Along the way, we will be using two techniques mentioned in Previous two tutorials:

• Make Perfect Selection for Human Object by Utilising Channel Mask Technique in Photoshop
• Create Beautiful Hair-like Abstract Lines to Decorate Your Design in Photoshop

Plus a bunch of other Photoshop tricks.

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

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive! Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

OK let’s get started!

You will need to the following stocks for this tutorial:

Model by *Dxlogic

Star Brushsets

Step 1

Create a new document sized 950px * 1250px, fill the background with black colour. Load the model image into Photoshop and extract the model out: (for more details the method I use to extract the model, check out this tutorial)

Resize and paste it on our canvas – don’t worry if you miss a few hair, this is not important for this tutorial (we’re not designing a megazine cover):

Tidy up the image and get rid of the unwanted part under the heel as shown below:

Use the Smudge Tool with 3-5% strength to smooth the leg skin a bit:

Now use the Dodge and Burn Tool (set strength to around 10-15% for both), apply to the areas shown below: (the overall contrast of the original image is good, so this step can be optional)

Also tidy up and erase the edge with a soft eraser so the image blends into the background:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Let’s adjust the model further. Add the following 3 adjustment layers to the model layer as clipping mask:

Curves

Vibrance

Colour Balance

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Now load the star brushsets into PS. Create a new layer just above the background layer, paint some star pattern on the bottom of the canvas, use the free transfrom to adjust its shape if necessary:

Paint some shadow for the model on the star floor:

Now if you combine the free transform tool and the star brush together, you can create some interesting effect as shown below:

Attach it to the model as shown below: (duplicate the layer once for brighter effect)

We can also distort and reduce the size of the star brush layer, and apply the smaller star pattern around canvas to create some micro effect:

Decorate those smaller Star Pattern around the canvas: (behind and in front of the model)

Step 4

Now let’s create an abstract shaped brush to add some random pattern to our image. To do this, create a new document sized 200px * 200px and fill the background layer with black. Draw a work path as shown below:

Stroke this path with a 1px hard brush:

DO NOT tick the “Simulate Pressure” setting in this case:

Ctrl + left-click on the thumbnail image of this path layer, go to Edit > Define Brushset and create a new brushset”

Press F5 and bring up the brush window, apply the following settings to this brush we just made:

Now paint some randam pattern around girl with this dynamic brush: (Quick Tip: as you paint, use a soft eraser tool to erase some portion of the pattern to create depth)

Step 5

Now let’s create a quick eclipse effect. Create a new layer called “Eclipse” and use a soft white brush to do a single click:

Then grab the eraser tool, reduce the brush size a bit comparing with the white dot we drew, then incrase the brush hardness to around 70%, and reduce the brush opacity to around 60%:

In the position shown below, do two left clicks to produce the eclipse effect:

Duplicate this eclipse layer a few times, rotate and postions as shown below:

Step 6

Now we can add some abstract hair line to the image as shown below: (For detailed tutorials about how to create those hair lines, please refer to this tutorial)

Add a new layer called “focal points” on top of all previous layers, grab a soft white brush do a few clicks on it:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “overlay”, here is the effect:

Now you can use the colour balance adjustment layer to add some custom colour scheme to the image. I won’t limit your imagination with my own settings, go wild with colours :)

After you’re done with the colours, flatten the image, duplicate the background layer, then apply the following Reduce Noise settings:

As you can see, the image now become a lot smoother, plus we get this glowing, painting style effect: (As shown below)

The Clothes now shine on the image:

The legs now look smoothers, glowing:

Of course you don’t want to the whole image to be glowing, so use the layer mask to hide the portions you don’t want glowing effect.

Lastly, we can also paint some more star around the eclipse planet to spice up the image even further:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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

Till next time, have a great day!

Photoshop, on the other hand, give us the freedom to put our imagination into some sort of “reality”. By using Photoshop, we’re able to transform our thoughts about how space would look into digital artworks. And also we can combine different types of space element into our design and create surreal, fantasy effect with them.

In this post, I put in 100+ Brilliant Space Photoshop Brushes to Beautify Your Design + 6 Amazing Space Artworks to Inspire You as a designer. Hopefully you will find them useful and give you some inspiration towards your design.

Here goes the list, enjoy!

Photoshop Brushes

Deep Space by ~Scully7491

Starfield Brush Set by ~gvalkyrie

S.P.A.C.E. Photoshop Brushes by ~JaneDoeStock

Star Brushes by =DemosthenesVoice

planetrenderspack-2 by ~ocd1c-stock

Rabies Star Brushset by ~Rabieshund

Lost In Space Brushes – PS7+ by ~KeepWaiting

Starfield brush set by ~Sakura222-stock

Star Brushes 3 by *LadyVictoire

Moon Brushes by hawksmont Universe

Spacy 2 by ~Scully7491

Awesome Space Digital Artworks to Inspire You

That’s for this post! Hope you enjoy it and found it useful and inspirational!

Until next time, have a great day!

The key points I would like to address in this tutorial are:

1. How we can achieve great lighting effect by simply mixing custom brushset and various Photoshop filters
2. Explore different layer blending effects and the use of Pen Tool to create abstract lines
3. How to quickly and effectively render realistic star field effect in Photoshop.

Here is the preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

Alternative Version with different color scheme (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $6.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 70+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need to the following stocks:

Model

Planet 1

Planet 2

Abstract Brushset

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 800px (actually size doesn’t really matter here, you can try out other resolution if you like), fill the background layer with black color.

Load the “Model” stock image into Photoshop, use whatever method you perfer to cut the man out, and paste it onto our document:

Hint: I used a combination of Lasso Tool (set tolerence to 7-10px) and Quick Selection Tool to cut him out.

Name this layer as “model”, add the following two adjustment layer onto it: (tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Curves

Vibrance

and you will have the following effect:

You can see now we increase the contrast a bit and reduce the colour saturation of the model. This way it’s easier to refine the color and add more effect onto it later on.

Step 2

Download a copy of this Abstract Brushset, load it into photoshop, create a new layer on top the of all previous layers, use this brushset to paint over the model’s body.

I can’t go into much detail about this painting step, however one important thing is to try out different brush blending mode – I used overlay, soft light, hard light, and Multiply). Also make sure you try out different opacity and flow settings as you go.

You can also try out Scale, Distort and Warp this paint layer to maximise its effect.

You can find those settings on the top option bar:

and here is the effect I have after the painting: (You can see I emphaise on the legs and arms)

Step 3

Create a new layer above the background layer, however below the “model” layer, use the same brushset and paint some abstract effect on the bottom.

If the effect doesn’t feel right,  try using the free tranform tool to scale, warp this layer:

also make sure you paint some shadow under the model to add more depth – to do this, simply create a new layer named “shadow” and paint over the area as show below, with a black brushset:

here is the effect I have so far:

Step 4

Load the “planet 1″ image into Photoshop, drag it onto our document and put it just below the “Model” layer, but above the “shadow” layer. Resize and position  it as shown below:

Name this layer as “model”, add the following two adjustment layer onto it:  (tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and White

Curves

You will have the following effect:

Optionally, you can make a duplication of the this planet layer and resize the duplicated layer to a smaller size, and position it as shown below:

Step 5

This is an optinal step. I personally like to add some abstract lines extending from the model’s arm :)

To do this, simply create a new layer below the model layer, then use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below on the newly created layer:

Stroke the path with a 5px soft round brush with White color:

and here is the effect after the stroke:

Once you’re happy with shape, you can duplicate this line layer a few times and adjust their position and size, as shown below:

Step 6

Load the “planet 2″ image into Photoshop and drag it on our document. Resize and position the layer as shown below:

Name this layer as “planet 2″ and duplicate it once, resize it as shown below:

Desaturate and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

Reduce the layer opacity to around 90%, you will have the following effect:

Then add the following two adjustment layers to it:

Curves

Levels

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 7

Let’s render the star field now :) To do this, go and add a new layer on top of all other layers and name it “star field”, then go to Filter > Noise > Add noise and apply the following settings:

Apply the following Levels settings to this layer:

To reduce the density of the star a bit, we can apply the following Curves adjustments:

You should have the following effect so far:

Change the blending mode of the layer to “Screen”, you should have the following effect:

Step 8

To wrap up this design, we can add some color onto the image by adding some more layers (with “soft light” blending mode) on top of all layers, make sure to try out different color combinations.

Here are two versions I have for this tutorial:

Version 1

Version 2

I decided to go with version 2 and the final step I took is to apply a smart sharpen filter to the flattened image:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial (click to enlarge):

Alternative Version with different color scheme (click to enlarge)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial! Drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out!

I love the fact that space art always conveys a sense of mystery, and the endless boundary to be pushed and discovered. For me, those space artworks are also a source of inspiration, because they always help me when I’m lack of creativity and imagination.

Some of these works, if not all of them, are simply breathtaking. There’s a lot of skill that goes into producing work like this. Whether you’re looking for a new background whilst browsing o2 iphone 4 deals online or chatting to your friends on a design course, you could do worse than these masterpieces. Take a look and if you enjoy them, be sure to tell the artist!

In this post, I will include 30 Incredible, Simply Stunning Space-Themed Artworks that I collected from deviantArt.com. Hopefully those works will inspire you as they did for me and boost your creativity!

You can click on the image to view the author’s home page on DeviantArt.

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy those artworks as much as I did and find them inspirational!

Till next time, have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to design this awesome space dancer scene with Nebula Texture in Photoshop. The inspiration of the tutorial in fact came from the latest “Prince of Persia” game cover (and yes, I do love this game very much!)

Together we will be using image adjustment options, layer blending, masking and filter effect. I will also like to emphasise that it’s very importance to choose the right stock texture for your design, as they will contribute and improve your final effect dramatically.

This is an fairly easy tutorial and I hope you enjoy it! Have a try!

Here is the preview of the final result:

alternative version I have: (adjusted the colour balance and add two planets into it)

PSD File for this Tutorial

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $6.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 70+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Dancer

Nebula Texture 1

Nebula Texture 2

Step 1

Load the dancer image into Photoshop and resize the image to 1200px * 1477px. The purpose of resizing image is to make it rough the same size as the textures we’re going to apply on it.

Make a duplication of the background layer, hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B and apply the Black and White adjustment Tool with following settings:

Name this duplicated layer “black and white”. Make another two duplications of this “black and white” layer and change the blending mode of those two duplicated to “Hard Light”.

You will have the following effect so far:

Step 2

Load the “Nebula texture 1″ image into Photoshop, copy and paste it onto our dancer document. This will create a new layer and let’s name it “nebula texture 1″.

On this “nebula texture 1″ layer, go to Edit > Transform > Free Transform (or Ctrl + T), resize, rotate this layer as you wish, the ultimate goal is to find a position where the outer part of the nebula image is surrounding the model.

When you’re satisfied, right-click this nebula texture 1 layer and choose “create clipping mask”.

Here is the effect so far:

Now we can go on and add some image adjustments layers for the nebula layer, so as to make it more stand-out.

From bottom to top, we add the following image adjustment layers: (make sure you tick the “use previous layer to create clipping mask” option for every one of them)

Color Balance

Levels

On this Levels adjustment layer, apply the following layer mask:

Brightness and Contrast

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 3

Load the “Nebula Texture 2″ into Photoshop, copy and paste it onto our dancer document and use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) to resize, rotate until it fits into the canvas.

Name this layer as “nebula texture 2″ and change its blending mode to “soft light” and you will have the following effect: (I hide the previous “nebula texture 1″ layer and its related adjustment layers)

To add a bit more contrast to this “Nebula Texture 2″ layer, we can add a Curve Adjustment layer  (Make sure to tick the “use previous layer to create clipping mask” option) with the following settings:

Here is the effect afterwards:

Step 4

Make all layers visible, you image should now look like this:

Now we can do some retouch of the image. I personally feel the colour contrast is a bit too much, so I add another Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer on top of all layers, with the following settings:

You will now have this effect:

You can of course try out other adjustment tools and see what result that bring you.

Step 5

Now we can add some motion into the image. To do this, flatten the image (I would suggest before you flatten the image, save a copy of the existing file, then the save the flattened image as a new psd file), duplicate the background layer once and go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following options:

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Screen” and opacity to 80%, you will have the following final effect:

OK, that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are! Remember to always keep your own creativity!

Here is an alternative version I have: (adjusted the colour balance and add two planets into it)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy new year and all the best for 2009! Thanks very much for visiting my blog and hope to see you again next year!

Here is a preview of the final result:

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200×800, fill the background layer with black colour. Make a new layer on top of the background layer and name it “Nebula Outline”.

Hit the “P” key to select the Pen Tool and make sure the “Paths” option is selected. I won’t go into explaining how to use the Pen Tool in this tutorial, but if you haven’t used it before, I have a post here with some links of the basics of Pen Tool.

Draw a random, irregular shape as shonw below on the “Nebula Outline” layer:

Step 2

Still on the “Nebula Outline” layer and the Pen Tool selected, right click on the path and choose “Make Selection”:

Apply the following settings: (I used 25 pixel feather radius because I would like the selection to be as smooth as possible)

Your path will now become a selection with 25 pixel feather radius:

Step 3

Go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud, with White foreground colour and Black background colour.

Hit Ctrl + L to bring up the level tool, apply the following settings:

Using the level tool we can adjust the input level of different colour channels. Your image will now look like this:

Step 4

Now we can some depth the Nebula. To do this, create a new layer called “nebula overlay”, use the Clone Stamp Tool with the following settings:

Hold down the Alt key + Left Click to define a Clone Source, cloud some cloud from the previous layer.

Because we used a reletively lower opacity and flow, you will see the difference between each cloud:

Merge the two layer together and name the merged layer “Nebula”.

Step 5

Nebula doesn’t only consist of cloud, there are also some small particles and dusts inside. Now we’re going add them in.

Duplicate the “nebula overlay” layer once and name this layer “particles”. Go to Filter > Sketch > Photocopy and apply the following settings:

Then go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode to “Color Dodge” and set the opacity to 80%.

The result so far will look like this:

Optional: you can duplicate this particles layer a couple of time if you feel like add more paricles onto the cloud.

Step 6

Now we can add a bit motion into the image. Duplicate the “Nebula” layer once and put the duplicated layer above the “Nebula” layer. Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

Then go to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” with an opacity of 30%. You image will now look like this:

Step 7

Create a new layer called “Star”, grab a 9px round circle brush, and apply the following brush dynamics:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Noise

Paint over the “Star” layer as the image shown below:

Optional: To add some light glow and softness, you can duplicate the “star” layer once, and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur and apply the following settings:

Step 8

Create a layer called “Colour Overlay” and set the blending mode to “Color”, then simply grab a big round brush (300px) and choose some nice, space-feeling colour and paint!

You can also adjust the opacity and the flow of the brush for some colour depth. Hint: after painting colour, try duplicate this layer a couple of times and see what result that brings you.

Here is my result so far:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! The rest is left upon your own creativity.

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I simply erase some portions of the nebula cloud and add a shining planet to it!)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and if you have any questions, just drop me a comment.

Thanks very much and have a wonderful and colourful new year!