Create a supernova in Photoshop

Preparation

Since supernova is a fenomena in space, we will need a space background for it. I have 2 tutorials for creating space backgrounds, you can choose one of the below to create your background:

Alternatively, for the lazy ones, here's a sample 1280x800 background:

Next thing we need is a custom brush to draw some cloud-ish shapes. Press on the picture below to open the cloud brushes tutorial and, following the instructions, create clouds brush # 3 if you haven't done that yet.

The tutorial

Let's start creating our supernova. First change the foreground color to white. Create a new layer above the background and name it flare. Now take the brush tool

from the tools palette, pick a clouds brush # 3 preset and make it 100% opaque. Click a few times somewhere on the picture to create a shape similar to this:

Using the move tool

from the tools palette, move this shape to the bottom right corner of the picture. Now go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur ... and apply the following settings:

Now move the blurred result back to the center of the document. Press CTRL+J to duplicate the layer. Now press CTRL+T to transform it. You now need to rotate the image to the right a little and then move it to the right as well like this:

Duplicate this layer and transform like you've just done again:

And again:

Now select the topmost layer and press CTRL+E until you merge all layers to the flare layer. In the end there has to be only background and flare layers left. Duplicate the flare layer and go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Then position the duplicate as follows:

Merge the topmost layer with flare layer. Now press CTRL+T, grab any of the corners of the transformation outline and, while holding SHIFT, downsize the flare to about this size:

Now zoom out so that all of the document became visible (use CTRL+- to zoom out). Press CTRL+A to select all, CTRL+X to cut the flare and CTRL+V to paste it. Why do we need that? Because if you zoom out and paste something, the object gets positioned in the center of the document and that's what we need. Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur ... and this time apply the following settings:

Press CTRL+F a couple of times to repeat the blur process. The result should look similar to this:

OK our flare is ready, let's move on to the next part. Let's hide the flare layer temporarily by pressing an eye icon next to it. Create a new layer on top and name it line h. Take the brush tool

from the tools palette, select a 300px soft round airbrush with 100% opacity and click twice in the center of the image. You should get a nice soft circle like this:

Now pick the smudge tool

from the tools palette and pick the same brush preset. Set the exposure value to ~30% and smudge the left and right sides like this:

In case you don't know how to do that, it's very simple: click and drag one of the sides a little, then repeat the process until you get a decent result. Now go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur ... and apply these settings:

Press CTRL+T to transform the layer and apply a similar transformation to the one below:

As you can see, the left and right sides of transformation are out of bounds and the object now takes almost all the width of the document. Duplicate the layer to increase the intensity of the object. But what we want to do here is only increase the intensity in the middle of the object. To do that we need to downsize the top object's height. Press CTRL+T, grab a middle horizontal transformation handle and, holding the ALT key, downsize the object's height. ALT key is needed in this situation, because it mirrors the operation: so if you drag the top horizontal transformation line - the bottom one also reflects the changes. In the end we will have the line h layer below and this new thiner object on top:

You can now merge the top layer down with the line h layer. Duplicate the line h layer again and rename the new layer to line v. Hide the line v layer for now and select line h. Grab the brush tool. It's probably still set to soft 300px airbrush with 100% opacity and that's what we need. Move your mouse to the center of the object as shown in the picture above and click once:

Now press CTRL+T to enable the transformation tool and rotate/position the object like this:

Re-enable the flare layer and you should end up with something like that:

Create a new layer above the background layer and rename it to rings. Disable flare and line h layers to leave only background visible. Take the elliptical marquee tool

from the tools palette and, while holding SHIFT, draw a circle on the document. Fill it with white by pressing ALT+BACKSPACE. Do note lose the selection yet :) Go to Select > Modify > Contract ... and contract by 10 pixels. Now press DEL to get rid of the middle of the circle. Deselect with CTRL+D and position the circle in the center of the document. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur ... and apply a 7-8 pixel blur. Here's how your circle should look now:

But it's not as bright as i'd want it to be so let's press CTRL+J to duplicate it, thus increasing the intensity and CTRL+E to merge the duplicate down with the original. Now we will be creating a few more rings like that and to make things a little easier, let's do it like that: duplicate the rings layer with CTRL+J, press CTRL+T and, while holding SHIFT and ALT keys, drag one of the corner handles to symetrically resize the new ring:

Duplicate the larger rings layer and transform the new one to make an even bigger circle:

Now select the original rings layer, make a copy (CTRL+J) and this time make a smaller circle:

Now select all the ring layers and press CTRL+E to merge them together. Rename the resulting layer to rings if it's not yet named like that. So here's our layers so far:

Enable flare and line h layers. With the rings layer selected, go to Edit > Transform > Distort and apply the following distortion:

Duplicate the rings layer and reselect it. Now press CTRL+T. In the tool settings panel on the top of the Photoshop's window, lock the aspect ratio and resize it like shown below:

Change the opacity of the rings layer to about 60%. Align the rings layer with the smaller rings like this:

Now we will get rid of some parts of the larger rings layer. Basically we want to gradually fade the furthest part of the rings. Grab the eraser tool with a soft partially opaque brush and delete the furthest part of the large rings like that:

Select the top rings layer and merge it down (CTRL+E). Now re-enable the line v layer and select it. Press CTRL+T to transform it. At first make it thiner, decrease its width to fit in the document and then rotate/position as follows:

Now it's starting to look interesting, but there's still lots of work to be done. Duplicate the rings layer and apply the following Filter > Noise > Add Noise ... filter:

Press CTRL+L for levels adjustment and drag the left slider to the right like shown below:

Press CTRL+I to invert the colors of the current layer and set the blending mode to lighten. After doing so, the rings should look like that:

Select both ring layers and merge them together. Rename it to rings again if the name had changed. Create a new layer on top of all other layers and name it explosion. That's a lame name for the thing that we're going to create, but i couldn't figure out anything better :). Select the brush tool and pick the following brush preset:

With a 100% opaque brush draw a shape like the one below in the center of the document:

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur ... and apply the following blur:

Press CTRL+F a couple of times to repeat the blur process and re-enable all the layers. my "explosion" turned out to be smaller than i needed so i've transformed it like so:

Now align the explosion with the center of the image:

And you should already notice that something's missing. The angle of the explosion is quite bad. Remember what we did with our first radial blur? We've made a copy and rotated/positioned it until we had a decent result. Let's do that again. Duplicate explosion layer, press CTRL+T and rotate/position it left to the original explosion:

The angle is still not good so do the same procedure again:

And again:

And that's what we were trying to achieve. So let's select all the explosion layers and merge them together. Now pick the brush tool with a clouds brush # 3, select a blue-ish color and set the opacity of the brush to about 5%. Lock the pixels on the explosion layer by pressing lock transparent pixels button

in the layers panel. Draw on the explosion layer to gradually color it:

Set the blending mode of the explosion layer to overlay. OK it's time to add some extra effects. Create a new group (folder) and name it explosion. Create a layer inside it and rename it to particles 1. Open the brushes engine (Window > Brushes) and define the following brush:

Disable all layers except the background and draw lots various size particles of a maximum 10px all over the document. Here's what it should look like:

Go to Filter > Distort > Spherize ... and apply a 50% distortion. Now select Filter > Blur > Radial Blur ... and apply it with the following settings:

That gives us some sort of movement feel and it looks like the particles are flying away from the explosion point:

Create a new layer above particles 1 and name it particles 2. Disable first particles layer to clearly see the background and draw some new particles on the particles 2. This time, create less particles than before. Then duplicate the particles 2 layer, reselect it and apply the same radial blur as the last time (you can just press CTRL+F to repeat the filter). When we created the first set of particles, we've completely blurred them out, thus making them appear out of focus and far away. But we want to make this new set of particles in focus and still have them appear moving. We've done a part of that already, but if you look closely at the picture, you'll notice that the particles are surrounded by the blur and that's not really a good thing. We want the blur to only be positioned below the particles to look like a faded movement. To do this, we need to downsize the blurred layer just a little. Press CTRL+T and go to the tool settings panel on the top of Photoshop's window. Lock the aspect ratio and change the width or height to about 98%. Change the opacity of this blurred layer to about 40%. You can now enable all the layers. Here's what we have so far:

Now create a new layer below the particles 2 and name it rays. Grab the gradient tool

from the tools palette, set it to an angle gradient and click on the gradient selection box:

When gradient editor opens, use the following settings:

Now draw a gradient on the rays layer. Start in the center of the document, drag all the way to the furthest corner and release. Press CTRL+SHIFT+U to desaturate the colors and change the blending mode of rays layer to color dodge. And the last thing ... finally :) Decrease the opacity of rays to about 50%. That's it - you're done! If everything went well, you should now have something like the picture below: