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Create this loopable time-lapse animation from scratch all inside Photoshop! This tutorial will show you how to create an animated night silhouette scene with a surreal space background full of stars, galaxies, and planets.
Learn how to create a time lapse scene in Photoshop. This tutorial will teach you how to create, animate and export a night scene full of stars, planets and galaxies using only Photoshop.
Preview of Final Results
Tutorial Resources
- Galaxies Brushes – sunira
- Galaxies Brushes 2 – chuloc
- Planet Brushes – sunira
- Tree Brushes – horhew
- Fractal – greenaleydis-stock
Step 1: Create a new document
Create a new file in Photoshop (Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd+N) using these settings:
- Width: 1600px
- Height: 475px
- Resolution: 300px/inch
![clip_image002 clip_image002](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image002.png?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
Step 2: Install the brushes
In this step we’re going to install the four brushes we’re going to use in this tutorial. Download all of them and extract them to your Adobe/Adobe Photoshop(…)/Presets/Brushes folder.
![clip_image003 clip_image003](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image003-1.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
Now go back to Photoshop, select the Brush Tool (Shortcut: B) and right click anywhere in the canvas. Then click in the little arrow at the top of the brush menu (see image below).
![clip_image004 clip_image004](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image004.png?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
Then click in Load Brushes, go to the folder where you extracted them and select “Trees_by_Horhew”.
![clip_image005 clip_image005](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image005-1.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
The tree brushes will now be on the bottom of your brushes panel (Right click anywhere in the screen to see them).
Step 3: Draw the landscape
Go to View > New Guide and set the new guide position to 445px and the orientation to Horizontal.
![clip_image006 clip_image006](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image006.png?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
![clip_image007 clip_image007](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image007-1.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
· If you don’t see the guide we just created, press Ctrl/Cmd+; to show your guides (or go to View > Show > Guides). Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (Shortcut: M) and make a selection of the bottom part of our image (start the selection in the bottom of the image and finish it in the guide we created).
![clip_image008 clip_image008](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image008.png?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
![clip_image009 clip_image009](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image009.png?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
Now press D to return the colors of your palette to black and white, and then hit Alt/Opt+Delete to fill your selection with black.
- You can press Ctrl/Cmd+D to deselect your selection
- You can press Ctrl+; to hide all the guides of your project
![clip_image010 clip_image010](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image010-1.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
Before we start adding the trees, let’s make a new layer to hold them. Press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N to create a new layer and name this layer ‘Trees’. Since we’re renaming layers, change the name of our first layer to ‘Border’.
![clip_image011 clip_image011](https://cdn.photoshoptutorials.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/clip_image011.png?strip=all&lossy=1&quality=70&webp=70&avif=70&w=1920&ssl=1)
Now we’re going to start making the landscape of our animation. Press B to select the Brush Tool, and here’s how we’ll do it:
- Make sure that black is still your foreground color
- Make sure that your brush is set to 100% Opacity
- You can quickly decrease or increase the size of the brush hitting ‘[‘ or ‘]’ respectively
- To make the grass select some high trees and paint with their top part slightly above our black rectangle
- Add 5 or 6 big trees in our project
- Add some bushes near the trees and at other random places (you can also use them to make grass if you decrease their size)
- Try to make some parts of the terrain higher than others
And here’s how I made my landscape, step-by-step.
11 comments on “How to Create a Stars and Planets Time Lapse in Photoshop”
Your image works beautifully with the mask Nancy!This looks like a great tool. I’m going to try it out. Currently.Thanks for sharing these useful information….
I made it although i made it and uploaded the video on facebook!
(I uploaded as a video not a .gif)
So here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=646167675410197&set=vb.100000509100609&type=3&theater
You can see it and if you like it just hit the like button.
Thank you for this tutorial.. im glad i learned a couple things!!
I have a small problem!!
I dont have the animation timeline you have..
My photoshop has a timeline but i have to make the animation frame by frame and only..
I have adobe photoshop cs6 Version 13.0 x32.. i dont know if that helps
Nice tutorial. Keep it up Guys!
I am trying to save a file, but I don't have the "QuickTime Export" option. What it might be wrong?
I would add some motion blur to it so that it doesn't look so choppy. Nice to see an animation tutorial :)
Very nice! Thank you a lot!
Please help me!!! I don't know how to download the brushes and the other things!!!
Took me awhile to find the download link but it's on the right-side between all the clutter
http://imgur.com/ZRCqh
Superb graphic design tutorials and thanks for share....
Awesome and difference articles...thanks to share..