Home Photoshop Photo Editing Create a Mysterious Space Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

Create a Mysterious Space Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

Added: Jun 16, 2011 Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Author: tutorialchip.com More by this author

Photoshop, one of the oldest and most successful software franchise of all time, is widely adopted by photographers and designers and has grown impressively since the rise of the digital cameras.

Today in this tutorial, I am going to create a unique photo manipulation that blends outer space and a scenic landscape to make an amazing, surreal and mysterious image. This photo manipulation tutorial has been created in Photoshop by using different photos.

Space Landscape Photo Manipulation Tutorial

Space Landscape Photo Manipulation Tutorial

Tools and Resources

Tools and Resources

Tools

We will use following major tools to complete this tutorial.

Pen Tool

Brush Tool

Magic Wand Tool

Gradient Tool

Let's we are going to start to create our space landscape photo manipulation tutorial.

Step 1

Open Adobe Photoshop, and create a new Photoshop document. I am going to create a new document of 800 x 600 px with white background.

Space Landscape Photo Manipulation Tutorial

Step 2

Now we import the Waymarker image in photoshop and name this layer "Landscape Image". After importing the photo then we use the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to size it and fit it to the width of our canvas.

Landscape Image

Step 3

We are going to start working on the sky. First off, we are going to create a mask on the landscape image. To create the mask, click on the Add vector mask button at the bottom of the Layers Panel.

Click on the Gradient Tool (G) and, using the black color #000000 to 0% opacity gradient, click and drag the gradient from the top of the photo to about where the mountains start. You can see this preview below:

Applying Vector Mask

Step 4

Now take a new layer name it "Light Sky". We are going to create a light sky gradient for the top of the canvas. Create a new layer just above the landscape photo layer.

Change your Foreground color to a blue color, something like what I have #2C6AC2. Use the Gradient Tool (G) and applying the gradient as like in preview below:

Blue Sky Gradient

Step 5

Take a new layer just above the light sky layer and name it "Dark Sky". To create a dark sky gradient for the top of the canvas.

Using a darker blue color #1C4379 for your Foreground color, make another gradient from the top of the canvas as shown in preview below.

Dark Sky Gradient

Step 6

Now we will change the landscape image color. To change the color, click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel and choose Hue/Saturation. Drop the saturation to about -80.

Applying Hue/Saturation Option

After applying Hue/Saturation option, we have get result as shown in this preview below:

After Applying Hue/Saturation Option

Step 7

Click on the create new fill or adjustment layer icon again, and this time go to Gradient Map option. Click on this gradient map and make the color on the left #9A00CC and the color on the right #FFD43D as like in preview:

Gradient Map

Step 8

Now we will import the Planet Mars image in photoshop and remove background of planet image with Pen tool (P) or any other method.

Use the Move Tool (V) to then click and drag the planet into our main canvas, positioning it somewhere on the top right. Use Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to shrink the planet down so that it fits above the landscape photo as shown in preview.

Planet Mars Image

Step 9

Drag the planet layer so that it's below the two adjustment layers (it should be the third layer from the top). Now applying the following some blending option on planet layer.

Outer Glow

Outer Glow

Now we will applying "Gradient Overlay" in this layer.

Gradient Overlay

Gradient Overlay

Step 10

Now we are going to add some stars to our piece. To add the stars, we are first going to create a new layer and move it just below the planet layer.

Fill the entire layer by pressing (Ctrl+A) to select the entire canvas and then Shift + F5 to open the Fill dialog box. Fill the layer with #00000.

Then go into Filter - Noise - Add Noise.

Make Some Stars

Step 11

Go into the Levels dialog box (Ctrl+L) and adjust it so that you have something like I have with the input levels around 241, 0.32 and 253. This will get rid of some of the noise, which will tone down the amount of stars and make it a little more realistic.

Make The Stars More Realistic

Step 12

Change the blend mode of the stars to Screen and drop down the opacity to around 25%.

Go into Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur and adjust the Radius to 0.3px to give the stars a little more subtle look and so they aren't as sharp looking.

Applying Gaussian Blur

Step 13

In this step we import the "Cool Clouds" image in photoshop and shrink this image with Transform tool (Ctrl+T). The clouds should go just above the star layer.

Select Brush tool (B) and Change your foreground color to black, the brush hardness to 0% and the opacity to 100%. Now start painting away the areas around the clouds quickly.

Now we select brush tool again and set the opacity 20% and start slowly painting away our detailed areas. In which we get a light clouds as shown in preview below:

Add More Clouds

Step 14

We are going to import some "Birds in the Sky" image in photoshop, name this layer "Birds" and applying the same way we made the clouds in Step 13.

Birds in The Sky

Step 15

Ok in this step we insert "The Moon" image in photoshop, name this layer "Moon" and shrink this Moon image with Transform tool (Ctrl+T). Now applying the following some blending option on planet layer.