Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, was the first human being to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961. In this step-by-step Photoshop tutorial, I will show you how to create a striking vintage-style poster design inspired by Yuri's journey into space. We will combine stock photos, textures and brushes with blend mode techniques and filters on our way to achive the final design. If you are ready to get started then let's get to it!

Preview

Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 1

Open up Adobe Photoshop and create a document with your desired poster dimensions. Remember to use a high DPI (between 150-300 dpi) and CMYK Color Mode if you are planning on sending your work to the press. For this tutorial, I created a document sized at 800x1200px, RGB Color at 72dpi for web use. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 2

To start, download and open the Capodimonte Deep Field, use Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) to rotate and resize image so that it fits within our canvas. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Add Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation) and lower Saturation to -60 and Lightness to -15, to drop down colors a bit. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 3

Open Astronaut photo in Photoshop, zoom in closely to the image and, with your Pen Tool (P), begin to trace around the astronaut, following its shape. We want to create a path that will allow us to clip out astronaut from background. Once you have made your way around the astronaut, close your path to complete the outline. Control-click/right-click anywhere along your path to reveal a dropdown menu. From this menu choose Make Selection. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Copy and paste astrounaut in our canvas, scale it down and position using the image below as reference. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and make following adjustments: Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Duplicate astrounaut layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J), apply Gaussian Blur filter with 1.4px Radius and lower the Opacity to 50%. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 4

Download the Earth image and then open it in Photoshop. With the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M), make a selection around earth, copy it (Cmd/Ctrl + C) and then paste it (Cmd/Ctrl + V) into our design, scale it down and place it behind astronaut. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Drop down earth colors a bit by lowering Saturation to -40 (Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation). Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Cmd/Ctrl + click on the thumbnail of earth layer to put a selection around it. Create a new layer and, on this new layer, fill the selection with black. Move the black circle towards the right, leaving just a portion of earth visible. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Apply the Gaussian Blur filter with Radius at 30px on the black circle layer. You can see that this technique gives our earth a nice shading effect, which in turn gives our work aspects of realism and accuracy. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop At the end lower the Opacity of black circle layer to 80%. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 5

We're going to add a lens flare into our scene. Create a new layer, fill it with black (#000000), and then go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Change the Lens Type to Movie Prime and make sure the Brightness option is set to 100%. Change the Blend Mode of the layer to Screen and position the lens flare so that it's right at the edge of the earth and in the middle of the planet glow. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 6

Grab free sample from Vintage Clouds texture pack, import into our design, Desaturate (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U), scale it down and change the Blend Mode to Screen. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Adjust Levels (Image > Adjustment > Levels) to blend clouds perfect into our scene. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Next, we are going to add The Red Rectangle Nebula; go ahead and download it and open it up in Photoshop. Desaturate the image to remove its colors, import in our design, use Free Transform to resize it, and then position like on the image below. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Set the Blend Mode to Screen and apply Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All). Set the Foreground Color to black (#000000). Choose the Gradient Tool (G), select the Foreground to Transparent preset in the Gradient Editor, and draw a few gradients to soften (and mask out) edges of the nebula. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Choose #640775 for Foreground Color, pick up Brush Tool (B), and with large soft brush dub one spot over nebula. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Change the Blend Mode to Multiply and apply Clipping Mask (Layer > Create Clipping Mask (Cmd/Ctrl + Alt + G)). Duplicate this layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J) and set Blend Mode for duplicated layer Soft Light. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Download and open Satellite image in Photoshop, extract from background using Pen Tool (P) and import in our design. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Open Layer Style by double clicking on layer, and add an Color Overlay effect. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Duplicate Satellite layer, give this layer Gaussian Blur with Radius set to 1.4px and set the Blend Mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 90%. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 7

Next, we are going to add a planet to our composition, which we're going to make from a texture. Download the Rust Textures Pack, pick up the texture you like, I choosed Metal_V1_1109, then open it in Photoshop. Draw a circular marquee using Elliptical Marquee Tool (hold down Shift to make a perfectly round circle) and copy into our composition. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make it smaller using Free Transform Tool (Cmd/Ctrl + T), Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop create selection around (Cmd/Ctrl + click on layer thumbnail), go to Filter > Distort > Spherize and set the Amount to 100%. The distortion of the shape creates a three dimensional appearance to give the basic form of a planet. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Move the planet in the upper left corner, then begin adding some layer styles. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Create planet shadow using method explained in Step 4. Here's what we have now. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Let's brighten up the scene a bit. First, create a new layer. For your Foreground Color, choose a low-saturated pink color (#eebbfb). Use the Brush Tool (B) with a large, soft brush tip to create a spot, Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop apply the Gaussian Blur filter on this layer (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) with Radius of 130px. Then just set the Opacity of this layer to 70% to soften and blend the effect into its background. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Create another new layer (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + N), choose green color (#2cbe7e), and with Brush Tool and large soft brush dub one more spot but this time in the upper part of canvas. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Apply Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) with Radius set to 150px and set Opacity of this layer to 50%. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 8

Press Cmd/Ctrl + A to Select All, then go to Edit > Copy Merged (Shift + Cmd/Ctrl + C) and paste the result into a new layer (name this layer "original"). Duplicate this layer ("original") twice and set the Blend Mode for the duplicated layers to Multiply. Select the layer just above the "original" and then apply Filter > Stylize > Find Edges. Lower this layer's Opacity to 20% and change the Blend Mode to Overlay. Let's take a look (the layer on top is hidden). Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Next, click on the other duplicated layer (which should be on top of the first duplicated layer). Go to Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges and use the following settings:
  • Edge Width: 2
  • Edge Brightness: 8
  • Smoothness: 10
Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Desaturate this layer by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (Shift + Cmd/Ctrl + U). Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Invert the layer's colors by pressing Cmd/Ctrl + I, Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop and finally set Opacity to 40%. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Go back to "original" layer and apply Noise filter (Filter > Noise) with Amount set to 20%, for Distribution choose Gaussian and make sure that Monochromatic is selected. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Change the Blend Mode to Soft Light. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Download and import film texture, resize it to fit canvas and set Blend Mode to Linear Light and Opacity to 25%. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 9

It's time to add some text to our composition. You will need League Gothic and Deftone Stylus fonts, so in case you don't have it already go ahead download it and install. Let's start with first word "Journey". Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Set Blend Mode to Soft Light, then duplicate layer, and for duplicated layer change Blend Mode to Overlay. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Use this method for all blocks of text. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Step 10

This is the final step of tutorial. First let's add an adjustment layer to give our entire composition the color theme we are going for. Go to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Gradient Map to add an adjustment layer above all the other layers. Set a gradient going from #1c004b to #fa9900, then lower Opacity of adjustment layer to 40% to give our design a vintage feel. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop We will finish this tutorial by adding border to our design. Select all layers in the Layers Panel into a layer group (Cmd/Ctrl + G) and name this group "poster". Go to Image > Canvas Size and expand canvas by 20px. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Download and open this Handmade Paper stock image. Extract the paper from its background by using the Magic Wand Tool (W) to select the white color in its background and then inverting the selection by choosing Select > Inverse (Shift + Cmd/Ctrl + I). Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Copy the paper and paste it into our design. Scale it to fit our canvas with Free Transform (Cmd/Ctrl + T). Move the paper layer below the "poster" layer group. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), make a selection that is slightly smaller (15px) than the canvas. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop With the "poster" layer group selected, go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection. Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop Select paper layer again, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and set Saturation to -13 and Lightness to +34 to bring down paper color a bit and we are done! Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

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