Stars

How do I make stars? I know how to, but how do you do those with soft edges?
 
Im trying to make a screen, this is the best one I've come up so far:

what do you mean with "star with soft edges"? (describe it better or find an example)
what program do you (want to) use?

what do you mean with "star with soft edges"? (describe it better or find an example)
what program do you (want to) use?

Paint.net

You know with those glowing edges.

And it fades out.

...How do you add color on white stars? All I can do is have a gradient layer and lower the opacity.

Lowering the opacity won't give you smooth edges.

Create a black/dark blue filled layer. Add yellow/white/blue dots on it, then smoothen the result, then add dots in the center of the stars for those that you want to clarify.

Also, don't overdo the stars. A sky usually only have a few stars. You need to look somewhere else to find more stars. Its not that if you look into a direction you see hundreds. They are there, but due to the distance, you can't see them.

It's not due to the distance LP, If you are in an area with no light from the city (I mean complete absence) and there is no dust in the sky you can see even more than what evil portrayed. The photons emitted from the stars are super charged and travel to earth at light speed but still alot fades out and that's what we see.

Evil:- Try mixing the stars styles like make ones that fade from blueish or orange to black by atleast 5x5 or 10x10-15x15 pixels and the rest around it 2x2 or even a single blueish pixel, this will create a skyish feeling.

Yeah, I know that, but if you want to make a starfield similar to what you see with your naked eye (I assume evil wants that) then you don't want to overdo the stars.

GIMP has some brushes and effects very useful for making stars.

For PAINT.net, personally what I would do is plop down a bunch of dots of varying opacity, then use a gentle blur filter, but I'm not sure that's the look you want.

The way I made mine in Paint.NET was to use the Noise thing with high intensity, no color saturation and low coverage. I guess you could use Unfocus or some other blur if you want them to have soft edges.

Even better, do the first above step (as in with no blur) on a picture half the size of what you want, then resize it to 200% and let the resampling blur it for you. :U

How's this? 

IMO your picture is really good. I would suggest darkening the blue and yellow a bit, though.

IMO your picture is really good. I would suggest darkening the blue and yellow a bit, though.

Thanks

And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!

IMO your picture is really good. I would suggest darkening the blue and yellow a bit, though.

Ditto...

And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!

From what I've seen, blue nebulae aren't that bright, but anything can happen in this world.

Quote from: Evil on March 30, 2009, 22:37:39

And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!

From what I've seen, blue nebulae aren't that bright, but anything can happen in this world.

If you have ever been close to one....

Quote from: youffle214 on March 31, 2009, 13:52:18

Quote from: Evil on March 30, 2009, 22:37:39

And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!

From what I've seen, blue nebulae aren't that bright, but anything can happen in this world.

If you have ever been close to one....

We haven't, yet, except possibly via satellite-camera-probe-thing.