Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a comet!
Create new document by pressing Ctrl + N on Windows
or Cmd + N on a Mac. Make the Width: 1550 pixels
and the Height: 870 pixels. Make the Resolution
150 pixels per inch. We'll fill it with black.
If your foreground and background colors
aren't black and white respectively, click on this
overlapping box icon or press the letter "D".
Press Alt or Opt + Delete to fill it with the foreground color.
We'll create a starfield. Go to Filter,
Noise and "Add Noise". Make the Amount
80%... Gaussian and Monochromatic.
Go back to Filter,
Blur and Gausian Blur. Make the Radius
point 3 pixels. Open your Levels window
by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + L. Make the Input black...
196 and the Input white...
216. Click on the New Layer icon
to make a new layer. Press "x" to invert the foreground and background colors.
Open your Brush Tool and make the size...
175 pixels and the Hardness...
80%. Press the F5 key at the top of your keyboard to open your Brush
Presets.
Make sure all the settings are unchecked, but "Smoothing" is OK.
Press F5 again to close the window. Go near the left edge of your document
and left-click once. Open your Smudge Tool
and make its size 200 pixels with a Hardness
of 0%. Make the Strength 100%.
Now, drag your brush straight across
and continue to do this until you have a relatively long, teardrop shape.
Go to Filter, Blur
and Radial Blur. The Amount is 100...
to Blur Method is Zoom and the Quality
is Best. Go to the middle of the crosshairs
and drag it to the left. Position the center of the crosshairs
to mirror the location of the Comet's head on the document.
Then, click OK. Double-click on the thumbnail of the comet
to open the Layer Style window. Click
Outer Glow and the color box. Type in
0 0 3 6
F F. Then, click OK. Keep the Blend Mode: "Screen"
the Opacity: 75%... the Technique: Softer
the Spread: 0... and the Size: 5 pixels.
Then, click OK. Make a copy of the layer
by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Open your Zoom Tool
by pressing "z" on your keyboard. To zoom
out, press and hold Alt on Windows
or Option on a Mac and click a few times on your document.
Open your Transform Tool
by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to the left side of the Transform
and when you see a straight, double-arrow, drag it to the right,
approximately this much. Go to
Edit, Transform and Perspective. Go to the top,
right corner of the Transform and drag it up,
approximately this much. Go to the top,
left corner and drag it down until the points
meet. Then, press Enter or Return. To fit the document
back on your screen, press Ctrl or Cmd
0. In the next few steps,
you'll see a few shapes that will extend past the comet's head.
Don't be concerned, since we'll remove them later.
However, we do want to center them on the comet.
To do this, press "v" to open your Move Tool
and press the Up or Down arrow keys on your keyboard
until it centered. So far, we've created the comet's coma,
which is the cloud of dust particles surrounding the comet's icy core
and the wide, hydrogen envelope. Next,
we'll add trails of electronically-charged gas.
Click the thumbnail of "Layer 1" to make it active
and make a copy of it. Click off the eyeball
of the Effects to hide it and change the Blend Mode
to "Dissolve". We want to retain the Dissolve effect,
but with the "Normal" blend mode in order to do the next step.
To do this, click on the New Layer icon
to make a new layer and merge this layer
with the Dissolve layer. Shift-click
on the Dissolve of layer and press Ctrl
or Cmd + E. Now, we have the Dissolve effect
with a Normal blend mode. Make a copy of this layer
and hide the copy. We'll use it later.
Make the Dissolve layer active and go to Filter,
Blur and Radial Blur.
Then, click OK.
We'll zoom it out again by opening your Zoom Tool
and zooming out.
Open your Transform Tool and as before,
drag it to the right. Go to
Edit, Transform and Perspective.
Go to the top, right corner, drag it up
and drag the top, left corner down until the points meet.
Press Enter or Return and fit it back
on your screen. Press "v" to open your Move Tool
and press the Up or Down arrow to center the effect
over your comet. We'll copy the blue,
Outer Glow Effect from Layer 1 to Layer 2
by pressing and holding Alt or Option
and you drag the copy of the effect to Layer 2.
Reduce its Opacity to 50%.
Next, we'll add a tail of dust particles.
Make that Dissolve layer copy visible
an active. Go to Filter,
Blur and Motion Blur.
Make the Angle: 0 degrees and the Distance:
14 pixels.
Double-click on the layer to open its Layer Style window
Click Outer Glow and the color box.
Type in F F and four
zeros. Then, click OK on both windows.
Next, we'll clean up the coma around the nucleus
and blend it into the tail. Make the top layer
active and open your Eraser Tool.
Make its Size: 150 pixels and the Hardness:
0%. Brush over the tip of the coma
to erase the area that extends past it.
Make the next layer active and erase the tip.
Repeat it with the third layer.
We won't touch the bottom layer because it's the original coma.
You can see it if we temporarily hide all the layers above it.
The second layer is the dust particles. If we reveal it
and hide the bottom layer, you can see it. We want to blend it into the bottom layer
Make all the layers visible and then,
make the dust particle layer active.
Click on the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask
next to the dust particles. Invert the foreground and background colors.
Open your Brush Tool and make its Size: 175 pixels
and the Hardness: 0%. Make the Opacity:
40%. Now, brush over the coma
and gently blend it into the tail.
Now that we have the finished rendering of our comet,
we'll direct its trajectory at a downward angle.
Make the top layer active and shift-click
on Layer 1 to highlight all the layers.
Open your Transform Tool. To see the entire Transform
on your screen, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
Go to a corner and when you see a curved, double-arrow,
rotate it counterclockwise to an angle you like.
To reposition it, click inside and move it.
Then, press the Enter or Return. Press Ctrl or Cmd + 0
to fit it back on your screen. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!