I started working on this image in Bryce and couldnt get it to look the way I wanted, so I switched to photoshop and this is result... but I'm still not sure which direction I should go.. any suggestions, criticism is welcome.

Fantastic image as it stands,,,what parts were PhotoShop®ed....that fractal stuff is mindblowing.. ...

I think the border between the ball and the nebulae is a bit pronounced. You might try it with taking the black ring out, and softening the edges slightly (? I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about..;)

Wow, that fractal is phenominal. Did it render in the rainbow layers or did you build it this way? Either way....AWESOME.

Since the blue orb is centered, this becomes the main focal point, then the viewers eye travels around to explore the cool looking fractal always returning to the orb. The fractal ends abruptly all around the outside edges, trapping the veiwer in the scene and creating an anticipation of waiting for the pay off.

Great start!! So much you can do with this.

• darkening the outside edges to create a feeling of approach
• using a donut shape darkened area to create a view of a  water drop from the top effect
• an over lay of 2D or 3D imagery for the orb.
• re-use this image as a texture for something rendered in Bryce

Possibilites are endless.
Great stuff!

Thanks for the kinds word and the suggestions which I will try and apply to this image.

How the image evolved in chorological order.  I've seen people create fantastic images with Apophysis, so I thought to give it a try, but I just couldn’t get the effect that you see in the above image.  Than I remembered some great freebies that I got way back when I purchased a 3D Video card, the freebie was a plug-in for Photoshop called FraxFlame part of the KPT Tools set by MetaCreations. :)

Anyways, I played around in FraxFlame to get the desired look.  I than rendered the fractals in a separate transparent layer.

At this point, I wanted some kind of Reflective Sphere or Black Hole effect with the surrounding fractals reflected on the sphere.  So I loaded Bryce 6.1 and very quickly realized there is no Background Image feature, this is something I used to love using with "Simply 3D" by Micrografx anyway, so I created a 2D Picture Object via Michael Angelo, and loaded the fractal image with shadows etc.. turned off.. using Parametric.  I pointed the object at the camera and tried to scale to fit the screen, but ran into some difficulty because the original image is 2048x1536.

I created a sphere and played with reflective settings, but since the Fractal is a 2D Object, it didn’t reflect against the sphere like I wanted, instead You get the edges of the sphere reflecting the 2D Fractal and the rest of the sphere showing the sun and clouds.  Playing around with a clear sky etc.. didn’t help much either.  I tried creating another 2D Object with the fractal applied and placing behind the camera, didn’t give me the desired effect either.

At this point I went back to Photoshop and  created the blue sphere comprised of 4 layers with gradient fills and Gaussian blur effects to get the effect that you see.

I will take all  you're suggestions and work with the image and see what I can come up with.

I needed a break from the March Challenge Image :)

Maybe I haven't quite got the message here, but that blue sphere is crying out of somekind of etherial face........

Thanx for the explanation...unfortunately Kai is a bad word around here so I guess I'll not be able to do that any time soon in PhotoShop®.....sigh.. ...

Quote - Thanx for the explanation...unfortunately Kai is a bad word around here so I guess I'll not be able to do that any time soon in PhotoShop®.....sigh.. ...

Actually any Photoshop Plug-ins seems to be a bad work for anyone who does serious Photoshop work.

If I knew how to use Apophysis properly I would do in that... has finer controls.

*"Actually any Photoshop Plug-ins seems to be a bad work for anyone who does serious Photoshop work."

*Truth be known, I use plug ins to good effect almost constantly in PS, it's just Kai and his screwed up GUIs that drive me nuts.....it's a freakin plug in, why couldn't he have followed the conventions everyone else on PlanetPhotoShop uses...LOL...just a personal pique with his stuff I guess.. ...

Quote - Truth be known, I use plug ins to good effect almost constantly in PS, it's just Kai and his screwed up GUIs that drive me nuts.....it's a freakin plug in, why couldn't he have followed the conventions everyone else on PlanetPhotoShop uses...LOL...just a personal pique with his stuff I guess.. ...

Pheeeeeeeeew!!!! :)  Its a bit hard to tell the direction of post sometimes with just text..

I like using Plug-Ins to help me to get results that otherwise I wouldnt be able to do.  I've been chastised on other websites for using plugins in Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. 

What is funny is, Kai's Gui was interesting at that time, remember Metacreations created both Kai tools and Bryce :)

getting back to the Image.

I'm going to try all the suggestions given here... as well... I'm going to attempt to Render a Sphere in Bryce and use Masking technique to bring the sphere into Photoshop and try some simulated reflections etc..

I'm Scared of the terms Masking and Alpha Channels two Pro Techniques that I just seem to get my head around.

(grin) once you've successfully used them and get used to the procedure, you'll be a junkie like the rest of us...... ;)

PS cafe .......

Nice :)

there's a weird pug in, no longer made, called "Genesis", can do amazing stuff, did a page on it years ago...
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/artofadreamer/htm/genesis.htm

I think the blue spherey thing at bottom would rock in your image? :)

silverblade that is a nice plugin.. you can make pretty neat scenes of its own.

Ok here is a rough edit of v2 using standard photoshop filters.  needs to be polished up.

Yeah it is nice :)
alas, they stopped supporting/making it, gah!

Oh! that looks like a 3d rendered globe, kewl! :)

Quote -
Oh! that looks like a 3d rendered globe, kewl! :)

I kept the reflective layers from the Blue Sphere which gave it that 3D look, and than created the flame/fire looking thing.

I've got a few other sphere ideas, which I will render within Bryce and see how they turn out.

Yep, like that orb in nebula Bryce/PS composition. You did a real good job with the Fraxflame plug-in. I actually went out and bought that plug-in set when it first came out. I also have Genesis…another great plug-in. Don't listen too much to the purists. You have them behind every imaging software package in existence. Granted it's nice to be able to master the program to the point where you didn't need a plug-in to attain a certain effect and it doesn't hurt to experiment doing so but if you listen to the purists you'll spend the rest of eternity experimenting with your imaging editor with little or no time actually using and being productive with it. Plug-ins are like everything else in graphics just another tool in your imaging arsenal.

I was thinking what-if you make the nebula actually being emitted and spewing from the orb…how would that look? Apophysis is another great program. Using Apophysis you can get some interesting results, here's two I thought were interesting which I did using Apophysis some time ago.

Quest

Quote - .....it's nice to be able to master the program to the point where you didn't need a plug-in to attain a certain effect and it doesn't hurt to experiment doing so but if you listen to the purists you'll spend the rest of eternity experimenting with your imaging editor with little or no time actually using and being productive with it. Plug-ins are like everything else in graphics just another tool in your imaging arsenal.

I agree, And I think the end product is more important than how one gets there.

Back to the topic...
To me, the orb looks too hard to have a different design. I would like to see perhaps a crystal rendered containing a refracted background.
If you keep the orb with the current design, then I think it might work softer, blending more with the background.