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It's not the first time I've tried a space picture, but it's the first I made following the tutorials by Greg Martin: Make a Realistic Star Field and Make a Planet.

First of all I started with a different space tutorial, by someone else. That one was remarkably bad... steps missed, tone rather lackadaisical by the end (maybe he was pressured into writing a tutorial he didn't want to write) -- and the technique was not even as good as in the tutorials I've linked to here.

The planet tutorial is meant for users of Photoshop 7, but that didn't put me off. I wasn't able to use all the steps referred to... the fine-tuning of the planet atmosphere (getting the right outer glow) is non-existent in Photoshop Elements 2! You've got simple glow, blue ghost, radioactive, heavy noise etc, take them or leave them. But there are always ways around these, like jumping over the gaping holes in the hairy scary mountain walk.

As Greg Martin says, it takes practice... this is just my first, I hope.