Hi!
You must have noticed that I’m very eclectic, so I decided to make a planet today. Like Titan, creating a planet by zero. All you need is Photoshop, some cool brushes, a lot of imagination and much free time.
At first let’s take the essential: Brushes. I really liked Deviantart.com, searched them there. But you can use moon pictures or anything else that could be used like a planet. Another day was seeing tutorials of Adobe After Effects, and saw that guy create a planet using a plug-in that transforms things in spheres and a picture 2 by 1 that looks like textures of something like a desert. Use your imagination.
It’s important that it have no shadows, for we could not stay bound by something that already exists and we can create our own galactic ambient. The image that I want to do today is this:
At first let’s make the stars. Create a new Photoshop file. As always I’m using a 1280 x 800 pixels file. Press “Shift+F5” to open the Fill window and fill the screen with the black color. Then go to Filters> Noise> Add Noise.
Done this hit “Ctrl+L” to adjust the Levels of the image, like this:
It looks better. Let’s resize the image to take the points a little bigger and more spaced. This should work well:
To make our outer space don’t look so virtual we can use some adjusts of the Brush Tool to create the stars that are next, and, for that, largest. I’m creating an ice planet, but you can do one like “Crematoria”, of Ridick’s movie, or the Earth.
To make this stars use a small radius and flickering of size, with some fade in the edges:
Second Step
The distant space, especially where the sunlight is not enough to be hot enough to heat this frozen planet, has clouds of ice and dust, which takes a very different spectral aspect, don’t letting it be a static image.
Choose a pattern of blue to take in the place of white in the sample palette, let the black as it is. Then create a cloud, going in Filters> Render> Clouds. Done this, bring down the opacity of this layer to 9%. Repeat the proceeding some times in different layers, erasing some parts to take more emphasis in others, creating this dust clouds.
You can also change the tonality (with Hue/Saturation, “Ctrl+U”) and the opacity of the layers to make different things, but as we gonna play with glow more forward it’s important that you don’t change the Blend Mode. For organizational questions you can make a group with these layers as “Background”.
It’s time to play God and make a planet. Load the brush that you acquired and paint in a new layer with white, then hit “Ctrl+R”. Will appear rules at right and top of the screen. This is a really useful tool, principally when you work with circular objects. Hit “V” to select the Move Tool, now pull of the rule for the edge of the planet you created, making this cross:
Now select the Elliptical Selection Tool (M) and, parting of the point where the cross of the lines is and pressing “Shift”, create the selection around the planet. Next step is create a new layer below this and paint, inside the selection, in a pattern of gray that eliminate the transparency and maintain the details.
After this select the planet layer and hit “Ctrl+E” to mix it with the layer below. Use Hue/Saturation to colorize it. I choose a blue tone, but it could be red, orange, green or pink. Now should be like this:
All the planets have an atmosphere, and this one is not different. To make it, create a new layer, below Benézio's layer, which is how I resolved to call my planet. With the “Ctrl” key pressed do a click in the Benézio’s layer, this creates a circular selection. Now get the Brush Tool in the color palette pick a color that should have the same pattern of the planet (in this case, bluish), but more lighten and strong and, as you painted the gray layer, which doesn’t exists anymore, paint the selected area and hit “Ctrl+D” to disable the selection.
Filters> Blur> Gaussian Blur is the next window you should open. A 28 pixels radius should work well. To finish the atmosphere just bring down the opacity for 43%. Your image should look like this one:
Ok, we already have the DOS of a planet, but it’s a bit opaque, so let’s play with the Blending Modes and make it shine. You can do almost everything without having to make much effort, only changing the Blending Mode.
At first do two copies of Benézio’s layer and put them above it. The first, next the matrix, must have the Blend Mode changed to “Screen”. The second must have to be changed to “Overlay”. So we have, now, an aspect more live and brilliant:
Sixth Step
We haven’t finished the planet, but we’re close to that. Let’s make the shadow now. Normally the shadow consists in the absence of light in one side of the planet, but, I don’t know if you noticed, my planet is bathed by the lights of two suns. So my shadow is different.
With “Ctrl” pressed do a click on the Benézio’s layer, this, as you know, creates a selection with the planet shape. Now just use the Brush and Erase Tools with different stumps, softness and opacities to make a shadow that you like.
Seventh Step
As there is a sun that is most present in the right side of the screen, I resolved to put an intense brightness. To do that, select in the color palette, in the black’s place, a lighten color, strong and in the pattern of the color that you choose for the planet. The white must be the same. Now, in a new layer, go to Filters> Render> Clouds. Bring down the opacity and, with the Erase Tool, erase what is around the planet, not as much perfect is possible, but to don’t use too much space. Then bring the opacity down to something like 65% and change the Blend Mode to “Color Dodge”.
Duplicate the layer you has just finished and erase more than before around the planet, but, the difference is that here you erase the shadows parts too, inside, giving more emphasis to the brilliant parts. This new layer must have an opacity like 80%.
One more time, to organizational questions you can make a group with the layers of the planet. This will help a bit now that we gonna do other things below Benézio’s group.
Eight Step
Between the “Background” and “Benézio’s” groups I created a new one, which will have a mass of dust and stars that will be like a Milky Way across the image. This breaks the monotony of the image
Did you remember the process to create clouds in which you choose the color and everything else? Do it again. One time with a bluish color and other with a brownish color. The bluish layer must have some parts erased to make this flow of dust and ice. Next thing is change the Blend Mode to “Color Dodge” and bring down the opacity to something like 65%. This layer must be above of the brownish layer.
The brown layer should have some parts erased too, but this should work as a complement to the blue layer. After you must bring down the opacity to 8% and change the Blend Mode to “Hard Mix”. I put, between these two layers, some stars and more dust, all in white. Without changing the opacities or Blending Modes, the clouds should look like this:
Of course that the space is a tridimensional ambient where a sphere, in this case a planet, is inserted and, therefore is it dust in front of it, and not only in it back, as there is until now.
Create a new layer above all the others. It will be another dust layer, created as everyone else, with a bluish color. Use the Brush Tool, with the white color selected and low flow, to do a line where is our Milky Way, inducing the effect will be created next to focalize this area. Duplicate this layer and let the copy invisible for now. To finish it, bring down the opacity to 20% and change the Blend Mode to “Color Dodge”. The duplicated layer must have erased the part referent to the planet and the Blend Mode changed to “Soft Light”. To finish this step just put this together in a new group.
You must be questioning yourself, where is the moon? What I have to say is her time now. The moon breaks the symmetry of the perfect sphere that is the planet. She can be replaced by rings or a sun maybe. It’s also possible do more than one moon; it depends of your imagination, or lack of it.
To make the moon, create a new layer below of the planet and select the brush that you want. Then do the same process of eliminating transparency which was used in the Benézio’s layer.
Indeed, all the process of create the moon is very similar of the planet creation: “Ctrl+Click” to create the selection, create a new layer above it to make the shadow and duplicate the moon layer to use Gaussian blur on it, creating the glow of the sunlight reflex. The moon layer is with his 100% of opacity, different than the sunlight reflex which is with 38% and the shadow (90%).
The moon must be under the Milky Way group, but above the first spacial dust group.
Below I put a simplified diagram of the layers that compose my final file.
I never liked images that end abruptly in the edges, so I like to put this kind of gradient around the image. As for outer space, if you work more time on it, it will be more perfect, equally to the planet and its moon.
And talking about planet and moon, it’s possible, parting of an elliptical selection and clouds, create it. Then you just need to add craters or continents. The use of the “Clouds” Filter as fulfillment is interesting, example, in the creation of sunspot, or differences in density in the mass of the circulating rings around the planets. As I say, depends of your imagination.
That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed.
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