The earth in 7 minutes

[dc dalton]

I wrote this a while ago for my p'shop students ...... its jus plain fun! It creates an "earth-like" planet in a very short amount of steps..... I hope you enjoy it!

The Earth in Seven 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

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 foregound is very important to the formation of your land masses. If the color is too blue they will be pink instead of brownish.

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 cntrl (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)

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 slighty 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 seperate "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 cntrl (cmd) D to make sure
everything is deselected.

16. Making sure you have your planet layer selected (cntrl 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. Cntrl 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-cntrl(cmd)-I). Now make sure your planet layer is the active layer and choose filter -> blur -> glaussian 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 (cntrl (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.

There ya go ....... very cool looking!

BTW I have never had two come out the same ..... you can get some amazing results by "playing" with the clouds! ...... Just good fun! Here's a quick sample:

[Steelsun]

Nice, I'll have to try it.

[macarthur]

Cool

[Sting_2004]

great tutorial. ill have a try at it

[dc dalton]

BTW, I have the file in .txt format for those of you that may want to print it out (I cant read long stuff on the web myself) ......... Ill attach it here

Glad you enjoy it ...... as I said I have NEVER been able to use it in anything really functional (like a website) but damn its fun feeling like "the creator" for a few seconds!

[dc dalton]

I was playing tonight in front of the TV and made a new one, then grabbed a REAL space image for a bg, another planet and a moon & this is what I came up with.... what I wanted to show (and add to the tutorial) was the shading on your planet...

If you notice the other planets in this one Ive made up, they have an area that the sun cant get to so you have a crescent.... to do this to your "earth" just control click your planet's layer and then choose the selection tool (round of course) ... hold down the alt key (so your new selection will subtract from the first) and then remove the part you DONT want shaded. you may have to cntrl alt z a few times (or edit undo) until you get it right.... once you have it where you want it create a new layer above your planet. Fill it with pure black and bring the opacity down to about 60%... On that "shadow" layer do a filter > blur > gaussian blur and input anywhere from 4 - 6 in the amount (it depends on how much opacity you have and the size of your planet.)

If you not happy with the first blur feel free to add another at about 1/2 of the original.. now your planet has that realistic shadow we all see in the "real pics"

Ive attached an example ........... glad you enjoyed it!

[macarthur]

The yellow parts look like sulfer islands...

[KC]

This is a great tutorial. Thanks for contributing.

[dc dalton]

the yellow comes from how many times you repeat the clouds / difference clouds ---- the more you do it the darker it gets. I have yet to find a way to get green looking continents ........ any ideas Im all ears!

BTW ..... always willing to contribute. This site has given me so much I want nothing more than to add to it in a way that will help others..... this tutorial isnt so much help as it is a great relaxation, fun toy........ heaven knows we all need to chill out and "play" every once in a while..

[ckita]

Very Nice Thank You....

i've sent u a pm...

[Sonar Visuals]

Thanks a ton!

[o.hizzle]

very nice tut.

and if you do image->adjustment->levels and choose some red color you can create a nice sun too..

[cracker2]

I have no doubt this will get me laughed off the boards (only been using photoshop for less than a month, so going around using tuts to learn techniques), but I have tried doing this tut (4 times actually), and I just don't understand where the land masses come from. I get the clouds showing up, and I do see that the land masses are made when you Filter > Render > difference cloud, but when I do the repeated ctrl-F's, it just goes back and forth between the blue/white look and the black/yellowish look, but never both at once. Everything else in the tutorial I am understanding, but not the land issue.

Anyway, if you're done laughing at the silly guy who is having problems with easy techniques, anyone have any suggestions on maybe a setting I don't have right, or where I am going wrong?

justin

[brayk]

haha nice one...good effect with photoshop

[YCDC182@yahoo.co]

this is my first photoshop creation. How'd I do??

[Mephistopheles]

Originally Posted by YCDC182@yahoo.co

this is my first photoshop creation. How'd I do??

I learned, also, that if in the early stages, you saved your selection (select>save selection...) you can use it in the later stages(Before you merge the planet and the background). By loading the selection(select>load selection) and then Filter>Distort>Spherize. Personally, I do that twice, the first time would be 100% the second time would be 70%. But you guys can experiment, right?

Then, you could use the blending options for the planet, Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options (Or double-clicking the planet layer) and clicking outer glow. Then you can experiment with the options it offers. I suggest putting the blending mode on Outer Glow to Normal, though, with 100% opacity.

[Egor]

YCDC182@yahoo.co looks good to me

And dc dalton, that's a great tute.

[bcr]

Yep, good job YCDC182, looks very nice.

I'll have to give your tutorial a shot over this long weekend, dc dalton ..

[rokc]

hi,

That was really nice tutorial..thanx dalton...Here's what I got..Now i have proved that I am a good designer which people think I am not...


BTW how do u got those stars out there

[Dark Tranquility]

great tut DC Dalton Well detailed very creative

[CrustyGeek]

Great tut! Great fun to do and very effective. It helped me create a new world for my RPG site

[macarthur]

I've a tendancy to just save an alpha channel.

Just my own way of doing it
Good observation though!

[Varelse]

And I always have plenty of layers - for example I backup every element in its original state and size in separate layer set (caller "org"). Having each element on its own layer it is really easy to make changes later.
I wouldn't recommend leaving only flat version for sure...

[Consider-This]

When you say you saved the different layers, does that mean that all of the pieces of each layer are "grouped" into a sort of solid?

or does that mean that you don't have to dig so far for the different parts, because they are in more shallow layers????

(I've cottoned on to saving parts... but I haven't quite mastered how discrete the parts need to be.)

[Antwawn]

Good tut, but some large waves and more color variation on land would make it look alot better.