Planet Eclipse Tutorial 2
FINALLY. Here is a tutorial for one of my favorite effects. I know, I know it has been a long time since my last tutorial, but hey, no fear, I am here! 
Let’s get this started. Put on some cool space music. Juno Reactor will do. My favorite: Pistolero. Grab a coffee, and get to work!! Here we go:
Step 1.
Follow my “3d metal rods tutorial” upto step 5. (See, I mentioned in that tutorial that I would be using that effect in another tutorial).
Check out the image
Step 2.
You should be having a background layer, and one layer with the rectangular brush strokes on it. Select the upper layer, press “Ctrl+T” to free transform it. Just
Reduce its width a little bit. See picture:
Step 3.
Apply a vertical motion blur (Filter>Blur>Motion Blur) with direction 90 degrees and 155px distance.
Step 4.
Zoom out, and make a huge ellipse with the ellipse tool (U), as shown in the figure.
Use a black foreground color. Dont worry too much about the shape or size. It is only a rough guide for the steps ahead…
Step 5.
Now we need to make some adjustments. Select the rectangular bars’ layer and go to “Layer>Layer Masks>Reveal All”. Change forground color to black, and take a large, soft brush (200px, 0 hardness, 20% opacity) and delete some rectangular parts of the bars.
Step 6.
Now to add some color. Go to “Layer>New Fill Layer>Gradient”. Select a multicolor gradient. If you are not getting such an option, click on the little arrow beside the gradient chooser, and select the “Rainbow Set” from the dropdown menu. Or you could make your own gradient. Change angle to 90 degrees, scale to 80%, Blend mode to Overlay.
Step 7.
Now to add the eclipse, ie. the lens flare. Make a new layer, fill it with black. Go to “Filter>Render>Lens Flare”. Use 100% for brightness, 50-300mm Zoom for the lens type. Select Ok, and change the layer’s blend mode to “Screen”.
If it seems too bright, or it is too grayish, press “Ctrl+L” or “Image>Adjustments>Levels” to adjust the levels. See settings from below:
Step 8.
Now to add the planet surface, you will need a picture of the earth’s horizon. I found this using google image search. I hope the owner doesn’t mind. You may find a better picture, so go google it. Make sure it is large enough to cover your canvas. Now add this image to your canvas on a new layer. You will need to rotate and resize it to align it with the ellipse layer.
Change the layer’s blend mode to Screen. By now you may have realized that all that the “Screen” mode does is to remove the dark parts of the layer, and show the light parts over the lower layer. The lighter it is, the brighter it shows.
Step 9.
Again we will use layer masks to do some adjustments. Select the new image layer, and go to “Layer>Layer Masks>Reveal All”. Then using the black brush, delete some parts of the image until you get something similar to:
Step 10.
Now that our image is taking shape, lets add a glow to the planet horizon. Select the ellipse layer, and go to “Layer>Layer styles>Outer Glow”. Use setting shown:
Step 11.
Now the last step is to make the universe more realistic. we will add a star field and some noise to the aurora effect. Create a new layer on top of the others, fill it with black and go to “Filter>Texture>Grain”. Change the Intensity to 66 and the Contrast to 60. After that change the layer’s Blend Mode to Soft Light and 60%. You will notice that the image will get a bit darker.
The final image is:
DONE!! You could try some more things like a paper/grunge texture on it, the way it is done on Abduzeedo. (That is where I learnt it. Please do check it out.)But I like it a little more clean and tidy, or I just dont have enough time to do that.
My exams start in 3 days!! Wish me luck!!
Planet Eclipse Tutorial 1
Hey there…
I am going to make a burning planet with an eclipse effect in this tutorial. It is quite simple, and frankly, not too good. But no worries!! Another, better and popular tutorial is almost ready. I just have to make some final touches to it. I will post that one soon, and it will use the effect given in the last Metal Rods tutorial.
STEP 1.
Open a new square document, and press “Ctrl+’” to activate the grid lines. Go to “Edit>Preferences>Guides, Grids and Slices” to change the grid density.
STEP 2.
Fill exactly half of it with black color.
STEP 3.
Go to “Filter>Stylize>Wind”. Select direction from white to black.
STEP 4.
Repeat filter 3-4 times by pressing “Ctrl+F”.
STEP 5.
Rotate image 90 degrees counter-clockwise (“Edit>Rotate Canvas>90 CCW”).
STEP 6.
Apply polarize filter. “Filter>Distort>Polar Coordinates>Rectangular to Polar”
STEP 7.
Select the inner part of the circle formed using the elliptical marquee tool.
STEP 8.
Apply settings shown:
Select the cloud pattern (If you don’s see it in the list, click on the little arrow in the window and append new patterns from the long list shown).
STEP 9.
Apply a color overlay. (Ctrl+U).
Voila.. You are done and good to go!! I promise I will make a better eclipse in the next tutorial..Will post in a week or so. Time is so hard to come by these days 
3D Metal Rods Tutorial
Hey yo!!
This tutorial will help you make a wallpaper with 3D metal rods kind of things.
I will also be using the steps in this tutorial to make another tutorial on how to make an eclipse..
You will also learn from this tutorial how to make custom brushes.
Lets start,
STEP 1.
Start with a large canvas (at least 1024×768)and a black background. Make a rectangular selection that runs along the complete height, and is quite thin.
STEP 2.
Create a new layer, and fill with a light gray color. It will automatically fill only the selection.
STEP 3.
Go to “Edit>Define Brush Preset”. Name your brush as “Rectangle”.
STEP 4.
Select the brush tool. Change you brush to the one you just made. Go to “Window>Brushes” or press F5. Then apply the following settings:
STEP 5.
Once you apply the settings, delete the layer with the gray selection, and also deselect (Select>Deselect, or Ctrl+D). This will leave you with only the black background. Now make a new layer. Set the background and foreground colors to default (or press D). Then with your new brush selected, make a fast left to right sweeping motion over your image. (Make sure it is fast, or it will become too dense).
STEP 6.
Apply the following layer styles (“Layer>Layer style>Blending Options”)
STEP 7.
Create another layer, and run over with the brush again. This will give the image a little more depth. Now right click on layer 1 (the earlier layer) and select “Copy Layer Style”. Right click on layer 2, and “Paste Layer Style”. Your layers palette should look like this:
STEP 8.
Merge the two layers, and go to “Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options”. Apply a pattern overlay:
This completes the tutorial. The final image and the wallpaper is:
Comments and requests are most welcome!!
The Questioning Mind
Hey there… In college we have this class called “Institutional Orientation” in which we are made to think about quite pointless (but quite useful) topics, and it has no set syllabi. Yesterday we were asked to raise questions but nobody volunteered. So the prof asked us to right an essay on “why don’t we ask questions”.. now that’s what I call class-handling ability.
I dont think a tutorial is needed here because neither is this wallpaper worth a tutorial, nor is it difficult. Just type a huge question mark, apply a drop shadow, outer glow, bevel and emboss, pattern overlay (metal grating), and color overlay of red. Now that is not difficult is it.. I mean this wallpaper is worth putting in a first post..not the 42nd post
