Rock Planets
1. Create a new file that is 4x4 inches and a resolution of 300dpi. Name this file b-mercury, or any other planet you are making.
2. Paint your Canvas black. To do this, find your Paint Bucket tool (usually hidden under the Gradient Tool), change the Foreground color to Black
3. Create two guides form the side and the top to divide the page. Your guides should fall right at 2in. If you cannot see your rulers, press Command+R.
4. Create a new layer by clicking on the icon shown here.
5. Find your Elliptical Marquee Tool (or press M until you get it). Go to the intersection of your guides. Press and hold Option, Click and Drag, Press shift, continue dragging until your circle is the right size. Then let go of the mouse click, then let go of shift and then of command.
6. Set your colors as shown with the foreground as white and background as black.
7. Go back to your Paint Bucket tool and paint your circle white on the new layer.
8. Reset your colors by pressing "D" or change them so the foreground is now black and the color background is white.
9. Filter > Render > Difference Clouds
10. Filter > Texture > Craquelure to add a rocky texture
11. Filter > Texture > Spherize set to 100 to make the texture look like a sphere.
12. Create a new layer. Use your paint bucket and a black foreground to paint a black circle over your planet.
13. Go to Select>Deselect to get rid of the selection ring. Then use the Move Tool to move the shadow to reveal some of the planet.
14. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur set at 70 to blur the circle into a shadow.
15. Use the Opacity setting on the layers window to 81% to make the shadow a bit transparent.
16. Select the planet layer.
17. Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation to change the color of your planet.
Make sure you click on the "Colorize tabe ont he Hue/Saturation window.
18. Click on the Fx icon on the Layers window and choose "Outer Glow" to add a glow to your planet.
19. Apply the following settings to your Outer Glow. Or at least get close so you see a cool glow around your planet. Then, in the same window, click and activate the "Inner Glow" with these settings to complete the effect.
20. This is what your planet should look like at this point. Switch to the Background Layer for the next step.
21. Filter > Render > Lens Flare to add a cool light flare to your background.
22. Move the Lens Flare to the corner where you think the edge of the planet should be. Change the lens flare to 105mm Prime and press ok.
23. If the flare does not appear in the correct position press Command+Option+Z and try again.
24. Congratulations, you have now created a sun. In order to save it go to File>Save As...
