[Oregonian]

This is a very short tutorial but sometimes it's nice to have something quick and easy to do.

Get smoke brushes here. I have the first two sets shown.

Start with a new image and fill the layer with a color you want for the space background. I used black for the first one.

Make a new transparent layer, change the mode to Dissolve and set the Opacity to 3.5 (you can change this to whatever you want. The lower the opacity the lower the density of the stars).



Choose a smoke brush and resize it to 0.5. You may want to use more than one brush style. Brush the layer a few times, varying where you brush each time to create "drifts" of stars.

This is what my star layer would look like if I hadn't applied Dissolve mode and lowered the opacity.



Merge the layers and save your starfield. Decorate it with space objects, sparkle stars, what-have-you.



This one was done by filling the top layer with white, the mode to Dissolve, and the Opacity set to 0.5. Change the Opacity to vary the density. I used two different shades of dark blue and filled the background layer using a gradient: Shaped (spherical).



I found out later that it looks good to merge the first star layer to the bg layer and blur it with a Gaussian blur of 1. Then do another star layer, take the opacity down farther and merge it down - no blur. Gives a little more depth of field.

[2-ton]

I like the blue one, using gradient makes it look much better than solid color.

[molly]

Yes, I agree with that. There is just something about the gradient that makes it look more 3 dimensional like you are looking deep into the sky.

very good......

[jolie]

Nice and quick method. Thanks. :mrgreen:

[PhotoComix]

Nice and quick tutorial
I like also the suggestion of Oregonian may add some depth

I personally prefer, maybe for laziness a Astronomy plugin http://registry.gimp.org/node/2352 ( has several function as create starfield, create galaxy, etc ):
i create more starfield (or starfield plus galaxy ) and then i merged down in lighten only mode.

But i like you found simple steps to do manually and with good results and that are clearly described

moved to official :)

[Oregonian]

Thank you!

This is one of my favorite places to get real star fields.
http://antwrp.gsfc.n...d/ap091014.html

If you scroll to the bottom of that page there is a link called Archive that gets you a list of links.

[PhotoComix]

:)
maybe you can move your second message as Post Script in the first

[Oregonian]

PhotoComix said:

:)
maybe you can move your second message as Post Script in the first

You mean like I did above? I added it to the first post.

Perhaps you can delete the one that is a duplicate?

[Oregonian]

Thank you, PhotoComix, for your suggestion and deleting the extra post. :mrgreen:

[PhotoComix]

:)