Earth tutorial

#1

This is a short tutorial for quickly making a nice planet in photoshop. I assume a fair working knowledge of photoshop such as the basic tools and use of layers.

  1. Find a terrain texture map and a cloud map. Make sure they are square and then use Menu->Filter->Distort->Spherize (100%, Normal). Then cut them out with a eliptical marquee tool (holding shift to keep it circular). These are the base textures.

  1. Make a copy of the cloud layer. Scale the first cloud layer about 5% smaller, invert it and set to “multiply”. This will be the cloud shadows. Then set the other cloud layer to “screen” and put it on top. Then use the gradient tool (set to radial, from white to dark grey) to make a kind of cueball. Put this on top and set to “multiply”.

  1. Make a layer with a small radial gradient from white to black where the specular highlight would be. Multiply it with the red channel of the base terrain texture (inverted). Then put it on top and set to “screen”.

  1. Make a layer with an opaque circle the same size and position as your earth. Goto Menu->Layer->Layer Style and add inner glow and outer glow. Set the colours to a nice bright blue and play with settings until you have something like an atmosphere. With a black airbrush with low opacity, decrease the intensity of the atmosphere in the shadowed region. Then place this layer on top and set to “screen”.

  1. And there you have it. A finished earth. I hope you find this useful :arteest:
#2

Inspirational and very nice! Can’t wait to give this a go myself, thanx a lot for sharing this with us! Simple yet very effective! :thumbsup:

#3

Thanks man, very usefull … and god explained :wink:

#4

sweeet sweeet tutorial! me loves to the core! >:D<

#5

Thanks guys. I am glad you like it.
I would love to see other people’s planets, moons, stars, nebula, asteroids, comets, galaxies, etc. Perhaps we could make a “cosmic objects” thread. :lightbulb
That would be cool. I challenge ya! :bounce:

#6

Excellent tut. Thanks for that

#7

Great tutorial…
Where you found terrain texture? I found some textures, but too small :frowning:

#8

Great tutorial, and the result is beautiful. I’ve added this to the sticky thread for tutorials.

#9

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