Pro Planet Tutorial

[MartinBabies]

Today I felt to write a new tutorial. I have just mastered this technique (which I learned myself), and I would like to
share it with you. I think it's almost hard not to get a good result using this technique!
This tutorial is written so that also beginners would understand it, don't get offended if you're an advanced photoshopper.
In this tutorial, you will learn about keyboard shortcuts, layers, layer masks, textures and how to browse DeviantART for resources.

Ok folks, this is a small part from a space scene I am building for the moment. The full size of the whole scene will be 1024x2250.


The tutorial's planet may not be as good as this one if you don't follow the advanced steps in the last part of the tutorial.

I guess you all want to try to make that. Well, shall we?

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~Pro Planet Tutorial~



Step 1: The shape and size

Open up a new document in Photoshop.
Document size doesn't matter, as you can do planets with a size of 999995x999995 if you would like, but I will use the size 500x500 px here.

Make the background black. (Press D to restore the default colours, then press [B]A20colour. Then press Alt+Backspace again to fill it with white.)
If you want you can deselect the layer by pressing CTRL+D.

It should look similar to this:
http://img286.echo.cx/img286/2449/010ri.jpg


Step 2: Adding textures

Let's find some nice textures! If you want, you can create your own, but I won't do that here.
Go to DeviantART and press the button called "Browse", then add these browser settings:
Category: Resources
Subcategory: Textures > Miscellaneous
Display Mode: Thumbnais; 24 per page (you can choose something else here to make the page load a little faster)
Submitted: Any Time; Top Favourites
Then click "Apply Browse Settings".

Alot textures will now appear. The first one is the most popular on whole DeviantART, the second is the second most popular, and so on, but that's not important to us. We need textures that fits the planet theme.
I will use this texture: Temple of everlasting light by `thespook

Once you have found a texture that you like, drag it into Photoshop.
It will open a new document, so select all (press CTRL+A or go via Select > All), then copy (press CTRL+C or go via Editk similar to this:
http://img265.echo.cx/img265/7990/042am.jpg


Step 3: Shadows and lights

It's time to make this look like a planet.
Create a new layer, name it "Shading".
Select the Base layer again (CTRL+click on the layer in the Layer window). Do not click on the layer without holding down CTRL.
Select the marquee tool and move the selection down a bit. You can also try to move it down, and then a bit to the left or right. Sometimes it looks better, and I will do that now.
Now fill it with black and then deselect the layer (CTRL+D.
Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. The ratio depends on the size of your planet. For this one I used 28,6. Your shadow will be smaller, so make it bigger by transforming it. (Press CTRL+T or go via Edit > Free Transform.)
The Alt+Shift technique works here to.

It should look similar to this:
http://img266.echo.cx/img266/3978/050fm.jpg

Time for some glow around the planet.
Open up the Bledning options for the Base layer. (Double click on the layer in the Layer window or right click > Blending Options.)
Add the following settings:

Outer Glow
Opacity: 50%
Colour: Something that fits the planets colours
Spread: 0%
Size: Around 20%

It should look similar to this:
http://img268.echo.cx/img268/21817s canvas won't be colorized, so it's acutally not nessecary in this tutorial.

It should look similar to this:
http://img261.echo.cx/img261/4599/088sb.jpg
Of course your planet can have other colours than mine.

There, you're done!



Advanced steps

Please note that these are the advanced steps, and I won't write all the shortcuts here. You can try this steps if you're a beginner too, but if you don't understand, try reading through the tutorial since I may have written something about it earlier, or try other tutorials that cover the things you may not understand (like blending and such).


Step 5: Adding more details

First of all, you can add another texture on your planet if you want.
I will use EX textures 06 by ~stock-feratu

Zoom in on your planet and grab the lasso tool.
Make a random selection like this:
http://img264.echo.cx/img264/8877/099vl.jpg

Go get a new texture and paste it into the selection using layer masks.
It's up to you how you blend it, but I used the eraser and feathered selections+Delete and Hue/Saturation.
Make a selection of the Base layer and go Filter > Distort > Sphere. If it doesn't look good with sphere, just skip it. Be sure that the layers are under the Shadow layer.

Do this a couple of times to make it look good. Try different textures and bl a standard brush, and take a nice colour (that looks realistic), like blue, and brush over the stars.
Lower the opacity for better results. You could also try to multicolour the background.

It should look similar to this:
http://img286.echo.cx/img286/9038/125bb.jpg

You could also add some nebula-looking stuff. Just brush in some colours and lower the opacity.
If you want to add some extra spice to it, use some pictures of galaxies. Just google for "galaxy", drag them in, scale them down and blend them. Remember that they have to be behind the other stars since they are further away.

And... YOU'RE DONE!

This is my result:




This tutorial took me about four and a half hour to write. I hope you like it!
Feel free to post your results in this thread, beginners and beyond!