DVD Front cover

I started this image in a larger size than needed so I could resize it later when I make the full DVD case and since it was going to be printed I use the CYMK colour space as well as a DPI of 300.

I started off with this picture

http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-2222523978-hd.jpg

I then used the magic wand tool to remove the black background then added a layer behind it to make a black background. I did this to allow me to add effects to the planet only or the background only. I then added a dark shade, on a new layer, over most of the planet to make it look like the sun is behind the planet.

After this I added a blue layer and masked it so it only showed up on the side of the planet and switched the blending mode to overlay. I noticed that this didn’t look smooth enough and was too bright. So I added a black layer then set the blending mode on that to overlay as well. This made the gradient sharper, the shape smoother and the planet slightly darker with have more contrast. I then added a blue overlay over the image and added a mask to make it only show on the edge of the planet to make a more blue looking atmosphere and make the atmosphere look larger.

I then decided to add a lens flare but as the colour mode is set to CYMK i wouldn't be able to render a lens flare using photoshop so I had to create the lens flare myself. I started out with a simple radial gradient then added a vector circle then made the fill blue and the outline red. I then added red inner and outer glow using the effects to make the circle smoother and then lowered the opacity down to 5% to emulate real lens flare. I then added a white diamond gradient. I put slight orange hues over them then added a large white gradient behind these to make it look like the light is lighting the camera lens around the light source.

For the meteor i imported this flame from cgtextures.com. And these rocks from http://pixabay.com/en/wandering-rocks-stones-death-valley-3711/

I straightened it out with the liquify tool by making the brush size quite large and lowering the pressure down then nudging the middle of the flame inwards. I also made the flame look more violent by stretching it out. This made it look like the asteroid fly very fast. I then masked out most of the flame to make it look more realistic and added some embers to make it look more lively. To make the embers I used the brush tool, set the blending mode of the brush to dissolve, set the flow to 1% and the hardness to 100%

I then added a stroke effect of 1px to them in the effects menu to make them larger and more noticeable. I then rasterized the layer style to covert the effects to pixels, making them editable. I followed the motion of the flame with the liquify tool to make the embers look like they have motion and set the blending mode of the layer to overlay.

I added some extra rocks behind the meteor by cutting them out with the polygonal lasso tool. I then shrunk them down and added orange overlays to them. I also added an orange glow to the front of the meteors with the brush tool by setting the hardness to 0%. I then added several orange glow and blur effects to the meteor with the brush and using the motion blur filter.

I finally added some smoke behind the meteor and around the planet to give the planet more of an atmosphere and the meteor a trail. I did this by rendering clouds on 2 overlay layers and masking one of them to the atmosphere of the planet and the other to the area behind the meteor. I then added some embers behind the meteor and made a gradient mask to make them look like they are cooling off. I then removed part of the mask on the planet to make it look like the meteor is lighting part of the planet with the brush tool set to about 20% opacity.