Creating Galaxies Using Photoshop

Learn to Create Realistic Galaxies with Nebulae and Stars

1. Create a new document in Photoshop (CTRL+N).  I used Width: 1024, Height: 768.
   


2. Fill the background layer with black. (D, then ALT+Backspace).
   


3. Click on the Channels tab, and create a new Alpha channel by clicking the 'Create new channel' icon near the bottom of the panel (If the Channels tab isn't visible, check Windows > Channel on the file menu).
   


4. On the new 'Alpha 1' channel, add some noise by applying Filter > Noise > Add Noise.. Set Amount to 50%, Distribution to Uniform. Click OK.
   
   


5. Apply Filter > Blur > Blur More.
   


6. Open the Levels dialog (CTRL+L) and use these three Input Levels: 61, 1.00, 84. Click OK.
   


7. Hold CTRL and click the 'Alpha 1' thumbnail on the Channels panel to load the selection.
   


8. Switch back to the Layers tab and create a new layer.
   


9. Restore default colors by pressing D. Select the 'Pastel Yellow' color on the Swatches panel.  Or if you want to set it manually, the hex number is fff799.
   


10. Apply Filter > Render > Clouds.
    
    


11. Create a new layer, and make sure you didn't deselect. If you did, load the selection again from the Alpha 1 channel.
    


12. Expand the selection by 2 pixels (Select > Modify > Expand..).
    


13. Fill the selection with white (D, X, then ALT+Backspace) and deselect (CTRL+D).
    


14. Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.. with a radius of 2 pixels.
    


15. Change the opacity of the layer to ~40% (the option for this is directly under the label for the Layers tab).
    

1. Duplicate the 'Alpha 1' channel.
   


2. Apply Filter > Distory > Glass.. Set Distortion to 6, Smoothness to 1, Texture to Frosted, and Scaling to 100%. Click OK.
   


3. Create a new alpha channel.
   


4. Apply Filter > Render > Difference Clouds.. press CTRL+F to apply it again.
   


5. Load the selection, and switch back to the channel created in Step 1.
   


6. Press D, then X, then fill the selection 3 or 4 times with ALT+Backspace. Deselect.
   


7. Load the selection, and switch to the Layers tab.
   


8. Create a new layer under the first two star layers. Fill the selection with white.