Creating a sphere in Photoshop

I've been attending a meeting in LA over the weekend and was unable to add any new posts. Just before I left I created this image of New York while waiting for my ride to the airport. Last time I posted one of these sphere photos I was asked how I created the sphere in Photoshop so I'm including the steps on this one. I do make some variations on them, but this is generally how it's done.

Step1: Make a circular selection over the area of the bottom image you want to include as a reflection in the sphere, and create a new layer with this selection.

Step 2: Move the sphere to where you want it to be and re-select the sphere by placing your cursor over the image in the layer and use the menu to "select pixels".  Use the "Filter>Distort>Spherize" command to create a sphere with this selected image. Just use the default Spherize settings for this.

Step 3: Do another re-select of the sphere circle as above; create a new layer with it: and fill the selection with black. Use the "Filter>Render>Clouds" command to fill it with random clouds. Now perform a Gaussian blur on these clouds to make them softer to taste. Use the "Filter>Distort>Sphereze" command on this, then change its layer mode to "Screen". (I sometimes us a photo of real smoke for this layer.)

Step 4: This is a step that I sometimes skip. Do the same re-select of the circle, create a new layer, and fill the circular selection with 50% gray. Create a small circular selection within this circle of gray in the spot where you may want a highlight. Mine is in the upper left of the sphere. Blur this circle with a Gaussian blur and change the layer mode to "Hard Light".

The intensity of any of these layers can be controlled to taste by adjusting the opacity of the layer.

This is how the hot spot in step 4 looks before the layer is converted to  "Hard Light".