The Earth In 7 Minutes

1. Create a new image 800 x 800, color pure black

2. Create a new layer above it, name it planet

3. Select the elliptical marquee tool, hold down shift and drag out a perfect circle, leaving about 50-60 pixels open on all sides of the circle

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4. Fill the circle with white - do NOT deselect

5. Change your foreground color to 94,94,198. Background color pure white. NOTE: the color used for the foreground is very important to the formation of your land masses. If the color is too blue they will be pink instead of brownish.

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6. While holding down the shift key choose filter -> render -> clouds

7. While holding down the shift key choose filter -> render -> difference clouds

8. Hit ctrl (cmd) F to re-apply the last filter - the blue / white pattern returns

9. Repeat step 8 as many times as required until you have a nice "cloud" pattern, along with some nice land masses (it can take up to 15-20 times to get a nice one)

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10. Once you have a nice looking pattern deselect your "planet". Find a nice clumpy cloud pattern & draw a round selection around it, almost to its edges. (HINT: if you can find a nice "clump" near the edge grab it, but make sure you are NOT selecting outside of the planet. This gives a really nice effect later)

11. With the selection intact choose filter -> liquify

12. Using a brush size that is slightly smaller than the selection area and a brush pressure of NO more than 50% (40% is ideal) choose the twirl CCW feature and gently twirl the cloud formation (DONT get too crazy here or it wont look real)

13. Repeat steps 10 -12 if you'd like on a separate "cloud formation"

14. You may also "twirl" a few clouds W/O a selection to add some roundness to the formations. Purely optional though.

15. Once you have all the clouds you would like hit ctrl (cmd) D to make sure everything is deselected.

16. Making sure you have your planet layer selected (ctrl click the layer) choose filter -> distort -> spherize with an amount of 100% and normal mode

17. Starting to look like something! OK we need to add that slight haze earth always has. Deselect your plant and create a new layer behind your planet layer, name it glow.

18. Set your foreground color to white, choose the gradient tool, click the radial gradient option, click the gradient drop down & choose foreground to transparent. Drag a gradient out from the middle of your glow layer to about 3/4 of the way to the edge of the canvas. We only want a slight glow to protrude past the planet edges so try it one or twice to get it right, hiding the planet layer as needed. It takes a little bit to get it right.

19. OK lets attack these edges and make this thing look REAL. Ctrl click your planet layer to select the planet. Choose select -> modify -> contract and input 3 pixels then choose select -> modify -> feather and enter 2 pixels. Then choose select -> inverse (shift-ctrl(cmd)-I). Now make sure your planet layer is the active layer and choose filter -> blur -> gaussian blur and enter an amount of 3. Click OK.

20. Looking COOL! Now the final adjustment will crispen up the colors a tad. First merge your glow and planet layer (ctrl (cmd) E) then choose image -> adjustments -> levels Make sure you are on the RGB level and drag the bottom slider (shadows) up ever so slightly. Drag the center slider (midtones) up a hair also & the top slider (highlights) down just to "perk up" the clouds and make them look fluffy.

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