Inner and Outer Glow on Planets

[bjobrien]

Hi all,

I've come back to paint.net after a couple of years hiatus... the last time I was using it was for some really simple image stitching. Now, I'm trying to do something a bit more complex for this newbie, but obviously something others have done before and even written some quick tutorials on.

Alas, apparently I'm too much of a newbie to follow these tutorials.

I'm trying to make a neat planet image for some hobby stuff I'm working on. I have an image (2048x1024) as a texture (from the program Fractal Terrains). I can render it into 3D using Shape3D (AWESOME plugin, btw).

Now I'm trying to add the inner and outer glow on the planet. I found here someone who had posted a quick tutorial on how to do this, but I guess I'm not well enough versed in PDN to follow it exactly... my results aren't getting me where I want to be (yet, I know it works because others are praising the author). So, I'm turning here to see if someone could help further "dumb down" this few lines of tutorial into something a total drooling idiot could use? 'Cause, apparently that's me.

Anyhow, here's the link to the original Glow tutorial. Here's an example of the type of effect I'm looking for -- the purplish halo around the planet. Help very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Brennan

Edited January 27, 2012 by bjobrien

[Goonfella]

If you are finding the inner/outer glow tut tricky to follow you could always just do it this way instead -

1 Duplicate the planet twice

2 Move one duplicate under the original, the other above

3 Go Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and turn the Lightness up to the max on both. This should turn the them all white.

4 Gaussian Blur the lower one to your taste. This should add the outer glow.

5 Go to the top one and Gaussian that as well

6 Use a radial transparent gradient to remove the centre leaving just the edges. This will give you the inner glow. Also play around with the transparency settings of the layer if necessary until you are happy with the result.

7 Add colour.

Obviously you might need to play with the settings to get the effect you prefer but it should work and ( hopefully) be a bit easier to follow.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Goonfella

[bjobrien]

If you are finding the inner/outer glow tut tricky to follow you could always just do it this way instead -

1 Duplicate the planet twice

2 Move one duplicate under the original, the other above

3 Go Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and turn the Lightness up to the max on both. This should turn the them all white.

4 Gaussian Blur the lower one to your taste. This should add the outer glow.

5 Go to the top one and Gaussian that as well

6 Use a radial transparent gradient to remove the centre leaving just the edges. This will give you the inner glow. Also play around with the transparency settings of the layer if necessary until you are happy with the result.

7 Add colour.

Obviously you might need to play with the settings to get the effect you prefer but it should work and ( hopefully) be a bit easier to follow.

Bless you! Bless you! Bless you!! It's starting to make a lot more sense. Now, one other question... in your sig image, you have a spherical body whose glow fades out as it gets towards the bottom of the image. What did you do to do that? I initially thought an additional layer with shadowing on it, but that doesn't seem to go in the right direction.

Thanks in the past and in advance!

Brennan

[Lance McKnight]

Transparent gradient, I believe.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Lance McKnight

[pdnnoob]

Actually, that (the shadow) is something I usually do before I work on the glow. Basically, you fill the bottom with black, then run gaussian blur.

[bjobrien]

Okay, hang on... remember the basic premise here... I'm too stupid to drool.

@pdnnoob (HAH! Not for a minute are you a noob anymore!) -- what do you mean fill the bottom? Fill the bottom layer? Create a new layer? Do something completely different? Go slow, use pictures, assume your audience can only handle 1st grade level.

@Lance? How do you mean transparent gradient? Again, I need a hint tree trunk here... no small stick will do.

Thanks guys,

Brennan

[Goonfella]

What I did was duplicate the planet, make the duplicate black, gaussian blur to taste. Play around with opacity and size of it until you are happy , then select outside of the original planet, go to the shadow layer and delete all the extra blur that you don`t need.

By the way to get a transparent gradient make sure the colours are set to default then do this after you have chosen the gradient tool -

Then you can left or right click with the mouse to get different results. Try it.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Goonfella