Now the fun begins, when we start to pile layer upon layer. Duplicate the land layer, set it to screen, increase its contrast and decrease its brightness until you are satisfied with the results. Mine looks like this
If you want a basic detailed planet, you are done. It is up to you to keep adding layers, playing with blending modes, etc, etc.
If you don't feel comfortable with the dark side of the planet being completely black, all you have to turn down the opacity on the shadow layer. I turned it down to 90% and got something that looks like this.
But what if you have 2 suns in your space scene? All you need to do is use a layer set. What is a layer set? A layer set is like a folder in which you dump all your layers, so that you can move them around freely as a group without having to link them together.
All you need to do now is drag the layers into the layer set. Once you are done with that, you duplicate the layer set, set it to screen, and then give it an opacity of 20%.
Let us pretend that the considerably dimmer sun is coming from the lower right, all you need to do is flip the layer set 180 degrees, and the result would look like this
This planet is now officially DONE.
Now you know how to make a planet
Don't be afraid of trying new and different settings.
Experimenting is the best way to learn!
Here are some more samples of "quickies" that I made (relatively simple planets).
