New to Photoshop, NEED critiques

[Gottmorder]

What's up guys? I'm new to these forums and glad to be here. A friend of mine introduced me to the wonderful world of PS CS2, and I have been hooked ever since. Here is something I made last week. I would say it took about 12 hours of work. Now, I need you guys to understand that although I am new to this, do not be gentle. I won't get better by being coddled. Any leet PS'ers will immediately see that I used simple textures, so I need to improve on that. How? PS gods, bless me with your knowledge.


http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54326113/

 

[docilebob]

Nice start. IMHO, it could be made a bit more interesting by introducing more colors in the starfield and the solar flare. Just too much red. Also, the planetoids could use some more shading. Consider the light source. Although bright, a single source cannot light both sides of a sphere. The shadows on the far side also help define the shape and will help appear to wrap the textures around better.
Keep it up.

 

[julievive]

not bad at all.... theres a lot of tutorials in net