Realistic Digital Planet

Step 1

Create a new document of any size, I"m using 500x500 for this example.

Step 2

Flood fill the background with black (#000000).

Then make a new layer and use the brush tool to make a white circle. I?m going to use a 300 pixel brush.

Using the elliptical marquee tool, hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard and make a selection in the center of the canvas. Holding SHIFT will ensure that the circle is perfectly round. Fill this selection with white (#FFFFFF):

Step 3

Press 'D' on your keyboard to reset your foreground and background colors to black white respectively.

With the selection still active, go to "Filter->Render->Clouds".

Press Ctrl + F on your keyboard three times to repeat the Clouds filter:

Step 4

Press Ctrl + I on your keyboard to invert the colors.

Press Ctrl + L on your keyboard to bring up the Levels Adjustment Tool and apply the following settings:

Result:

Step 5

Press Ctrl + D on your keyboard to deselect the selection.

Press Ctrl + U on your keyboard to bring up the Hue/Saturation tool, and apply the following settings:

Result:

Step 6

Press Ctrl + J on your keyboard to duplicate this layer.

Go to "Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur" and apply the following settings:

Double click this layer and apply the following blending options:

Step 7

Click this layer, and drag it below our previous layer. This should give our planet a little depth. Try creating several of these with different color settings, to create a great looking space scene.

Try playing around with some of the settings see what you come up with, here is a piece I created using the techniques taught in this tutorial.