How to Create a Planet from Scratch in Photoshop

By October 22, 2012February 14th, 2013Photoshop Tutorials

This tutorial will show you how to create a burning or very hot planet in Photoshop.

01. Open a new document and fill it with black: you can also add some white dots on it to represent stars at Filter > Noise > Add noise.

02. Create a new empty layer at Layer > New > Layer. Take the Elliptical Marquee Tool and create a circle that will be your planet. Fill it with color black.

03. Now go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds to add a texture to your planet. Then move on to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. There raise the amount to maximum and the other two values according to the picture below. Press Ok.

04. To add a roundness to the planet, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. Raise the amount to 100% and press Ok.

05. Time to give some color to your planet. For that, move to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance. A small new window will open. At the bottom of the window, you’ll see three buttons: Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. Go through each of these to add different color options. You can also set some other values if you want a different colored planet. Press Ok.

06. Now go to Layer > Layer Styles > Inner Glow and add a darker glow around your planet.

07. Move to the Outer Glow tab and add a glow around your planet. Press Ok.

08. For the last step, sharpen the planet a bit to make it look more realistic and less smooth at Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. Press Ok.

09. And your planet is done! You can now duplicate the planet to make smaller planets around it or make a completely new one with slightly different options.