How Was it Made

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If you're into playing with these toys, you're probably a lot more expert than I in their use and the resultant creations. However, for those of you who haven't played with Photo Editors this might be interesting.

First, a listing of the basic images.

• The "Sun" is an effect (Lens Flare) that comes with Photoshop.
• The stars came from a screen capture of a display created by The_Sky astronomy program.
• The Moon came off a QSL card I received some time ago (scanned with an HP Scanjet IIc)
• The astronaut was found at some BBS (ASTRON.GIF).
• The Earth was obtained from CIS's Space Forum (EARTH2.GIF).

The first layer created was the background. That includes only one item, the "Lens Flare" effect included in Photoshop, used to create the Sun. After I had that I saved the file (SEMASTRO.PSD).

The second layer is comprised of the stars. Using "Image Pals" capture utility, I ran "The_Sky" and got an image of the constellation Orion on screen. I captured that at 1024x768x256 (first figure is pixels wide, second is pixels high third is number of colors). Next I restarted Photoshop, loaded the file SEMASTRO.PSD and created a new "blank" layer. I then loaded the screen capture of the stars as a separate file, and copied its contents to the blank layer. Each superceding layer obscures the one under it. However, there are numerous ways to get around this. In the case of the stars, the black background was totally obscuring the "Sun". I set this layer to blend with the layer underneath, allowing any object brighter in the underlying layer to show through. Since both layers had black backgrounds this had the effect of superimposing the Sun on the starry background.

The next layer in the picture is the moon. I loaded the file containing this image into Photoshop, created a new layer, and copied the image onto that new layer. In the original scanned image, there is some QSL information (text) and the Earth is hanging in the sky. This is a pretty famous picture, usually referred to as "Earthrise". The Earth is pretty small and there wasn't much detail so, I cut it out. The text had to go too. OK, now I've got the Moon's surface and a black background. But, that black background isn't needed, I've already got the "sky" set in the first two layers. So, I selected all black objects in the picture and totally removed them. This left just the moon's surface.

Note that I had the "Sun", and the stars on screen. But, since I only had the layer with the Moon active, any editing I did was restricted to that layer leaving the others intact. This is a FABULOUS feature. It enables you to do some really amazing effects, and spend LOTS less time writing changes to disk. And once a layer is finished, it's fairly safe (unless you accidentally select it and do something horrible - even then, it's possible to restore that layer from a previously saved version of the file without affecting any of the other layers.

OK, now it's the Astronaut's turn to make an appearance. ASTRON.GIF is a fairly famous GIF and you've probably seen it. I believe the astronaut is Bruce McCandliss. Anyway, the astronaut is pictured floating at approximately a 45 degree angle in space, his lower torso in front of the Earth's limb. All I wanted here was the astronaut. No Earth. So, using a selection tool, I cut him out. Next I created a new layer in SEMASTRO.PSD, the master file, and pasted him in. But he was at that 45 degree angle. So, I used the rotate command to swing him around to nearly vertical.

I wanted a large Earth hanging in the sky and I wanted it to be detailed. None of the pictures I had on disk were satisfactory, so, I went hunting and found EARTH2.GIF on CompuServe. It's a 1024x768x256 picture with lots of resolution. I downloaded it, and loaded it into Photoshop. At that resolution it was way to large to fit properly in the master file, so, I resized it. Once I had it sized properly I copied it onto a new layer in the master file. One problem with the Earth, it was uniformly illuminated by the sun. It just didn't look right sitting there so evenly lit. So, I used a lighting effect in Photoshop. Selecting just the Earth, I indicated a direction of a light source and the program shaded the Earth as if it was being illuminated from the location of the Sun in my master file. WOW, that worked great!

Finally, the text. I created yet another layer and just typed it in. There are two text elements. The text on the upper half of the screen and on the lower half. That looked nice but, was a bit boring. Hmmm, the text at the bottom looked like it was floating in space in front of the astronaut. I decided that text should look more like it was written on the Moon's surface so, I changed the order of the Astronaut and text layers making the Astronaut the top layer and the text below him. This caused his feet to appear in front of the text. Nice!

Well I was finished but it looked not so good. You see, I'd placed the sun on the left, the earth in the center and the astronaut on the right. But that left hardly any stars visible. So, I selected the layer with the earth amd slid it over to the left a bit, then selected the astronaut layer and moved him a bit to the left and presto, Orion appears on the right no longer obscured by the Astronaut. Without that layers feature, that little manipulation would have meant having to start from scratch. I used to sit down with pencil and paper and really plan the layout before this feature made its debut. Even then, I would occasionally make a mistake that would mean many minutes to hours of recreation. Now, it's a snap.

Well, now you know more about the creation process of this picture than you probably wanted to know. But, you've also seen just how handy Photoshop can be. Of course, it's expensive. But now you see how they justify that expense. There are TONS of features I haven't even touched (probably will always be) in the week I've had this new program around the house. But, I'm sure it will make the "Stratosphere" a little more interesting. I plan to pop this picture in the next issue for fun.