Space Nebula

Before we start, things you will need:

1. Photoshop open (Duh!)
2. download and load in photoshop this brush set

Brush set was made by ryan2006.deviantart.com

That's about it, ready to start!

Step 1:

Make a new document (500x500 is what I'm using). Hit 'D' to reset the back and foreground color.

Now hit "X" to have Black as the background color and press Ctrl+Backspace to fill the background black

Step 2:

Now make sure for this step that you have the brush set mentioned in the beginning of the tut installed. Now make a new layer, press "B" to go to the brush tool, and select any of the brushes downloaded.

Now make a few brush strokes around the middle of the image (you could use more than one brush)

Step 3:

Now that you have some brushing in the middle of the image select the Eraser tool ( 'E' ). Make the size around 100-120px and go to the brushes tab, select texture, and select the "Cloud" texture (comes with photoshop). Cloud texture shown below:

Now that you have your texture selected, erase a few spots around the picture, so it starts to look more like a nebula.

Should look something like this now:

Step 4:

Go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. Now duplicate your layer

Now on the duplicated version go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set the radius to '2′ and now after you have blurred the image, set the setting to 'Soft Light'

Now we're done with the shape and stuff, let's move on to coloring it

Step 5:

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance, set the settings to

Midtones: +31 , 0 , -31
Highlights: +22 , 0 , -28
Shadows: +35 , 0 , -33

or something else that you like

Press ok after you are satisfied with the settings.

Step 6:

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves, set the settings like below (or close enough is fine):

Step 7:

After you have added a few more layers of coloring, like shown in the tutorial above, you should have something like this:

Be sure to set the color layers to 'Overlay'

Step 8:

Now you're basically Done! it's time to add some stars, but I'm not gonna go much over that, just a few tips.

For stars, use the brush tool in 1-3 px and go to the brush settings and mess around with the Shape Dynamics and Scattering tabs, these will make your stars be spaced out.

And every time you add stars use the eraser tool to erase some too.

Here's what I came up with after messing around with stars and stuff: