: How to create solar flares using Gimp or Inkscape How can I create a solar flares effect using GIMP or Inkscape? Something like this image: Edit: first of all thanks for all the great

@Bryan765

Those flares around the sun are made using fractal IFS flames, most likely using Apophysis - it is also available on Gimp under

Filters > Render > Nature > Flame ...

Hit 'Edit' and select the spherical variation and you should get similar flares. Hope this helps.

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@Cofer715

Here is what I did to make this:



This is actually the moon. I am not sure what the original image uses as a base but I used the moon. The secret to such images is to layer images and set the layer mode to Linear Dodge(ADD). This gives the light emitting feel. For this particular image I used the Liquify in Photoshop. I guess GIMP has it's own feature. The Liquify gives the thicker "rays" by just Smudging the original base image. For the finer rays I "exploded" a simple brush with BLUR->Radial Blur (Zoom). Then a few liquified copies in order to give the curvy rays. Overall:
- Duplicate
- Smudge
- Color mode to ADD
- repeat :)

Hope that helps.

Step-by-step:

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@Cofer715

This looks like a composite of actual images of the sun from the SOHO solar observatory.

The sun itself is probably a single image and the prominences are probably hand-picked, rotated, and then placed. The "blown out" nature of the prominences adjacent to the sun's "edge" is probably caused by the individual layers being set to a blend mode such as "lighten."

A large portion of NASA's imagery data is "open-source" in a sense, at least the RAW unprocessed type may be. Most of their imagery is actually greyscale taken at a specific wavelength or narrow wavelength band and the colors are
simulated. Even for the "real-color" versions.

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