We’ll be using both Photoshop and Illustrator to make the most of their different capabilities and combine the two different types of artwork into one cool design. The design we’ll be creating uses a mix of heavy grainy textures and clear sharp vector elements to produce a cold dark poster based on the moon. You’ll need to capture the parts of the Moon separately and do a mosaic to create a Full Moon image. If your focal length is too short (500mm and under), the Moon will be quite small on the DSLR chip – so when you crop the image around the Moon, you won’t get the same sharpness and detail at full resolution.
In this tutorial I am going to show you how to add a moon to an image using Adobe Photoshop. This is very simple technique and the result can look very realistic! We are going to use Photoshop’s blending options not only to place the moon into this photo but we are also going to bring the clouds in front of the moon to make it look real! So lets get started by importing a background and the moon image on top of it.
Hit the V key or Ctrl T to move the moon and place it to where you want it to bee in the image and press enter.
Normally you would use one of the blending modes such as Lighten or Screen but it doesn’t work well in this case so we are going to use technique called Luminance Blending. To use is click twice on the moon layer, layer style box will pop up. Here we will be working with two sliders – This Layer and Underlying Layer. To remove the background from the moon drag This Layer left slider to the right slowly until the background disappears.
Then zoom in to the image Ctrl + , you should notice that some of the background of the moon is still there, in this case I have a black boarder around the edges. If you look at the adjustment slider we moved it has a line going down in the middle of it and we can split it into two pieces. To split it into two pieces hold the Alt key and click on one half of it and drag away. Once it is free release the keyboard key and continue to drag that slider until the black boarder is gone, and click OK.
I think the moon is too big for this image, lets press short cut Ctrl T to free transform. Hold the Shift key and drag the edge of the selection until you are happy with the size. You can also reposition the moon and find the right place for it. Press Enter to apply the changes.
Now it looks fine but the moon does not look real, that is because there are no clouds in front of it. So to get those clouds in front we are going back into layers dialog box and make some more changes. Double click on the moon layer, This time we are going to work with Underline Layer slider. Click on the left slider and drag it to the right slowly until you start noticing clouds to appear.
You will notice that transition is pretty hard between the clouds and the surface of the moon. So to smooth those out we are going to do the same as we did to This Layer slider. We are going to split this adjustment slider in half, to do that hold the Alt key and click on one half of it and drag it away. Once it is free release the keyboard key and continue to drag the slider until you are happy with the results. Once you find the sweet spot and happy with it click OK.
We are pretty much done. Now you can use the move tool ( V ) to find a better place for the moon and reposition it. If you don’t like how clouds look like when you are moving the moon you can always go back into Layer Options Dialog box and readjust the sliders. In this case I am happy with how it looks.
The last thing I’m going to do is add a little vignette. To do that click Create a new layer; select Elliptical Marque tool ( M ), then create an oval by clicking and draging the mouse.
Then right click on the outside of the selection and click Select inverse.
Now select the paint bucket tool ( G ), make sure that foreground colour is Black and apply it on the selection. Once you are done press Ctrl D.
Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and select the Radius to your liking and press OK.
And that is it! We have added a moon to the image. As you can see it is easy and literately quick to do. If you liked this tutorial be sure to like it and share it with your friends! Have fun and see you in the next tutorial!