicking it in the Layers Window. Now hit delete and the snow should fit nicely in to the globe.
Add 2 trees (I will use the lazy method and use the tree shape built in to Photoshop). Use the Custom Shape tool to draw the trees:
Here are your happy little trees, as Bob Ross would say:
Make a small circle and give it a drop shadow. This will form the base of a snowman.
And a gradient overlay:

For this result:
Make 2 smaller copies of the snowball to complete your snowman.
Use the Pencil tool to make 2 eyes and the Line tool to make a carrot nose.
Add some snowflakes using the Pencil tool at various widths.
Create a new layer and draw a selection with the Elliptical Marquee tool
Set up a transparent to white gradient:
Draw a gradient with the gradient tool, starting in the bottom left corner of your selection and ending at the top right corner.
Create a new layer, and with the Elliptical Marquee tool, draw a circular selection approximately the size of the globe.
With the Rectangular Marquee tool, hold Alt while drawing rectangular selections to subtract from the circular selection. Do this on the top and on both sides until you have the selection shown.
Fill your selection with any color (with the Paint Bucket tool). I used black.
Give this layer a Gradient Overlay with these settings:

Now you have a nice metallic base for the globe.
Make a new layer and draw a black ellipse to make a shadow. Go to 'Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur' and enter a 'Radius' of 5.0px. Drop the opacity of this layer to 25%.
All you need to do now is change the order of the layers. Do this by clicking and dragging the layers in the Layers window. Make sure that the layers are arranged like this:
1. Gloss 2. Globe 3. Everything inside the globe 4. Globe Base 5. Shadow 6. Wood layer and background