Easily Create Planetary Ring via Cloud and Twirl Filter in Photoshop

Step 1

Create a new document sized 940px * 700px, fill the background with black colour. Let’s create the Planetary Ring first.
Create a new layer and use the lasso tool (50px feather) to draw a selection, render some cloud in it:

Hit Ctrl + L and apply the following Levels adjustments:

Go to Filter > Distort > Twirl:

and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + T and perspective the ring as shown below:

Reduce the height a bit and you will have the following effect:

Erase the edges with a a soft eraser, and you have made a simple ring:

Step 2

Now let’s draw a planet on top of the ring layer. Firstly draw a circle on a new layer, then fill the circle with black color and apply the following layer blending options:
Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

Stroke


here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Now create a new layer under the planet layer, use the star and debris brush you downloaded, paint some splashing effect around the planet, as shown below:

Now we can create some cloud/nebula effect around the planet. To do this, create a new layer below the planet layer, use a lasso tool (50px feather)to draw a selection, render some cloud inside.
Then apply the Difference cloud filter to it:

Here is the effect after applying the difference cloud filter:

Then Warp the cloud as shown below:

Duplicate this layer a few times and scatter them around the globle, as shown below:

You can also duplicate and drag some nebula layers above the planet layer, position the nebula as shown below: (make sure to set the blending mode of those layers to “screen”)

Here is the effect so far:

Now we can add a bit of backlight for this planet to increase the depth. Create a new layer under the planet layer called “highlight”, grab a soft white brush and do a single-click to the position shown below:

Step 4

Now let’s add some abstract lines to decorate the planet. Once again we can use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below:

Choose the 1px hard brush from the brush pane:

Right-click on the path with Pen Tool selected, and choose “Stroke Path”:

Select “Brush” from the drop down box, tick “Simulate Pressure”, click “OK”:

and here is the effect:

Duplicate this line layer a few more times, rotate and resize them then scatter the lines around the planet, as shown below:

Step 5

Ok we’re almost done. Let’s add a few image adjustment layer on top of all previous layers to fine tune the image a bit:
Curves

Mask on Curves adjustment layer:

As you can see, we increased the contrast of the debris on the left so it looks more distinctive:

Colour Balance



and here is the effect after apply those adjustment layers:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial: (I further adjusted the colour and contrast of the image)

That’s it! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful :)
Till next time, have a great day!