New Cover Image Pt 3 Space ships

Fighter ship

Next I loaded up the picture of the fighter ship this image shows the ship with landing gear deployed and stationary. For this I first changed the resolution (Ctrl +Alt + I) to 300 pixels per inch and saved it as a smart object.  This picture could be found on the RSI forums

After that I used the quick selection tool to mask out the outline of the ship missing out the landing gear. I then copied this on to a new layer in the nebula image making sure it was on the top.

Using the free transform tool (Ctrl + Alt +T) I tilted the image about 45 degrees and resized the image while holding the Shift key to keep it in scale and free form distortions. A layer mask was then used to clean any edges that didn’t look natural.

On the fighter ship layer I then used the polygon lasso to select the back of the ship now that is selected (you can see the ant trail).


I then clicked filter > Blur > Motion blur. I then turned the angle to get it to line up with the direction the ship was traveling.
I then applied the same technique to all of the intake vents on the ship to give it illusion of movement.

Next I used a custom brush, made from an image of smoke.
 on a new layer I used a grey paint brush with a 65% opacity and br
ushed in the vapour trails.  I am not sure if ships would make vapour trails in space, but it think it looks good and helps add to the implied movement.

These layers I then placed in a colour coded yellow folder named fighter ship.

I the copied this process for the larger capital ships using a flitter so create as small amount of motion blur. These layers were then grouped their own folder.

 I the copied this process for the larger capital ships using a flitter so create as small amount of motion blur. These layers were then grouped their own folder.

One more thing needed to be changed before I was happy with the fighter ship and that was that you could see an empty pilot’s seat.

Using the pen tool to mark out the windows the plan is to use part of the back ground as a reflection and have a gradient map to add shadows and high lights.

After turning the pen tool to a path we loaded the cosmos xiii on to the next a new layer
and placed it so colours were similar to that of the background. I then made a layer mask, selected it and used the black and fill bucket to fill in the area outside of the selection. Now I was left with only my selection filled with the image. That layer was then placed in the file with the rest.