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Planet Tutorial
Published: 2003-09-21 22:46:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 665008; Favourites: 8979; Downloads: 64882
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Description
Ok, so over the ages, i noticed that if there is one thing that space artists (especially newcomers) struggle with, then it has to be planet textures. Lots of them just cant get their planets to look good, cant find good textures, or simply dont have 3d studio maxSo i decided to throw everyone a bone, and i made a tutorial on how to make a somewhat realistic-looking planet using only photoshop. Be adviced that you need to have some basic photoshop knowledge to follow this, and if not, i suggest you spend 50 dollars on the adobe photoshop book, or read the help files that photoshop came with)
I made a JPEG tutorial because:
1) I'ts annoying when you have to change from photoshop to your browser, and vice-versa. With Jpegs you have everything neat in photoshop
2) I didnt feel like writing HTML
If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to drop me a line.
In addition, here's a tutorial on making rings. I see many rings and tutorials produced with the spiral tool and that's just terrible! Thanks for the effort... but that's just wrong.
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Comments: 1571
Are you at the part where you have to get rid of the excess shadow around the planet?
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Actually nvm, I got it to work. I had to ctrl+click on the icon of layer, not the text, in order to copy.
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im confuse on the part were i have to get rid of the extra black shadow to make it only effect the planet.
ctrl+"base" then i cut the base and past it onto the shadow? that part confuse me a lot. since i get a new layer of what i pasted. and if i delete the shadow nothing happens. (not a expert on using layer yet)
when you mean active,that with the eye visible mark?
or maybe i did something wrong with setting up the shadow layer.
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I have since learned a better method of achieving this.
ctrl+click the base layer so that you get a dotted line going around the shape of the layer in the canvas
Now, go to the shadow layer and make it active (this means highlight it on the layers palette to make sure it's the layer that you're working on). All you gotta do now is click on the "add layer mask" button at the bottom of the layers palette (it's a box with a circle inside of it).
That should do it!
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awesome that worked!! thanks! and so easy to.
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well it not perfect, but with more practice it get better, need more shadow i think.
[link]
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Yup! You need to apply considerably less blur to the shadow layer. Right now, it looks as if some asteroid is obscuring part of the planet
Good work with everything else, though
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Wait wait wait wait, which one gets the inner glow, which one gets the inner shadow, and which one gets the outer glow? what order did you put them in????? X_X
So base gets =
Shadow gets =
and atmosphere gets =
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Atmosphere gets all of that.
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Oh my god, thanks so much for the quick reply, otherwise, I'd have just freaking lost it X_X
Honestly, thanks xD
If I use your tutorial on any future daviation, which I'm pretty darn sure I will, I will be very glad to link back :3
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thanks for the tutorial man heres my first plant because of your efforts
[link]
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Thank god and you for this tutorial.
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omg awesome m8!!! Thanks a million
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Very nice, but I have one question, on the step the makes the shadow only apply to the planet, I'm having alittle trouble with the difference between an active layer and selected layer. What exactly do you mean, how do I activate a layer, but not select?
-Thanks
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Very nice, but I have one question, on the step the makes the shadow only apply to the planet, I'm having alittle trouble with the difference between an active layer and selected layer. What exactly do you mean, how do I activate a layer, but not select?
-Thanks
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Active layer means that it's the layer that you're currently working on. Selected means having the dotted lines around the shape of the layer
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you're a genius. Amazing tutorial!
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This is an amzing tutorial and helped me alot with a bunch of stuff even though I have GIMP. Gimp is pretty much similar to photoshop but some parts I get stuck on converting into GIMP. Has anyone made a GIMP version of this?
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Glad it could help! I'm not aware of any planet tutorials for GIMP
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This was very helpful, I used it here
[link]
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This can really help me make planets now. 
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wow 7year old tut, and still popular!!
i have 3 questions for now.
1. When duplicating the base layer, how exactly do you make'm black? ( i tried color overlay, but that didn't work out properly, i tried messing with brightness and contrast, but didn't really got it to black, i finally just filled the damn thin with the bucket tool, wanted to know how you do it)
2. after deleting the unnecessary shadow i ended up with this rough edge where my base layer came through - any suggestions?
3. you used 3 different blues for the atm. can you say why? Is there a general rule?
Anyway thanks for the tut, great job.
(sorry if this came up before, but i'm not gonna read 42 pages of comments 
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1) To make them black, you can hit ctrl+u (or command+u on a mac) and turn down the brightness all the way down. Avoid the bucket tool to "change" a color whenever possible. Using it will mess up the edges of whatever shape you're coloring.
2) Did you end up with the rough edge on the "dark side" of the planet? If so, just move the shadow layer over that patch and smooth it out on the opposite side with a soft eraser.
3) 3 different blues for blending. Notice how it's more intense (lighter) right on the edge of the planet and then it changes as it goes out. It's not a rule, just what I thought looked best.
Hope this helps!
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1. ok that works
2. yes exactly. yeah i figured that one myself, i hit ctrl+T nd moved it right and down a few pixels. Soft eraser???? (i only have PS since a few days.)
3. ok thx
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When you have the brush tool selected, you'll see a box on the toolbar (top left) that says "brush" and has a circle with a number underneath it (the number indicated size, which you can also change with the [ and ] keys. Click on the circle and a drop down menu will appear. That's how you can change the hardness. The less hard it is, the softer it gets.
I hope this helps
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thx for the help man, appreciate it.
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OH this looks like it'll will be such fantastic help...thank you!
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awesome tutorial! I made myself a planet with it and it turned out great!
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Thank you! You're tutorial really brought out the feel of this piece! [link]
Much thanks! *blush*
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Used your tutorial! Here's a work in progress! [link] Thanks for the wonderful help! 8D
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this is great im actually working on a project that makes this really helpful your awesome
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Glad to have the tutorial be useful
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ok... i have a question(you may think im retarded but im doing this on paint.NET so help me out) i have no clue how to apply a layer to the stamp tool...(please help!!) i am stumped on this so i rly need help
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Is paint.net anything like Photoshop? The tutorial is written for Photoshop.
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sry i figured it out anyway... thx tho
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Your amazing tutorial has been featured here: [link]
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This looks really interesting! I definatly want to try this.
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Feel free to show me the results of your experiments
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