In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial you will see how to make this great dark orb with a glossy effect.

1.
Make a 50 percent gray background layer, then in an empty layer make a elliptical selection, and fill it with white color.

2.
Double click the shape layer to get to the layers style panel and give it settings as shown in the image below.

3.
Hold down ctrl and click the elliptical shape layer to load the selection, then make a new layer above it and name it reflection.
With the elliptrical selection tool and selection mode subtract from selection drag accross the selection as shown below.

4.
Now go to select -> contract and contract the selection about 15 px.
Make a gradient going from white to transparent, drag it in the selection, then go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur and blur the reflection about 20, and bring the reflection layers opacity down to about 50 percent.

5.
Now do the same procudure as in step 3 to make a selection of the inside part of the shape in a new layer so the selection would look like in the image below.
Make a gradient going from white to transparent, drag it from top to bottom, and place the layer between the shape and the other reflection layer.

6.
Bring down the new layers opacity to about 40 percent.

7.
Now between the shape layer and the reflection layer, you can create the content of the orb, I choose a four-leaf from the custom shapes in photoshop.

8.
Make a copy of the four-leaf shape, and place it under the other four-leaf layer, name it glow.
Now with the glow layer selected, go to filter -> stylize -> wind and give it settings as shown below

9.
Repeat the wind effect one more time, then go to the wind effect again and do it 2 more times just change the directions to right insted of left.
Now go to image -> adjustments -> hue and saturations and change the color of the glow to a red color with high saturation.

10.
In the layers panel bring down the opacity of the first four-leaf shape layer to about 40 percent.

11.
Finally select the background layer and go to filter -> render -> lightning effect and set it as shown below.

And you are done.