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I'm currently teaching myself design and have been asked to create a molecular cloud similar to that in the attached image. I'm seeking advice on how one might obtain a similar result/effect in Photoshop. Thanks in advance.

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  • Noise on a layer with a mask.
    – Scott
    Aug 17, 2014 at 23:59

1 Answer 1

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It is fairly simple. Here are some key points:

STEP 1 - I first drew a random 1px line with the pentool.

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STEP 2 - I used mask and brush tool + soft round brush to fade parts of it slightly.

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STEP 3 - Then I drew bunch of dots in every corner. They vary in size.

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STEP 4 - Then I made a brush out of it.

STEP 5 - Adjusted the brush settings

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STEP 58 - Now if you use ellipse tool to make a path and use stroke path + brush tool, you get something like this:

You will want to stroke path multiple times with different brush sizes. Of course for realzies, you'd want to use more than one brush.

enter image description here

STEP 380 - ...and after inverting colors, adding bunch of highlights, duplicating the brush pattern multiple times, using different blend modes and using filters > blur > tilt-shift to blur some of it... this is what you get:

enter image description here

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  • Joonas. Thankyou so much for such a comprehensive answer! Wow.. You've totally made my day. Thankyou! :D
    – Marlix
    Aug 18, 2014 at 7:50
  • Wow, you nailed it. Great answer.
    – TMobotron
    Aug 18, 2014 at 22:49
  • @Joonas Nice answer dude, its a copy of the original.
    – Zo Has
    Aug 25, 2014 at 7:26

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