Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to easily create
a vast, star field amid interstellar clouds of galaxies and faraway constellations.
Create a new document by pressing Ctrl + N or Windows or Cmd + N on a Mac.
Make the Width: 1550 pixels, the Height: 870 pixels and the Resolution: 150 pixels per inch. Then, click
OK or press Enter or Return.
If your foreground and background colors aren't black and white respectively,
press "D" on your keyboard or click this icon.
We'll fill the background with the foreground color
color by pressing Alt + Delete on Windows or Option + Delete on a Mac.
Go to Filter, Noise and Add Noise.
Make the Amount: 400%, Gaussian and Monochromatic. Then, click OK
or press Enter or Return.
Make a copy of the layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Click off the eyeball to hide the layer and click on the thumbnail of the background to make it active.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 0.5 pixels and click OK or press Enter or Return.
We'll adjust its Levels by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + L.
For the Input black, type in 200 and for the Input
Midtones, type in .42.
Make the top layer visible
and active. Go back to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur and this time, blur it 2 pixels. Open
Levels again, and this time, in the Input Black field, type in 170 and for in the Input
White field, type in 172.
There are less stars, but they're a bit larger now. We need to blur
them slightly to make them a bit soft, so back to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 1 pixel. Next, we'll give them a slight outer glow. Open the Channels panel. If you
don't see it, go to Window and Channels. Click the small, circular icon at the bottom to
make a selection of all the stars and then open back up your Layers panel. We can trash
the layer of the larger stars, since we now have a selection of their shapes. Click the
New Layer icon to make a new layer. In this layer, we'll fill the selection of the large
stars with white. Since white is the background color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
Keep in mind, it may be difficult to see that the selection is now filled with white due to
the size of the stars. To deselect it, press Ctrl or Cmd + D. Double-click the large stars
to open its Layer Styles. Click Outer Glow and click the color box.
Pick white and click OK.
Change the Blend Mode to Normal and increase the Size to 10 pixels. Then, click OK.
As I toggle back and forth, you can see the difference with and without the large glowing stars.
It’ll even make more of a difference, once we add color later. Let's merge the layers
by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + E.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer and press Alt
or Option + Delete to fill it with black, which is the foreground color. Go to Filter,
Render and Clouds.
Change its Blend Mode to Color Dodge and we'll make a new layer under
the active layer by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking on the New Layer icon. In this layer, we'll
brush in colors. Click the foreground color to open the Color Picker. Pick a rich blue.
Its hexadecimal value is 0018FF. Then, click OK. size
Open your Brush Tool
and make the Size: 700 pixels, the Hardness: 0% and the Opacity: 10%. Then, press Enter or Return. Press the
F5 key at the top of your keyboard to open your Brush preset panel. Make sure none of
the settings are checked except Smoothing. Press F5 again to close the panel. Now,
gently brush over wide areas of your image. To reduce the size of your brush, press the
left bracket key.
Let's add another color. Click on your foreground color again and this
To increase time pick a brighter color. I'll pick an aqua. Its value is 00FFEA.
To increase your brush size, press the right bracket key.
Continue to brush over your star field to simulate gases, constellations, nebulas and other formations.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur. Blur it approximately 80 pixels.
I find that blurring
the colors softens it and makes it look more ethereal. Let's add another color. I'm picking
6000FF.
I'lll increase the size.
I'll add one more color.
This time, I'll choose a warm, rich yellow. FFD200.
I’ll brush over an area that already has a lot of color to increase the density of its formations.
Next, we'll add a celestial sphere.
Open the rock texture file I provided.
Open your Elliptical
Marquee Tool and go to a corner of the document. Hold down Shift as you drag a circular selection
to the opposite corner. Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut and copy it onto its own layer.
Go to Filter, Distort and Spherize. The Amount is 100%. Click OK or press Enter or Return.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + F to repeat the filter.
To place it onto your star document, press
"V" to open your Move Tool and drag it up onto the tab of the star file. Without releasing
your cursor, drag it down onto the image and release.
If its not on the top, just drag it up.
To resize it, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to a corner
and when you see a diagonal, double-arrow, hold down Shift + Alt on Windows or Shift
+ Option on a Mac as you drag it in or out. To reposition it, go inside the Transform
and move it. Then, press Enter or Return.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click on the thumbnail of the sphere to make a selection of its shape.
We'll fill the selection with black. To do this, press "D" on your keyboard to make the
foreground and background colors default to black and white and then press Alt or Option
+ Delete to fill it with the foreground color. Click the Layer mask icon to make a layer
mask of the selection next to the active layer.
Click off the chain link to unlock the layer
mask with the layer. This will allow us to reposition or resize either one independently
of the other. Click on the black circle to make it active and drag it to a position that
shows a sliver of the sphere under it. Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 15 pixels.
I'd like to enlarge the shadow, so
I'll open my Transform Tool and enlarge it.
The shadow is a bit too dense, so I'll reduce
its opacity to 90%. Next, we'll add some glows to the sphere, itself. Make the Sphere layer
active and double-click it to open its Layer Styles. Click Outer Glow and the color box.
For the color, type in D7CAB8. Since, we''ll use the same color for its Inner Glow, copy
its value by highlighting it and pressing Ctrl or Cmd + C. Then, click OK.
The Blend Mode is Screen, the Opacity is 35% and the Size is 60 pixels. Click Inner Glow and the
color box. Press Ctrl or Cmd + V to paste the code into the field. Then, click OK or
press Enter or Return.
Change the Blend Mode to Lighten.
Make the Opacity: 40% and the
Size: 60 pixels.
The last effect will be make it look like there's a bright star just behind
the horizon of the sphere. Make a composite snapshot of your image by making the top layer
active and pressing Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E on Windows or Cmd + Shift + Option + E on a Mac.
Go to Filter, Render and Lens Flare.
The Lens Type is 35mm Prime and the Brightness is 75%.
Drag the lens flare right to the edge of the sphere and click OK.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!