Pastel Planet in Vaseverse
No AI, no CGI, just good old-fashioned Photoshop
This is a true slider, a composite made of my other option for Macro Mondays' "Pastel" theme: a photo of a small round glass flacon (which also would make a pretty vase for a tiny bouquet), mostly clear, and decorated with a beautiful pink and rose banding (stratification? I'm not sure which is the correct word) with dark accents. Those dark, almost black lines in the banding were the main reason why I did not consider using the flacon image for "Pastel" (plus I thought the photo of the toothbrush, my previous upload, looked nicer and also more pastel). But I still liked the image, and the way I had photographed it (as close as possible and with the main focus on a tiny, roundish inclusion in the glass, the "eye"), it reminded me a lot of a pastel planet.
So why not actually turn it into a "real" Pastel Planet and create a space scene for Sliders Sunday? Since I had photographed the flacon against the same white backdrop as the toothbrush, the first step was to black out the background, or rather the bit of negative space on the left corner of the original photo's frame. I started with a dark vignette in Analog Efex, but that didn't look very realistic. Neither did the field of stars which I tried to create with the "Add noise" filter. There is a technique to create a realistic-looking starry space with the Noise filter, but it didn't quite work out for me, the main reason probably being the buggy Photoshop performance due to my now too-old graphics card. In fact, just the other day, after Creative Cloud had automatically updated PS to the latest 2023 version, I was greeted with the message "Your graphics processor is not compatible" (Dang! This means I'll need a new graphics card (etc.) ASAP!), so I had to go back to the previous PS version because that at least kind of still works. But luckily, I found a very easy way to create a field of stars with a custom brush. You can find a link to that tutorial at the end of the description.
In the end, I also decided to use only a section of the flacon to create a whole, perfectly round planet floating in space. The easiest way to make a round shape look like a 3D sphere is to use the "Spherize" filter (at 100%). After adding the moon (for which I used a sunset cloud photo I'd once taken from the balcony), I also added a Lighting effect from the left (please make sure your image mode is set to 8-bit). I also used the burn brush at a large size (midtones at 45% and 25% opacity) to add more of a 3D look to the spheres by painting the planet's and the moon's respective right edges a little darker. The (free) cloud photo I've used to create the nebula is courtesy of "Lemuria" on pixabay. How to make the nebula and also how to add a stratosphere-like glow around a sphere is also explained in the second tutorial. Here are the links to two of the tutorials I've checked out on YouTube:
"Star Brush" (which also includes the Noise filter technique; the video is in German with full English subtitles): Strg/Ctrl+ www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2RKefn5z5U&list=PL4f5dkvCwBQ...
"How to Make PLANETS in Photoshop": Strg/Ctrl+ www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLtvcrS4ph8
Please also make sure to check out the two photos of the flacon in the first comment, the first one was taken by magrit k. :)
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone!
Pastel Planet in Vaseverse
No AI, no CGI, just good old-fashioned Photoshop
This is a true slider, a composite made of my other option for Macro Mondays' "Pastel" theme: a photo of a small round glass flacon (which also would make a pretty vase for a tiny bouquet), mostly clear, and decorated with a beautiful pink and rose banding (stratification? I'm not sure which is the correct word) with dark accents. Those dark, almost black lines in the banding were the main reason why I did not consider using the flacon image for "Pastel" (plus I thought the photo of the toothbrush, my previous upload, looked nicer and also more pastel). But I still liked the image, and the way I had photographed it (as close as possible and with the main focus on a tiny, roundish inclusion in the glass, the "eye"), it reminded me a lot of a pastel planet.
So why not actually turn it into a "real" Pastel Planet and create a space scene for Sliders Sunday? Since I had photographed the flacon against the same white backdrop as the toothbrush, the first step was to black out the background, or rather the bit of negative space on the left corner of the original photo's frame. I started with a dark vignette in Analog Efex, but that didn't look very realistic. Neither did the field of stars which I tried to create with the "Add noise" filter. There is a technique to create a realistic-looking starry space with the Noise filter, but it didn't quite work out for me, the main reason probably being the buggy Photoshop performance due to my now too-old graphics card. In fact, just the other day, after Creative Cloud had automatically updated PS to the latest 2023 version, I was greeted with the message "Your graphics processor is not compatible" (Dang! This means I'll need a new graphics card (etc.) ASAP!), so I had to go back to the previous PS version because that at least kind of still works. But luckily, I found a very easy way to create a field of stars with a custom brush. You can find a link to that tutorial at the end of the description.
In the end, I also decided to use only a section of the flacon to create a whole, perfectly round planet floating in space. The easiest way to make a round shape look like a 3D sphere is to use the "Spherize" filter (at 100%). After adding the moon (for which I used a sunset cloud photo I'd once taken from the balcony), I also added a Lighting effect from the left (please make sure your image mode is set to 8-bit). I also used the burn brush at a large size (midtones at 45% and 25% opacity) to add more of a 3D look to the spheres by painting the planet's and the moon's respective right edges a little darker. The (free) cloud photo I've used to create the nebula is courtesy of "Lemuria" on pixabay. How to make the nebula and also how to add a stratosphere-like glow around a sphere is also explained in the second tutorial. Here are the links to two of the tutorials I've checked out on YouTube:
"Star Brush" (which also includes the Noise filter technique; the video is in German with full English subtitles): Strg/Ctrl+ www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2RKefn5z5U&list=PL4f5dkvCwBQ...
"How to Make PLANETS in Photoshop": Strg/Ctrl+ www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLtvcrS4ph8
Please also make sure to check out the two photos of the flacon in the first comment, the first one was taken by magrit k. :)
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone!