Photoshop Space and Planet Scene
I think that all of us have been amazed by magnificent images of open space. In this tutorial you will learn how to create such pictures.
Step 1
First we’re going to light the stars. Create a new document and fill it with black. I’ve set the dimensions to 1600×1200 so it can be used as a wallpaper in future. Duplicate this layer.
Go to Filter - Noise - Add Noise. Set Amount to 10%, distribution to Gaussian and check Monochromatic.
Step 2
Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast and set Brightness -30 and Contrast 75. Now the noise begins to remind stars.
Step 3
Now we are adding some large stars. Duplicate the stars layer, set its Brightness -100 and Contrast 50.
Step 4
Press Ctrl+T and make layer with large stars about two times bigger. Hold Shift to transform layer proportionally.
Press Ctrl+L to call Levels window. Input the values like on the picture below to increase the contrast.
Step 5
Change layer blending mode to Screen. To avoid echo effect, press Ctrl+T and rotate layer for 90 degrees (hold Shift while rotating to get the right angle).
Step 6
Take soft round eraser with diameter about 20-30 px and begin to erase our stars on both layers. Try to create different strokes in all directions to make the star distribution look natural. Remember that there must be more black space than the space with stars and more little stars than large.
Step 7
Create some stellar fields with Clone Stamp tool (use the brush with soft edges). You must decide yourself how to place star clouds and empty spaces. Just use your imagination.
Step 8
Add glow to the star clouds. Duplicate the layer with large stars. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with radius about 10 px and change layer blending mode to Linear Dodge.
Press Ctrl+U and colorize star glow (I set hue to 230). You can repeat this step several times to make starlight more expressive.
Step 9
Now we are creating some details: huge stars, star dust and multicolored nebula.
Create new layer with Blending mode set to Linear Dodge and fill it with black. Go to Filter - Render - Lens Flare.
I used 35 mm prime. You can transform, colorize and duplicate this layer to create several different huge stars. Use a little different color for each star, it will bring some diversity (the easiest way to do it is to press Ctrl+U and change Hue).
Step 10
Create new layer for star dust. Set layer opacity to 25% and blending mode to Screen. Take any brush with soft edges and configure it to add texture. I used Confetti texture, it is one of the standard Photoshop textures.
Paint some star dust with blue color.
Step 11
Create new layer, take soft round brush and paint a cloud like this. It’s quite easy: first paint the blue base, then red field, then yellow and white. Use Filter - Blur - Gaussian blur with radius 50 px.
Step 12
Create new black layer and use Filter - Render - Clouds. Change layer blending mode to Overlay. Duplicate the layer with clouds.
Step 13
Select the layer with nebula and change its opacity to 55%, layer blending mode Screen. Find the best place for your nebula and move it there.
Step 14
We’ve finished with sky. Now let’s create a planet.
Find rock texture for your future planet. I used this one from SXC.
Step 15
Increase canvas size to make it square. Use Clone Stamp tool to fill the empty space with texture. Also remove too dark spots with the same tool.
Edit - Define Pattern to create a pattern from our picture.
Step 16
Create a new document 1600×1600. Make round selection with Elliptical Marquee Tool (hold Shift to make a circle) and fill it with our pattern.
Step 17
Do not reset selection. Go to Filter - Distort - Spherize with Amount set to 100%. Press Ctrl+F to repeat this filter.
Step 18
Duplicate the layer with planet and fill the circle with pale blue. It will be the atmosphere of the planet. You can use green or any other color. I am creating a blue planet, so it will be #455571.
Step 19
Duplicate this layer and fill it with black. It will be planet shadow. Select the layer with atmosphere, double click on it to call Layer Style window. Apply the following style changes:
Step 20
Place the layer with shadow above the atmosphere. Apply 75 px Gaussian blur (Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur).
Step 21
Press Ctrl+T and transform the shadow: increase its size and move slightly to upper left corner. I chose this position of shadow because I am going to place the planet in the upper left corner of picture, and the light is going from the biggest star in the center of it.
Step 22
Select the layer with atmosphere and set its blending mode to Screen, so we will see the surface of the planet. I don’t like the brightness and contrast of it at this moment, so I reduced layer opacity to 33%.
Then I duplicated the layer with surface and set layer blending mode to Soft Light. Also I changed the opacity of shadow to 90%.
Step 23
Make the background layer invisible by clicking on the eye that indicates visibility in the Layers palette. Shift+Ctrl+E to merge visible layers. Now copy the planet and place it at the corner of the document with space. I applied some additional glow to the planet.
Final
That’s all. Thank you for reading.
good one m8… simple and clean….
thanQ
Wooow! This is what I was waiting for on Tutzor. You didn’t show us many tutorials but this one is really great. The end result is amazing, I’m definately gonna try it out when I’m free.
Hope you’re gonna increase the amount of tutorials
Greetings,
LBrother
wow nice work
Nicely done! good results too! especially the planet & the nebula. Will have to give this a try
Is it possible to include your PSD file here? I cant seem to follow quite well to your tutorial.
Nice end result, but I really can’t follow your steps. From step 7, you’re really not clear about what to do. You say you do a 10px blur, but then all my stars are blurred away. Also i can’t make sense of what you’re doing with your Clone tool…
But, i surely like your result and I would love to make one too, but I just can’t follow it.
Thanks for the comments
Xen, PSD is included, there’s download link at the top ot the page.
psguy,. maybe you forgot to change layer blending mode to Linear Dodge and the black color of the blurred layer remains opaque.
Clone stamp tool is used to increase the density of star field in some areas. The distribution of stars generated with Noise filter is quite uniform, so I used Clone Stamp to make it more diverse.
Please ask if there’s some additional questions
The tutorial PSD can be downloaded at the top of this tutorial - download PSD file
nice tutorial… i only noticed that my planet wasn’t as “smooth” as yours… :S
Thx for the respons,
I will try again. If I still get stuck, I’ll let you know.
Btw, sorry if you can’t understand me, I’m from Holland.
Wow! This one’s awesome. Very realistic end result.
Very slick tutorial. Nice use of default PS filters … well done.
Very good tutorial. I like it .
Hi. This is a really nice tutorial, but after I use the noise filter and I adjust the contrast/brightness and hit okay, it just goes back to the noise filter results. Any ideas?
Your tutorial was hard to follow. In your comment to other you have a layer changed to liner dodge, that was not in the tutorial.
the idea was good though.
I did as u said and as other tutorials have said but ,when i go to brightness contrast i get nice stars until i press ok and everything resets.. :S
realy gre8 ,, but some problem in making planet,,
brightness contrast is not working with 32 bit depth..?
Figuring out how to get the stars to look right was the hardest part, but I got it after a while. Lovely tutorial, here’s what I did: http://madamkatarra.deviantart.com/art/Universe-Snapshot-106268224
Very cool tutorial! Just love it. Here is my result.
http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=amenitiesofspaceoz0.jpg
Is this for CS3 also?
Either it isn’t, or I’m doing something terrebly wrong. Because my attempt fails at the big stars, my screen is all-black when i follow the tutorial-steps?
I’m having the exact same problem as Stijn Koppers, my screen turns black too, and I’m using CS3 as well.
I agree that the tutorial is not easy to follow. I got to step 8 and that was it. You don’t specify what tools to choose sometimes.
Perhaps it’s the version of Photoshop you’re using, I don’t know, but at step eight when I click control+u I get no colorize options I get the hue and satuation palette and can set nothing above 180.
Couldn’t colorize. That was after skipping over resizing layer two because it didn’t work in my version the way it seems to in yours.
All said though, I thank you for the free tutorial.
I agree that towards the end the steps got a bit vague, especially with the planet creation (probbably not a problem for those familliar with photoshop but ive only been at it for 3 days)
Anyway, this is my first attempt;
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v602/Nymphelyn/StarsandPlanet1copy.jpg
Awesome tutorial, took me a little bit to figure it out, the stars gave me the most trouble, with rendering the Noise, that could have been a little bit more clear, but other than that it worked fine!
Thanks for the Tutorial, I’ve learn a LOT.
Cheers!
-Rebecca
Hi,
think this is a great tutorial.
but i’m doing it on CS3 and it does not work right.
thanks
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thanks for this great tutorial.it is the best i ever seen.thanks again. keep going bro
wow! beautiful n easy steps tutorial..I will surely try!
buddy moss with the stars it goes to step9
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WOW. It looks so amazing. It took me a few hours because I set there and messed with it until I liked it and it turned out great. Yes I do agree with the brightness contrast ordeal but the rest of the tutorial was easy to me. Then again I am good at this stuff anyways. lol Thanks man.
@Mike - No. All photoshops are set up the same. Once you hit control + U, you then check the “colorize” check box in the lower left hand corner. There you can set it past 180.
Great tutorial.
But adding glow to the stars I find imposible.
Is it every layer or just the “large stars” layer?
And when I add the blur the blur is very, very unclear. and when it is that unclear you can’t colorize it. (You can a little, but that’s all)
Actual the part were you create big stars doesn’t work in the new Photoshop CS4 version.
When you do that the stars disapairs.