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NOTE : this tutorials is entitled [v2] becuase a very good detailed tutorial for creating planets of brilliant quality have already been posted HERE by Marvin x. Most of the practice in this tutorial, is based on selections and some filters. You must be good at workin with selections, i.e. Making elliptic selections, intersecting another selection with existing one, growing and shrinking selection etc.
Then why another tutorial on samething?
Becuase while playing I ended up with a way to do such effect in fewer steps and without consuming much resources of CPU. BUT, to created more detailed image and more clear, you obviously need image with big dimensions and more memory needed to process it, as in the other tutorial author used 3000x3000 image size.
Final results will look something like this:
And results after last fine tuning:
Let's get started:
Step 1:
Create a new Image with dimensions 500 width, and 500 height and fill the default Background layer with black color.
In this tutorial we will have total of minimum 6 (seven) layers, one is the background layer that is by default there in the image which we filled with black, the we create 5 new layers and rename them from top to bottom as: shadow, grunge, texture, sphere, and light, as shown in following image:
Step 2:
Select layer named 'sphere' and fill the layer with white color.
Now Go through Menues, 'Filters' > 'Map' > 'Map Object'. A new window will appear, in this window, first tab is 'options'. In options select 'Sphere' from Map to: labeled drop down, then check the 'transparent background chekcbox', and click button 'OK', as show here:
You see there is a sphere created onto layer named 'sphere'
Now, rightclick the layer 'shpere' in layers list window, and select menu item 'Alpha to Selection', you will notice that an elliptic selection is made around the sphere you created. Now this selection will be reused in almost all steps, so better is save it to channels, go through menus 'Select' > 'Save to Channel'. NOTE: Channel tab/window will get foucs, so you are recomended to get back to layers listing window and select any layer. Now you iamge window must look somehting like this:
Step 3:
Select layer named 'texture' (NOTE: selection is active), and fill the selected area of layer 'texture' with any stonish kind of background. Set layer 'texture' mode to 'Overlay'. So your image window must look something like this depending on your stonish texture:
Step 4:
Select layer 'grunge' and go through menus (within image window), 'Filters' > 'Render' > 'Clouds' > 'Plasma'.
A new filter window will appear, do not chane any settings except 'turbulence', set value of 'tubulence' to 3.0, as shown in following image, and click ok.
Change layer 'grunge' mode to 'Difference', then go thorugh menus 'Filters' > 'Colors' > 'Colorify', a new window will appear, simply click button 'ok' on it, aslo change the opacity of the layer to between 60 to 80. Now your image must look something similar following:
Step 5:
Select layer named 'light' (make sure selection is still active), fill selection with white. Remove selection by going through menus 'Select' > 'None'. Then go through menus 'Filters' > 'Blur' > 'Gussian Blur', a new window will appear, enter value '20' in Horizontal and click button 'ok'. Now press Ctrl+F about 3 times to make the layer 'light' more blur, it is the surrounding light which may be increased by blurring again and again, any filter can be reapplied by going through menus 'Repeat "Gussian Blur"'. Now you image must look something like this:
Now we have the tricky part, it is tricky if you do not have grip over selections, otherwise it s game of few minutes for you.
Step 6: Making shaow
You notice that we have removed the selection, but you must remember that we have that saved in the channels, so let's get our elliptic selectio back to manipulate. Go to Channels list window which has two parts, the top part is not of our use, the lower part contains our channel, as you see here:
Simply rightclick the channel named 'Selection Mask copy' and select menu 'Channel to Selection', notice our selection is restored in the image window. Go back to layers list window, and select layer named 'shadow'.
Now select the elliptic seletion making tool
and notice the following iamge first. 
A. Hold dow Ctrl (control) key
B. Click left moue buton where point entitled 'PRESS' starts in image
C. Drag down the mouse and release the mosue button where point 'RELEASE' is placed.
You will notice that selection has been cut to something as following:
First save the selection to channels, as we did earlier with our first selection, so that we can reuse it.
Grow the selection by 5 pixels, go through menus 'Select' > 'Grow', enter value '5' and click 'ok'.
Make sure layer 'shadow' is selected,
i.fill it with pure black color
ii.remove selection
ii.Go through menus 'Filters' > 'Blur' > 'Gussian Blur' enter amount '20' and click button 'ok'.
iii.Go to channels window and rightclick the old elliptic chanel (the circle one) and select menu item 'Channel to Selection'.
iv.Go to layers window and select layer 'shadow'
v.Set teh opacity of layer 'shadow' to 65 %.
vi.press Ctrl+i, or go through menus 'Select' > 'Invert', which will invert the selection, now press Ctrl+K to delete selected area.
Upto here you have something like this:
Step 7: Making the top light:
Here comes a new layer, in this process I found someshortcut way to create same sliced selection that we created in step 6 but not on bottom but on top-left corner of our planet.
A. Duplicate layer 'shadow'. You will see two layers of same type, name the second layer (from top) 'top-light'. So you have layers listing like this now:
B. Select new layer named 'top-light', and go through menus to rotate it, 'Layer' > 'Transform' > 'Rotate 180 degrees'. Now you have two shadows, first on bottom-right corner of planet and other on top-left corner of planet. The top one is basically created to make light, SO, how to turn this shadow to light? very simple.
C. Select Colorize tool
click the layer 'top-light' within image window, a new window will appear, set 'Saturation' to 0 (zero) and 'Lightness' to 100 (hundred) and click button 'ok'.D. Set opacity of this layer to 65%.
It is done, your planet is ready.
Fine Tuning:
1. Select 'move layers & selections' tool by pressing 'M', then select layer named 'light', move it a bit (about 10 to 20 pixels) to top-left.
2. To make planet surface more detailed, duplicate the layer named 'grunge' 2 or 3 times, run filter Filters > Distorts > iWrap, window will appear, select Deform Mode as Swirl CCW, move mouse some on duplicated layer and click ok, then use colorize tool and give some different color and set lyer mode to Overlay. The more you repeat this process the more detailed planet surface comes out. And here are results after fine tuning:
And even more:
I am sure, once you follow these steps, the next time you need to create planet, you you robably spend 3 to 5 minutes on one.
We meet again sooner :w:
Let me know if you have any questions (comments are welcomed too :h:).
regards
