For this tutorial you will need a copy of The Gimp. You can download it here for Windows, Linux and OS X.

For any project you need a goal, so for this tutorial our goal will be to create a fantasy image of a far away galaxy. Cheesy? Yes, but also very easy if you know the right tricks. Soon you’ll be creating stars and planets and you’ll get a warm feeling all over. That is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve been sitting at the computer too long and you need to change your pants. Hopefully this won’t take that long.

First, start up The Gimp and select New from the File menu. You will get a window that will popup and look similar to what you see on the right. Let’s create a 1600×1200 image (any size will do though) and fill it with the Foreground color (this will be black unless you have changed something). You can change the other stuff when you know what you are doing, but for this example we will just leave them at the defaults.

After you click OK the program will replace that window with a large window that is completely black in the middle. There you have it…Space.

Mission accomplished.

Okay, maybe that was a little too easy. We’d better add some more stuff or people will think that space is a really boring, empty place. Which it is, but we don’t want them to think that. So lets start with some stars.

In order to create some stars we first need to create a new layer in our image. Now The Gimp should have started up a Layers panel when it started, but if it didn’t or if you closed it you can re-open it by going to the File menu, then to Dialogs and then to Layers. Now you should be seeing something similar to the image on the left (except without my ugly arrow). Don’t worry if yours has some extra stuff at the bottom, that is normal, but we won’t be using it right now so it is safe to ignore temporarily.

Click on the New button (at the bottom of the arrow in the image to the left) and click OK to the dialog box it pops up. This will create a new layer on your image. The layer is currently blank, so you can’t see anything in your image but you can see the new layer entry added in the Layers dialog.

The “New Layer” entry should be highlighted blue, but if it isn’t you can click on it to turn it blue. The layer that is highlighted is the current layer and any changes we make to the image will only happen to this layer. This will make more sense in a minute. For now though, just select the “New Layer” and go back to your image screen (the window that is all black in the middle). From here you can click on Filters, then Noise, then Hurl. This will allow us to “hurl” some stars onto our Space. When the dialog box pops up asking you for the specifics you should click the Randomize checkbox and move the Randomization % down to 5%. Then hit OK.

Then you will notice that you have a bunch of multicolored dots on your nice Space image. I know what you are thinking (or should be): “Wait a minute….there’s too many and their colors are all too bright to be stars.” And you are right, but that is why we put the stars onto a new layer. Now go back to your layer dialog box and notice the nice Opacity slider right above your “New Layer”. If you move that down to about 50% you will get something that looks more like the fake space you wanted to create.

Okay let’s put some funky Space Colors ™ into this image like you see in all the NASA photos. Go ahead and create a new layer and select it. Then go back to your image and go to Filters then Render then Clouds then Plasma. A dialog box will pop up that has a funky “hippy” image in it. Keep clicking New Seed until you get a hippy image with a lot of colors in it (this really doesn’t matter much if you want to accept the hippy image that originally popped up). The turbulence should be left at about 1.0. Click OK when you have everything how you like it.

This probably turned your nice space image into a giant hippy image. This is what space looks like on acid. Or so I’ve heard. Now go back to your layer dialog and change the Opacity on this layer down to about 20% or so. Now you have some nice Space Colors ™. But wouldn’t it be nice if our stars were just a little brighter? Go back to your layers dialog and select your hippy layer and click the arrow pointing down (near the button you click to create a new layer). Now your hippy layer is below the stars and thus the stars are brighter. If that didn’t make much of a difference then you can always lower the Opacity on your hippy layer some more.

Now lets create a supernova right in the middle somewhere. This is really easy. Create a new layer, select it, go to your image and on the menu go to Filters then to Light Effects then to SuperNova. The defaults will probably be okay but you can safely mess around with them without screwing anything up if you want.

Now would be a good time to save, if you are satisfied with your image so far. Just save it as myspace.jpg and take all the defaults.

Now we have a star, how about some planets? Okay, you know the drill…new layer. Now on your main Gimp screen you should select the Round Select tool (see the image to the right for help). On your space image you can now click and drag and create little circles and elipses. If you hold down the SHIFT key (on your keyboard) while dragging it will always create a perfect circle. Make a circle somewhere you would like to put a planet.

Now on the main Gimp screen select the Gradient Fill tool (the green and white box three spaces below the circle select tool in my image to the right). Just below this box there are two boxes with colors in them (probably black and white, unless you have changed them). Click on the black color to change it. Just click somewhere in the rainbow of colors then make it lighter or darker in the large box next to the rainbow. Pick red for your first planet. Now click OK and go back to the main Gimp window. There is a little double sided arrow pointing at both of the colors, red and white. If you click on this it will switch the main color to white and make the color you picked (red) the secondary color. Do this now.

Now below the colors on the main Gimp screen there is a box that is labeled Shape and has the word Linear in it. Click this box and change it to Radial. Now on your Space image click inside your selected circle and drag the mouse toward your supernova. You won’t have to drag very far, probably about the width of your planet will be fine. I find it also helps to start near the edge on which the supernova shines. Don’t worry if it doesn’t turn out very good, you can keep doing it over and over again and it will not mess anything up. Just leave the planet selected when you are done.

I know what you are thinking…that doesn’t look like a planet. It looks like a pool ball in space. Now you are really on acid, man. That may be true, but we aren’t finished yet. Create YAL (yet another layer) and on your image menu go to Filters then Render then Clouds then Solid Noise. When the box pops up, click “New Seed” and then OK. If you left your planet selected as instructed then you should have a very gray and ugly planet now, but I think you know what to do. Go to the Layers dialog and reduce the Opacity! Reducing it to about 35% works well for me and gives the planet a little atmosphere. Pun intended.

Now do the same thing a couple of times, add some moons around the planets (done exactly like the planets) and you’ve created your own solar system. Wouldn’t your mother be proud of you now?