PART II: The Space Scene
Step 10: Star Field

The first thing we need to create is a star field that will sit behind our planets, sun, asteroids, and other stuff in our image. We are actually going to create 4 different levels of stars to give our space scene a feeling of depth and make it look awesome.

FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS BELOW CAREFULLY

  1. Open your Space file in Photoshop
  2. Let's start by making sure we are using solid black as our Foreground color - Press D on the keyboard - this is the keyboard shortcut to reset the Foreground and Background colors to their default colors (black and white)
  3. Use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill Layer 1 with black

Our only layer at this point is named Layer 1 instead of Background because we chose Transparent for the Background Contents option in the New file window in Step 09. This saves us from having to convert the layer. Yeah us.

  1. Lock Layer 1 as we will not be editing it at all during this step but leaving it in the background so we always have some black to see our stars
  2. At the bottom of the Layers panel, click the Create a new layer button...
  3. Double-click the new layer's name to select the name and rename the layer Far Stars (if the Layer Style window pops up simply use the red X to close it and try again, but be sure you are actually clicking on the layer's name) - you should now have the following layers...
  4. Press Alt+Backspace to fill the Far Stars layer with black (this is the keyboard shortcut to fill the current selection with the foreground color - I know, cool huh?)
  5. Make sure the Far Stars layer is selected (it should be highlighted in gray in the Layers panel - see the image above)
  6. Press Ctrl++ (the Ctrl key and the + key) on the keyboard to set the Zoom level to 100%...
  7. Click Filter then point at Noise and click Add Noise...
    The Add Noise window appears...
  8. Make your settings match the image below...

    Remember that these settings are not set in stone - you can adjust them to whatever you like when you are working with your own images in the future, but for now let's all use these settings as they will allow us to create quick, simple stars
    NOTE: Make certain that you have Monochromatic checked. If Monochromatic (which simply means we are working with a variation of one color, in this case white) is unchecked we will get a field of noise that includes red, yellow, blue, purple, and other colors...

    This will create unrealistic multi-colored stars and destroy the illusion of our amazing space scene

When Photoshop applies the Noise filter it generates a random noise pattern. In other words, everyone will have a different noise pattern and thus will have a unique layout of stars.

  1. Click OK
We need to duplicate the Far Stars layer at this point so that we can simulate some stars that are nearer to us and brighter.
  1. Right-click the Far Stars layers and click Duplicate Layer...
  2. Rename the new layer to Near Stars and click OK
  3. Lock the Near Stars layer then turn its visibility off - you should now have the following layers...

    We will work on our Far Stars layer first and come back to the Near Stars layer a little later on
  4. Make the Far Stars layer the active layer - it should be highlighted in gray...

The 'stars' we are making are very sharp and crisp at this point, so let's soften them up a little to help them look like they are actually glowing balls of gas.

  1. Click Filter then point at Blur and click Gaussian Blur... - the Gaussian Blur window opens...

    Gaussian Blur tends to make images appear softer or slightly out of focus
  2. Make your settings match the image below...
  3. Click OK

To turn this static into stars, we are going to use the Levels editor - yes, the same one we used when we turned our face blue - to remove most of the white and be left with a random spattering of dots which will be our stars.

  1. Click Image then point at Adjustments and then click Levels
  2. Click the black Input Level slider (red arrow below)...

    and drag it slowly to the right (the gray slider will move to the right automatically) - notice as you drag that the noise starts to go away - stop dragging at around 215
  3. Click the white Input Level slider (the one on the right) and drag it slowly to the left - notice as you drag that the stars become brighter and more refined - stop dragging around 235 - you should now have this...

    Yes, the three sliders are really close together

By the way, if your histogram looks like this...

Congratulations, you did it WRONG.
Click Cancel and go back to direction 16.
  1. Click OK
  2. Zoom out to 50% - your current star field should look something like this...

Notice that our stars are distributed fairly evenly around our image. In reality, there are sections of the sky that appear to the naked eye to have no stars. Let's take a second and give our space scene a small section or two of emptiness.

  1. Click the Eraser Tool...

We don't want to use a simple round brush to create our areas of empty space as it will be obvious that we have removed stars because there will be hard edges to our emptiness, so let's choose a more random brush.

  1. Click the Brush Preset picker option and select the Dry Brush Tip Light Flow brush...

    You will have to scroll down the brush list to find the correct shape
  2. Change the Size to 200 px...
  3. Make sure you are on the Far Stars layer (the other two layers should be locked) and click randomly in a few places to remove some stars - keep in mind that the eraser you are using has a very scattered shape so that you can create dark areas that are not necessarily totally dark but still contain a very scattered group of stars, so if you want to create a truly empty area you will need to do repeated clicks and drags over the same area to totally remove everything

DO NOT GO CRAZY WITH THIS!!

We just want to remove a few stars here and there. Look at the two images below...

Notice that you really have to look hard to notice where the areas of empty space are. If you look at the Far Stars layer's thumbnail image on the Layers panel (the red arrow in the image below) you can see exactly where you removed the stars because you will be able to see white spots...

This is what we want at this point - later we will be adding more stars and these few blank areas will become more noticeable.

Now that we've got some stars that appear dim and far away, let's create some average looking stars that appear to be a little closer to us. To pull this off we simply have to make a duplicate of our Far Stars layer and then break out our Eraser Tool again.

  1. Lock the Far Stars layer
  2. Right-click the Far Stars layer and click Duplicate Layer
  3. Name the duplicate layer Average Stars...
  4. Click OK

At this point, each layer is actually covering up every other layer. With multiple layers of stars, it would be great to have a way to see what is under a layer while still being able to see the contents of that layer. Lucky for us blending modes are a thing.

  1. Unlock the Average Stars layer
  2. Click the Set the blending mode for the layer drop-down arrow (red arrow below) and select Linear Dodge (Add)...
    This allows us to see what is below this layer

The Linear Dodge (Add) blending mode allows us to see through the black on the layer to what's underneath it. OK, to be totally honest here, Linear Dodge (Add) actually does more than make black see-through, but for what we are doing now, knowing that it allows us to see-through black is good enough. Notice that many of the stars are now brighter because we actually have two identical images on top of each other and they are complimenting each other to make the stars brighter. We now need to remove most of the stars from the Average Stars layer so that we have some dim stars that appear far away (now you know why we named the first layer Far Stars) and some brighter stars that seem closer (the Average Stars layer). A few directions from now we will get some stars that appear very near to us as well as some awesome bright stars.

  1. Make sure the Average Stars layer is the active layer (all other layers should be locked and the visibility of the Near Stars layer should be off)
  2. Click the Eraser Tool
  3. Erase most of the stars from your Average Stars layer - remember to keep an eye on the layer's thumbnail on the Layers panel to see where and how much of your Average Stars you are removing - you want to end up with something like this...

    You can turn the visibility of the Average Stars layer on and off to see exactly what impact this layer is having on your star field

Don't worry about trying to remove stars from your Average Stars layer in the same patter as I did - try to be unique. As the direction above stated, you want to remove most of your Average Stars so that what's left will work with the Far Stars layer to give your star field some depth. If you leave too many Average Stars you end up with stars that all look the same. Your star field should now look something like this...


Note that your stars will NOT look like mine

We have some pretty awesome looking far and average stars, so let's add in a few near stars to complete the sense of depth.

  1. Lock the Average Stars layer
  2. Turn the visibility of the Near Stars layer on and unlock it - note that when you do this that your image should now covered with noise...
  3. Click Filter then point at Blur and click Gaussian Blur...
  4. Set the Radius to 2 Pixels - this will make your noise really blurry - and click OK
  5. Click Image then point at Adjustments and then click Levels...
  6. Drag the black Input Level slider to the right and stop at 145...
  7. Drag the white Input Level slider to the left as far as it will go...

    Notice that it stops automatically at 147...
    The closest you can make the black and white sliders is two numbers apart
  8. Click OK

Notice that you have only a few stars that are slightly larger than those on the Far Stars and Average Stars layers...

This is good - this is what we want at this point.

  1. Change the blending mode of the Near Stars layer to Linear Dodge (Add) - you should now be able to see all of the stars in your image

We do have a slight issue at this point. Recall that we made a copy of our noise filled layer all the way back in direction 13, so at this point all of our layers have stars sitting in the exact same place. If we leave our star field like this we will simply be creating several really bright stars on top of other stars. Let's add some variety to our star field by adjusting the Near Stars layer so that we are not covering up other stars.

  1. Make sure the Near Stars layer is the active layer - it should be highlighted in gray
  2. Click Edit on the Menu Bar then point at Transform and click Flip Vertical...

At first it may look like nothing happened because there are so few stars on the Near Stars layer, but turn the visibility of the Near Stars layer off and on and you will see the impact that it has. It is not making an enormous change, but by having these slightly brighter stars we have given our space scene some awesome depth.

You should have something similar to the image below...

You should notice that there are areas of dense stars and areas of fewer stars and that the areas of no stars are now more obvious. Feel free to remove more or less stars until you get something you like. Be careful though - once you remove stars it can be very difficult to get them back if you change your mind.

Now that our basic star field is ready to go, let's give it a sense of uniqueness and coolness by adding a few really bright stars.

  1. Lock the Near Stars layer
  2. Insert a new layer and name it Bright Stars - make sure this new layer is at the top of the layer stack and is selected
  3. Use the Paint Bucket Tool  to fill the Bright Stars layer with black
  4. Change the blending mode of the Bright Stars layer to Linear Dodge (Add)
  5. Click the Dodge Tool...

    The Dodge Tool simply brightens up an area of an image, so it is perfect for creating bright spots that look like stars
  6. On the Dodge Tool Options Bar, change the Range: setting from Midtones to Shadows...

    Make sure Exposure is set to 50% (if Protect Tones is checked, turn it off by clicking the box)
  7. Change the Brush to Soft Round and set the size to 5 px...
Choose the area of your image you would like to add a bright star. Remember that in later steps you will be adding a bunch of other stuff like planets, asteroids, a comet, and more, so put your bright stars in places that you will not cover up later on.
  1. Press D on the keyboard to reset the Foreground color to black and the Background color to white...
  2. Click the Switch Foreground and Background Colors icon...
    You should now have white as your Foreground color and black as your background color...
  3. Click repeatedly in one spot until the spot glows white (about 15 clicks seems to work well) - be careful not to click and drag but instead click in the same spot over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

    Note that the image above is zoomed in to 500% to show the detail
  4. Press the right bracket key ] to increase the brush size to something slightly larger, such as 9 px, and then click some more in the same spot (don't click as many times as you did in the last direction - try around 10 clicks this time - so that what you are creating now is not as bright)...
  5. Increase the brush size again (this time to around 15 px) and click some more (around 5 clicks or so this time)...
  6. Increase the brush size one more time (try from 20 to 25 px) and click a few more times (only 3 or 4)...

    Note that the image above really doesn't look all that great because the image is actually being displayed in a webpage - your image in Photoshop should look much nicer
  7. Determine if you like your star at this point or if you want to change it - you can increase the brush and click a few more times, or you can grab the Eraser Tool and remove what you have and start over, but this time vary the above brush sizes and click recommendations so that you have a really nice looking, unique star

You may be tempted to keep going and make a really, really big glowing star, but don't. If you make your star too large it will seem unnatural. Remember that we want realistic looking stars and not huge white blobs.

One way to get unique bright stars is to choose a patterned brush such as Spatter, Star (NOT the 5 pointed star), Starburst, or any other brush shape that gives you a nice looking star (do not use Fuzzball, Flowing Stars, any of the leaf or grass brushes, or any other brush that looks unnatural). You can even load new sets of brushes by clicking the drop-down arrow on the Brush Preset Picker (left arrow below) and then clicking the menu icon (right arrow below) and selecting the brush set you wish to use at the bottom of the pop-up menu, as in the graphic below...

Take some time to look at many of the brush sets to see if there are any brushes you would like to use (again, stay away from the brushes shaped like grass or leaves as well any that are square as there are no square stars - the only exception to this is the Charcoal Large Smear brush which looks square, but when you click repeatedly with it the square actually rotates to create an interesting cloud formation that you can use to make a cool far off nebula or the cloud around a bright star). Try to make your stars unique and something other than a perfect circle (feel free to add some color to your bright stars if you wish, but remember to keep it subtle)

To help you out with making some really unique starts, have a look at the image below...

The really cool stars in the middle column were created using the brushes in the left column, which can be found in the brush set indicated in the right column. Keep in mind two very important things as you create your bright stars:

  1. Add in three or four bright stars (if you add too many you will limit where you can put the planets and stuff we will be adding later) - DO NOT copy the same star over and over (no two real stars look exactly alike) and DO NOT use the same brush multiple times - this looks unnatural; make each star unique - here is a close-up of my four stars...
     
    Notice that the stars are all unique, and that the third one from the left has just a slight amount of yellow added to it (I know, they are awesome)

Let me say that one more time: DO NOT copy the same bright star multiple times

Be careful not to go crazy with how big you make your bright stars. Take a look at the image below...

Notice that it looks like a fake star when you compare it to the stars below - we are striving to make our image as realistic as possible

Your star field should now be complete, and should look something like this (remember that your stars will be in different places than mine)...

Notice that my bright stars are not overly large and serve to add a nice accent to my star field. Notice also that all four of them do NOT look the same. When you have completed your bright stars, you will need to reset the brush set back to the Default set.

  1. Click on the Brush Preset Picker and open the Brush Set menu and select Reset Brushes...
  2. Photoshop will ask if you wish to load the default brushes...

    Click OK

Before we continue creating our amazing space panorama, we need to put all of the star field layers into one layer group so that we can work with them all at the same time to do such things as turn off their visibility or rearrange them in the layer stack.

  1. Select all of the layers by clicking the top layer (Bright Stars) then pressing and holding Shift and clicking the bottom layer (Layer 1)...
  2. Click the Create a new group icon to create a group containing all of the layers (the red arrow below)...
  3. The layers will be inserted into a group called Group 1...

    Note that you can expand the group and view the layers in it at any time by clicking the arrow head between the eye and the folder icon...
  4. Double-click the name Group 1 and rename it Star Field...
  5. Lock the Star Field layer group so you do not accidentally mess up any of the layers...

In the next Step we will give our space scene some color by adding in a nice nebula.

  1. Save your Space file

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