How to Create a Starry Night Background in Photoshop
Create a starry night background in Adobe Photoshop by making your own custom paintbrush in the graphics editing software program. You can use your custom brush to paint stars in the sky or trails of sparkles on any photo or background.
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Instructions
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Go to "File" in the horizontal "Toolbar" at the top of your Photoshop screen, and choose "New." In the "New Document" dialog box, choose 200 pixels for the width and for the height. Set the "Background Contents" to white, then click "OK." Now you have a new 200 x 200 document.
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Select black as your paint color. Your current Foreground and Background colors are shown in the color boxes in the vertical "Toolbox" on the left of the screen close to the bottom. Black foreground and white background are the default settings, which is what you want for this task.
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Select the "Paint Brush" tool from the "Toolbox."
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Choose your "Paint Brush." Go to your "Brushes" palette or tab and click on the little menu icon next to it. You will see a drop-down list of preset brushes with line art illustrations. When your cursor hovers over a brush, a description of it will appear. Keep scrolling down the list until you find the "Star 70 Pixels" brush. Click on it to select it.
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Paint a few random sparkles in your 200 x 200 document by clicking inside it three or four times in an irregular pattern.
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Go back to the "Brushes" palette and scroll up until you come to the "Airbrush Soft Round 17" in the list. Click to select it.
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Paint some random spots with your "Airbrush." Mix three or four of them in with the sparkles you already have in your document. If you feel the spots are too dominant, make your brush size smaller.
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Scroll back down to the "Star 70 Pixels" brush and change the brush size to 30. Make some small starbursts by clicking in the document a few times.
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Save your sparkles as one brush. Go to "Edit" in the top horizontal Toolbar and click on "Define Brush Preset." In the dialog box that comes up, name your brush "Stars and Sparkles," or whatever you like. Click "OK." Now you have created a custom "Paint Brush." You can close your document, as the "Paint Brush" is saved.
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Flip your Foreground and Background colors by clicking on the double arrows below the color boxes in the "Toolbox" on the left, so that black is in the background.
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Go to "File," and then "New," and set up up a 3" x 3" document, in CMYK color mode, with 300 resolution. In the "Background Contents" box, choose "Background Color." Click OK. Your document will open up as black for your night sky.
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Go to "Layer" and "New." Click to create a new layer.
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Click on the "Paint Brush" tool, then go to the "Brushes" palette and scroll down to the brush you created. Let your cursor hover over the brush drawings to read the words describing each brush. You will see "Stars and Sparkles" or whatever name you chose. Click on your star brush.
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Begin painting stars in your night sky. Because your Foreground color is white, your brush will paint white stars. You can enlarge your brush size to make your stars and sparkles larger and farther apart if you like.
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Save the image in your "Pictures" folder as "Starry Night Sky." In the future, you can use this file as a background for any graphic image or scene.
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Tips & Warnings
You can open any photo and use your "Stars and Sparkles" Paint Brush to create a trail of sparkles.
Painting too many stars and sparkles too close together will begin to look like one white line. Be sure to stagger and space them.
References
- Photo Credit Starlight night image by Liga Lauzuma from Fotolia.com
