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Home»Abstract»Easily Create Planetary Ring via Cloud and Twirl Filter in Photoshop
Abstract

Easily Create Planetary Ring via Cloud and Twirl Filter in Photoshop

By James QuNovember 21, 20104 Mins Read
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In this tutorial, I will show you how to Easily Create Planetary Ring via Cloud and Twirl Tool in Photoshop. The steps are very simple and if you have some experiences with Photoshop in the past, you should be able to complete it without any problem. Have a try!

Along the way, we will render some cloud, then apply the twirl filter to turn it into a planetary ring. We will also make a simple planet with some lighting effect.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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OK let’s get started!

No stock image is required for this tutorial – although you may need some star and debris brushset.

Step 1

Create a new document sized 940px * 700px, fill the background with black colour. Let’s create the Planetary Ring first.

Create a new layer and use the lasso tool (50px feather) to draw a selection, render some cloud in it:

Hit Ctrl + L and apply the following Levels adjustments:

Go to Filter > Distort > Twirl:

and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + T and perspective the ring as shown below:

Reduce the height a bit and you will have the following effect:

Erase the edges with a a soft eraser, and you have made a simple ring:

Step 2

Now let’s draw a planet on top of the ring layer. Firstly draw a circle on a new layer, then fill the circle with black color and apply the following layer blending options:

Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Now create a new layer under the planet layer, use the star and debris brush you downloaded, paint some splashing effect around the planet, as shown below:

Now we can create some cloud/nebula effect around the planet. To do this, create a new layer below the planet layer, use a lasso tool (50px feather)to draw a selection, render some cloud inside.

Then apply the Difference cloud filter to it:

Here is the effect after applying the difference cloud filter:

Then Warp the cloud as shown below:

Duplicate this layer a few times and scatter them around the globle, as shown below:

You can also duplicate and drag some nebula layers above the planet layer, position the nebula as shown below: (make sure to set the blending mode of those layers to “screen”)

Here is the effect so far:

Now we can add a bit of backlight for this planet to increase the depth. Create a new layer under the planet layer called “highlight”, grab a soft white brush and do a single-click to the position shown below:

Step 4

Now let’s add some abstract lines to decorate the planet. Once again we can use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below:

Choose the 1px hard brush from the brush pane:

Right-click on the path with Pen Tool selected, and choose “Stroke Path”:

Select “Brush” from the drop down box, tick “Simulate Pressure”, click “OK”:

and here is the effect:

Duplicate this line layer a few more times, rotate and resize them then scatter the lines around the planet, as shown below:

Step 5

Ok we’re almost done. Let’s add a few image adjustment layer on top of all previous layers to fine tune the image a bit:

Curves

Mask on Curves adjustment layer:

As you can see, we increased the contrast of the debris on the left so it looks more distinctive:

Colour Balance

and here is the effect after apply those adjustment layers:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial: (I further adjusted the colour and contrast of the image)

That’s it! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful :)

Till next time, have a great day!

cloud and planet photoshop create planet photoshop planetary ring photoshop
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James Qu
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James is a seasoned Photoshop expert with over 25 years of experience, mastering the software since its 5.0 version. As the driving force behind PSD Vault, he authors the majority of its in-depth tutorials and insightful articles.

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22 Comments

  1. Windy on November 21, 2010 12:18 AM

    awesome .. thanks :)

  2. Vivek Parmar on November 21, 2010 4:00 PM

    really a nice tut. thanks for share.

  3. Macnessa on November 21, 2010 5:06 PM

    Thank you for this awesome tut. I have a question. When I render my clouds – they look nothing like yours. They have a much smaller grain – and look more like wads of cotton wool than those great whispy clouds you have. They are also confined to the lasso selection – and do not extend above it the way yours do. What am I doing wrong? I am using CS4 on a Mac.

  4. daRyse on November 21, 2010 10:01 PM

    one of the best i’ve ever seen.
    you helped me a lot, thanks–

  5. youssef on November 22, 2010 2:09 AM

    Amazing, Creative and Simple.
    I admire such your you’ve done :D

  6. youssef on November 22, 2010 2:10 AM

    aah forgot to add the word Work* :D

  7. kelvinhou on November 22, 2010 12:17 PM

    Thanks for your tutorial~ i love it soooo much!

  8. marty on November 25, 2010 2:50 PM

    nice tutorial! easy to follow and some interesting techniques. mine turned out a little bit different than yours but I like it anyway ;-)

  9. peter on November 30, 2010 11:17 PM

    beautiful scene, i must say.

  10. Swopper Stuhl on December 1, 2010 11:35 PM

    This is a great tutorial .. the final result is simply awesome .. thanks for sharing :)

  11. Pushpinder Bagga on December 6, 2010 9:31 PM

    Thanks, I created it… here is what I did…

    http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/3169/planetv.jpg

    Cheers!

  12. Troy on December 15, 2010 5:04 AM

    This is exactly what I have been looking for. Going to use this to create a logo with a planet look and feel. Thanks for sharing.

  13. vittoleon on February 11, 2011 1:52 AM

    Nice tutorial, only had some trouble with the lines (getting them behind planet and making them look nice).

  14. Brock on March 9, 2011 8:07 PM

    hey how to get that rings up on planet ?? my planet is hiding that ring can anyone help ? :((

  15. James Qu on March 10, 2011 4:00 PM

    @Brock: did you place the ring layer above the planet layer? If not, try do that first.
    Hope this helps.

  16. evert on June 9, 2011 1:33 AM

    I’ve my clouds in step 1 they are perfect, but now i try the twirl. but i can’t select ‘twirl’ , i also can’t select twirl in another random document.. solution?:/

  17. Web Hosting on February 28, 2012 12:41 AM

    thank you for sharing this very nice artwork and for teaching us how to recreate it. :)

  18. Ćrǻƶȳ Denilool on April 19, 2012 12:34 AM

    waw

  19. Quasimodo on February 4, 2014 2:22 AM

    I can only see the text of your tutorial, not the images…?
    I would REALLY love to do this tut, where can I see the images as well?
    Please help.

  20. James Qu on February 4, 2014 11:39 AM

    Hi there, the images work fine on my computer – Have you tried a different browser?

  21. Quasimodo on February 4, 2014 11:55 AM

    Yes.
    Firefox, Chrome and IE…to no avail.
    Is the first time in over 5-6 years I run into this sort of trouble.
    And of course, it HAS to be on a tut I desperately want to try :(
    Is there ANYONE that could…upload it elsewhere or help me some how?

  22. Seaform on September 2, 2014 10:15 PM

    Amazing artwork! Thanks for sharing
    In the last image could you post the adjustments that you did to make it look this way?
    I would really love to know! Thank you.

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