This tutorial is so simple, it should be illegal. I got the ideas from 100's of other orb tuts, but found them a little long. So this is probably the shortest.

EDIT: This is meant as a base orb. Just a starting point. Messing around with it is the other half.

1. Open a new document, 100 x 100 pixels.

2. Pick the eliptical marquee tool, hold down shift, and draw a circle.

3. Create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Call it "Orb".

4. While still on the eliptical marquee tool, right click on your selection and goto "fill...". Choose color that pleases you. Should be something like this so far.



5. Now make a small selection on the top of your circle and make another layer called "Highlight". (Ctrl + Shift + N). Fill that selection white, like so.



6. Drop the opacity of "Highlight" to about 22%.

--ADDITIONAL!--

7. If you want, you can add an outer glow to your highlight to make it blend in a little more. Just goto outer glow settings, keep everything default, and change the color to white and blending mode to normal.

There you go! So simple....

My finished product:




Yay my first tut...Hope you enjoy!