Space is organic, fluid, expansive and ever-changing. We have only explored the most infinitesimal fraction of space and there are so many undiscovered things out there, so let your imagination go wild. Space can look any way you want it to! do you want a square planet? Or a planet that is really just a huge ball of liquid floating through space? Then go for it. The universe is your oyster.
There's no right or wrong way to paint a space-scape, so feel free to experiment. I never use the same process twice. I can, however, show you some tricks I commonly use.
Step 1:
Look at references. Study a few NASA photos and other images that you find. You might think you know what space looks like, but you'd be amazed at how varied it can be. Even if you want to create something no one's ever seen before you have to put it into context everyone will understand for it to seem plausible.
Step 2:
When you have an idea of what you want to do you should start with a black background. Each of these stars is thousands of light-years away, and there's nothing but black in between. It should look like this:
Step 3:
Let's add some background stars. Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Check "Gaussian" and "Monochromatic" and set the noise to about 8-12% This gives you some dim background stars, like so:
Some of my files got corrupted, so I'm going to have to make new images for the next few steps, but here's what you're going to do:
Step 4:
There are a few too many stars though, so we'll want to thin them out. I go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness/Contrast. I mess with the sliders a bit, move the "brightness" down (about -35) and the "contrast" up (about 70). Play around with the sliders until you get an effect you like.
Step 5:
You need to create some brighter stars that are a little bit closer. I copy the dim star layer and rotate it 180% to get some variety to the star placement. Make sure you rotate just the layer and not the whole image. You need to make the stars seem closer so go to Edit>Transform>Scale and make the layer larger.
Step 6:
To make the stars seem brighter I go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness Contrast again and mess with those sliders. This time I usually turn the "brightness" way down (about 100) to eliminate a lot of the stars. There should be fewer stars on the closer layer. I turn the "contrast" up so that the stars that remain are still visible.
Step 7:
Finally, to make the closer stars seem even brighter, we're going to go to mess with the levels, but first go to Image>Adjustment>Invert. This will make the next step easier to see. Then go to Image>Adjustment>Levels. Grab the slider all the way to the left and drag it way up to about 230. Then take the slider on the right and drag it down just a little. Go to Image>Adjustment>Invert again and set the layer mode to "screen." You should now have a decent looking star field.
Step 8:
The star field is too uniform now though. Stars usually come in clumps, so we're going to take our eraser - set it to a big, fuzzy brush - and start erasing portions of both layers to get an image that looks something like this:
*For best results you should vary your brush size, shape, opacity and flow. Just play around until you get something you like.
**You might also want to use the Clone tool to add more stars to a certain area, or thin some out from another.
Step 9:
Stars give off light, so let's add glow. Merge your two star layers together, then duplicate the result. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and mess with the slider till you get a blur you like. It doesn't have to be very big. Mine was about 8 pixels.
Step 10:
Now let's give that layer a color. Go to Image>Adjustment>Color Balance and mess around with the color mix. You can set the color to whatever you want. Blue is always a solid choice. Purple looks good too. Experiment and see what you like. I went with blue:
Step 11:
Set the highlight layer to color dodge and that'll give your stars a tinted glow.
Step 12:
I wasn't happy with how dim my stars were, so I copied my star layer, set the new layer to screen and it made everything brighter. I had to do some more erasing to make it look right, but turned out well:
Step 13:
Now it's time to really customize your space-scape. You can add anything you want now that you have a star-spangled background.
I added a purple nebulae-like cloud. I created a new layer and took a big, soft brush, turned the opacity and flow down and just started painting with different shades of purple, red and blue. I played with some of the blending layers and eventually set it to linear dodge (I believe.)
Then I added some bright lens flare stars. I made a new layer and filled it with black. I went to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. I then shrunk the layer down and placed it in the star field (under the cloud.) I changed the layer blending mode so that it blended in (i had to take a soft brush and erase a little shadow of black.) I copied the star layer a few times, changed the scale and rotation of those layers and spread them out. There are 5-such stars in there.
It all ended up looking like this:
It looks pretty on it's own, and it's the perfect palate to add a spaceship or planet on. I hope you guys like it.
P.S. Like I said before, several of my image files got corrupted for some reason, So I'll do another tutorial and update it shortly.
And maybe I'll add a planet or a spaceship in the next one!
Update: This tutorial as inspired by a tutorial written by Greg Martin. Check out this post for links to his tutorials and work.
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