Create a starry sky in Gimp

Creating a starry sky in GIMP is child's play and can be done with just a few clicks. We provide you with the relevant know-how in this practical tip.

Create the night sky and the first stars

Before you create your first stars, you first need a beautiful black or, depending on your taste, deep blue night sky.

1. Create a new document in GIMP and fill the background with black or a dark blue. The easiest way to do this is with the filling tool.
2. Open the "Noise" filter in the "Filter" menu and select the "RGB Noise".
3. In the dialog box, deactivate the check mark for "Independent RGB channels" in order to connect all controllers with each other and generate a white noise. Set a value of around 50 using the controls. The higher the value, the closer your stars are to each other.

Delete unnecessary stars

Of course, there are still too many stars for a realistic night sky, so you have to send some of them back to Nirvana.

1. To do this, select the "Curves ..." item in the "Colors" menu.
2. Set a curve in the dialog box that roughly corresponds to the one in the picture. It is best to tick "Preview" and edit the curve until you are satisfied with the result. Then confirm with "OK".

Create bigger stars and add lights

Now your picture looks more like a realistic starry sky, but the distribution of the stars is still too uniform.

1. To create somewhat larger stars and make them shine properly, open the "Glitter ..." effect in the "Filters" menu under "Light and shadow".
2. Reduce the "beam length" to a value of about 5 in the filter settings. Leave the remaining values ​​with your default settings and apply the filter with a click on "OK".

Finishing touches

Your starry sky is already done with it. If you like, remove individual stars with the brush tool by painting over them with the color of your night sky.

This practical tip explains how to create a starry sky in Photoshop.