Another thrilling case for you retouching detectives!

The only image I used was:
http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/2429/globe_west_2048.jpg

Everything else was created in Photoshop.

Deconstruct/Reconstruct/Explain

1. 800 X 600 canvas filled w/black
2. cut, paste, resize and position earth
3. stacked 5 varied transparency, edge softness and color circles for "sun"
4. snow generator for stars on canvas

(PhotoImpact)

OH! Just noticed that the earth was rotated about 45 deg clockwise, so I did that too.

Pretty good Lonnie (and I'm sure pretty fast too hehehe). Only one thing I noticed was missed was the blue ring of the "sun" surrounding the white area (kinda like an atmosphere).

If anybody hasn't already seen these tutorials on making starfields and planets, check them out, the author (Greg Martin) has detailed steps.... quite easy tutorials I'd say.

Make a star field:
http://www.webdesign.org/web/photoshop/articles/make-a-realistic-star-field.3811.html

Make a planet:
http://www.pslover.com/click/4026

If you click on other tutorials by him, you'll see he's quite a good artist (or able to draw should I say hehe).

Enjoy!

Pretty good Lonnie (and I'm sure pretty fast too hehehe). Only one thing I noticed was missed was the blue ring of the "sun" surrounding the white area (kinda like an atmosphere).
Thanks, vchiline. Yeah, I did this rather quickly and admittedly didn't take all that much time to replicate the "sun" glow.

Actually, just jumped in since there didn't seem to be much interest in this "detective" challenge. Probably way to easy for most of the grand talent in these parts?

The tut you pointed out IS excellent, but then this particular effort didn't really require that much reality detail.

Feel free to make a much better version (it won't be difficult). That's part of the process.

Wow lots of filled circles gaussian blurred, the ring done with Edit Stroke, noise created with add noise and filter->texture->grain, stipple