Digital Painting A Planet With Paint Shop Pro 8 - Part I - Page 2

Figure 3. Retouch Brushs - Smudge Brush

Step 5. Smudge the planet. We will use the Smudge Brush to drag and blend the pixels of color much as you would blend traditional acrylics or oil paints on a canvas. Click on the Retouch Brushes icon and choose the Smudge Brush. Then set the following values in the Tool Options Palette.

Brush Tip: Default
Shape: Round
Size: 300
Hardness: 50
Step: 1
Density 50
Thickness 100
Opacity: 50

Now you are ready to drag and smudge the pixels. Hold down your mouse button and pass the mouse pointer over the planet in a counter clockwise circular movement. This will blend the pixels down and to the right. Continue this until the colors in the planet are blended the way you like. I have blended my colors quite a lot because I wanted to use this image as a small planet in the distance. But a planet can have many different looks. I could have stopped any place between Example 1 through 4.

Examples 1 - 4

Tip 1. If the pixels start to move away from the edge of the selection area just push them back with the mouse pointer.
Tip 2. Use small movements and blend the colors gradually.
Tip 3. Planets are usually spinning on an axis. So you want the streaks of color to be at a slight diagonal.
Tip 4. Decide where your light source will be (where is the planet's sun). Now smudge the brighter colors toward that side of the planet and the darker colors away from the sun.

Now you have a nice looking planet. You can use the planet as is or continue to the next part of the tutorial to learn how to add a gaseous vapor ring around the planet. But for now, save the image of your planet in Paint Shop Pro format (.psp). This will retain the individual layers within the image.

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