You can always group the individual sections together so it looks like the full object. When using a gel image, try using a parallel light and it will not distort the image, and make sure the use an alpha mask for transparency so you won't have the extra light. A method that I found that worked was to import the picture onto the sphere with blend transparency on, and the open of the edit texture palette in the materials lab and resize along the x and y axis until it is in the right position. As a hint, pretend the zero values are the same as 100%, so, for example, if you wanted to make it half as wide, you would input 50% in the x value for scale. Then simply drag transparency to around 20% for that semi-transparent look. Sorry for not giving you screen captures, but for some reason it won't let me do it. Hope this helps!