this is a tutorial to make a moon and some space around it. i think it looks good and if you don't, you suck.



first of all, you need to download the concrete brushes from photoshopbrushes.com
(found here: http://photoshopbrushes.com/brushes/12.htm)

once you have that file unzipped, put it in Photoshop->Presets->brushes
(if you have Photoshop open you will probably need to close it and reopen it for the brushes to show up.

okay, now that you have the brushes, make a new document (i used 400x400)

make a new layer

chose color 454545 and make a circle about 1/5 of the size of the picture
copy the circle into a new layer and make that circle the color 909090.

now, open up the eraser tool and go to brush style (it's in the upper left corner and says "Brush:" with a picture of the brush you are using) now click the down arrow to open the brush menu and the right arrow in that folder thing to open up the brush options. then go down to "concrete" and click it and then click okay.

now choose the brush with the upper left corner of grunge and set the opacity of the brush to about 45%. now put the brush so the flat edges aren't over the circle. now erase once or twice to make grungy portions of the light layer gone and the dark layer showing

do not fear if you can't cover the whole right side of the moon, it won't matter.

now press control+E to merge the two moon layers and then control+click the layer on the layer menu to select the circle

now open up the gradient tool and choose black fading to clear (not white, the little grey and white checkers)

now draw diagnal lines starting at the bottom right and going to the top left to give it a good waxing/waning effect. this will also cover up the area that the brush couldn't get.

now go to filter-distort-sphearize and find a good setting

here is what it should look like so far:


now, to add the space: paint the background layer black and and get a 1 pixel white circle brush and paint in some random stars. i find that it works best with the opacity at like 40%. make some lighter than the other.

to speed up this process if you need to: copy the star layer and go to Edit-Transform-rotate and rotate it a little bit. now move it somewhere and set the blend mode to lighten. repeat as necessary

you should now have the picture at the top.

please, post your pics of this, i don't know if i explained everything right or not