Water Lilies Down the Drain

Another Orb created in Photoshop.

 

Here are the instructions for making these orbs. These are for Photoshop CS6. I think it would be similar in other versions of Photoshop. I modified these instructions from an article by Bill Barber in the magazine "Camera in the Wild", Spring 2013, which is a Carolinas' Nature Photographers Association publication.

1. Your image should be one layer. (They also have to be 8 bit.)

2. Crop the image to a square. If you don't crop to a square you will end up with an oval instead of an orb. Where you place your center also makes a difference. Experiment!

3. Go to Filter> Distort> Polar Coordinates> Polar to Rectangular

4. Go to Image> Image Rotation> Flip Canvas Vertical

5. Go to Filter> Distort> Polar Coordinates> Rectangular to Polar

6. For an added twist, go to Filter> Distort> Twirl (choose your desired angle amount)

7. You may want to add to your canvas afterwards. Go to Image> Canvas Size> Choose your width and height. Then sample a point in the corner to match the color. Click OK.

The whole process takes about a minute! Have fun.

Done