Well actually.... that just takes a few small tweaks to remedy. I was only showing the importance of details to help along the realism of the effect. 
In actuality, no cue ball is pure bone white. It would be too hard to focus on that when playing. Most, if not all cue balls whether for snooker or billiards are an off-white, cream or slight yellowish colour.
As for a tutorial on this effect... i don't have the necessary time to go into gr8 detail (that's why i haven't posted in awhile... too busy with work). But i CAN outline a few specifics that should help you get a good deal of the effect done.
To make a couple other points now about the original example cue ball image... a lot of the "look" of that ball is created through the ombient lighting in the room around it. Coming both from the windows (seen in the reflection) and the room lighting. So you have to remove those elements when recreating the effect yourself. That's the real way to create this type of effect. Then, afterward, you can add those elements into the effect if you wish. Creating the proper effect through ombient lighting can be a very tough thing to pull off. It takes an amount of noodling and a keen eye to stumble onto the right combination of effects.
My 2nd example image here shows a much more 'white' effect than the original cue ball image. But it's still an off-white, so that's ok. After you've created the effect you can colourize it anyway you wish. Mine also appears to have a much higher gloss index than the original cue ball. Whcih makes its effect slightly more "pearl-like" than cue ballish.
Two things come to mind that can effect this type of illusion; 1) how thick/dense the protective coating on the ball is (if it has one), and whether it's coloured or not, and 2) the gloss index, density, and colour of the solid material the ball is made from. These factors however are way too complex to try and figure into the effect using Photoshop, so we're best off just winging it with our eyes and trying to simulate a specific 'look' that way. Usually through trial and error unfortunately.
A quick note on reflections within a spherical shape... they're not always convex. Convex reflections are based usually on surface reflections; hence the reflection is the same 'shape' as the surface of the sphere (such as a hollow glass ball). Reflections can also be convex (such as a solid glass ball), which is what the reflection in the cue ball is. Look closely and you'll see this to be true. The guy and scenery bend away in the middle, and project forward only at the outer edges. This is a very sneaky effect to pull off in PS. But it can be done to some degree. You'll need to use your imagination though -- HINT: it involves 2 filters, not 1.
The next thing to take note of is that the reflection in this particular ball contains a small bit of colour. But the actual subject is a sillouette (probably due to backlighting from the window; seen in the reflection). So if you have any objects in your reflection that are nearer the ball than the light source in the reflection, use black and paint over them in the reflection photo (or on a new layer above the photo). In my images, i have a girl and boy closeup to the ball, so i painted them black... entirely black.
Whatever the exact reason for the sillouette effect is it's not really important. But it's a good thing to take note of when trying to create this effect, effectively.
Here's how to simulate the convex/concave reflection effect:
1) Find a suitable source photo for the reflection. Although it's been mentioned here (and a lot of other places) to use a specific type of photo, such as a room of some sort, with windows and such in it, that's not entirely the right way to go about it. Your choice of photo should be based solely on the environment the object will be placed in. That would be the appropriate way to choose your reflection photo; to create a more believeable effect. Although in some cases, this being one of them, there is no specific type of reflection photo needed. So it's your choice.
Open your reflection photo and scale it down to be slightly larger than the size of your sphere/ball. Then drag the photo into your working document and place its layer above the sphere layer. Position it to so it's centered over the ball. Here now is the stage where you'd paint with black over any objects that are closer to the eye than the source lighting in the reflection. (this was talked about previously, above)
2) Select your ball shape, feather the selection by 2 pixels, then on the photo layer, apply the Pinch filter to your photo, @ at a setting of 50%. After that, contract the selection by 6 to 8 pixels (dependant on the size of your ball/overall image. My example ball is just over 100px.), Inverse the selection, Feather it by say 3-5 pixels, and apply the Twirl filter @ +250. Deselect. (you thought i was gonna say Spherize didn't you?!) Now apply the "Blur More" filter once.
If the blurring causes the photo to bleed outside the edges of the ball, just select the ball shape again, Inverse the selection and press Delete. Then Deselect.
And last, change the blend mode to "Color Burn" and reduce the Opacity to 15%.
And at this stage you should now have a decent illusion of a good reflection. There are a few things that i might do to tweak things up a bit, if they should require it. But generally things should be fairly stable now. Every photo requires its own special attention to details. So my advice would be to make it easy on yourself by choosing a photo that has a couple specific characteristics to it: 1) good lighting in the upper half of the photo, and 2) some kind of objects in the foreground that you can silouette; whether they be people, buildings, or smaller objects. This kind of photo will require the least amount of reworking.
Well i hope this is enough to get you on your way. It would appear i've actually talked an awful lot here huh? hehe Oh well, sometimes i can't help myself. 
Perhaps i'll find the time to post an actual tutorial for this on my own board. Perhaps soon.
Any specific questions feel free to ask.
Geezus! I wrote a friggin book! hahaha DOH! 
(Edited by theGuest on 08-04-2004 12:18)
posted 08-03-2004 11:33
