How were these made? First I create an image with two layers. On the second layer I create a black sphere. I use the wand tool to make a mask around it, then invert the mask so the sphere is selected. (the way airbrush works in PSP I need to have a black sphere selected, just a blank mask won't work well)
I then pick a color and use the airbrush, it's set on the lighten blend mode. I then use the brush to make the overall day/night outline of the planet.
To add a texture to the planet, I use the brush with a texture setting and a different RGB color. (I use the HSL settings to tweak the color, generally increments of 10, 20 or 30 when a drastic color or lighting difference is wanted) Sometimes I set the brush to darken if an area is too bright and I need some contrast.
The trick is using good textures, colors that look good together, and just some imagination. I try to have dark and light areas and use organic textures such as tree bark. (It might be hard to believe that all of these were made form tree textures, but it's true, I need to experiment with leaves now too though...)
To add some depth, I then emboss the image and then play with the contrast and using highlight/midtone/shadow I lower the midtone to almost nothing. The embossed image is on a layer, and I tweak the transparency until it has a good bump map type look.
I merge the layers and use h/m/s to lower the shadow so that the night side is black, and I either paint more with the brush and emboss again or if it looks good I then move to "post production."
For post production I use the spherize (set as a sphere or ellipse, whatever distorts less) command to make the planet look round, and then sharpen the inner section of the planet, but not the edges.
Then I tweak the contrast and color settings until it looks good. The last step I take is then shrinking the image 50 percent. (I start with a 1024x1024 image so I can have a 512x512 or 256x256 final planet)
Something I did for image six as an experiment was another "bump map layer" where I split the image up, and reassembled it like a jigsaw puzzle and then embossed it. The end result created some nice canyons but I then made the layer very subtle as it didn't quite work with that planet. It's a good effect for planets that need Valles Marenies(sp?) type canyons or to have a look similar to Uranus' moon Titania.
My experiments with cloud layers and water haven't gone well yet, but I'm still playing with it. I think for the moment though I'm going to try to master making non-terrestrial planets
So far, I really haven't had a lot of control over how the planets come out. They sort of evolve on their own. The only two that came out as I intended were the Europa/ice and the last Venusian/volcanic type. The third image (going from top to bottom) was at first going to be a lush Earth like one, but it wound up being quite the opposite
As I messaged Sandwich, when I've done a few more planets I'll convert them to .pcx and submit them to HLP as a planet pack. I thought about BWO use, but they don't match the art style of Dark's planets.
