General Graphics Questions

[Vita]

Can anyone help with my text? I just made this icon and put the text on and I got that line in "future" It pops up quite often when I use text. Anyone have any ideas of how to get rid of it? I have anti alias set on smooth

[biara]

Originally Posted by Vita

Can anyone help with my text? I just made this icon and put the text on and I got that line in "future" It pops up quite often when I use text. Anyone have any ideas of how to get rid of it? I have anti alias set on smooth

that's weird. i never saw that happen. have you tested changing the size and the location of the text? or maybe it's the font?
btw, nice icon.

[Vita]

I have tried changing the size, angle and the font and it shows up everywhere but not all the time. :\ It's driving me crazy because I have to go in and manually smudge the lines a time a bit so there isnt the line.

Thanks New obsession = Merlin!

[Voldemorts8thHorcrux]

I think it's just the font itself

[Vita]

No it's not It's the same font as the avatar Im using and there is no line in my avatar, there's a bit of grunge but not in a perfect straight line and it wouldnt be happening in every font I use

[Voldemorts8thHorcrux]

now that's really odd....

[wickedwickedboy]

Sounds like something in the underlying photo itself - if you used layers, maybe enlarge and look at each one and you will see something?

Maybe try using a brush and painting a grey color over the area and see if it happens then also. If not, use it under your writing and just make the painted layer invisible. Rigged fix.

When are we going to have another contest to make a video for? That is really the most fun I must admit...

[Vita]

There was a contest for a video? Ooh fun

That's what I have been doing (painting the line in) but it gets rather annoying!

I have an idea for another graphic contest we could start on CoS. It would be a one on one competiton... will post more details if there is any interest.

[Voldemorts8thHorcrux]

sounds pretty cool

[tapdancer_]

Hey, I use the graphics program Paint.net (Because it's free. Boyfriend has photoshop but does not approve of me using it for "Harry Potter" Grrr)

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows an easy way to choose part of an image for the purpose of brightening/lightening etc. and not make it look pixelated or gross compared to the rest of the image

Thanks!

[Vita]

Im not familiar with paint.net but have you thought about trying GIMP? It's a rather use friendly freeware program

[biara]

Originally Posted by tapdancer_

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows an easy way to choose part of an image for the purpose of brightening/lightening etc. and not make it look pixelated or gross compared to the rest of the image

i'm not sure what you're dealing with. it would help if you gave an example.
does Paint.net have layers and blending modes? if it does, you can try to use light to dark gradients with the lighter part where you want the image to be brighter and set it to soft light or something.


ETA: oh... you mean the snake in your LIMS icon? you want it brighter? well... when there's a specific element that you want to modify, it's not so difficult. you can do it with a brush. draw over the element (in a different layer) with the color you want and then play with the blending modes. i don't have a fix recipe for it, i usually play a lot with the blending and the opacity of the layers.


since we're talking about coloring, there is a journal with some great coloring tutorials that i think some of you might want to take a look. about color correction, brightening dark caps, vibrant coloring, and other stuff. lots of great tips (it's Photoshop based, but still you can use the tips).
>>awmpdotnet<<

[tapdancer_]

I'm going to attempt to use GIMP, and also play around with those photoshope tutorials as well thank you so much for the help!

[leah49]

Thanks for the links, biara! I'll have to look at them sometime.

[leah49]

How do you guys cut out images, like if you want to put a person in a scene they are not in originally? What do you do about blending and such? I'm having a hard time getting the edges just right.

[biara]

Originally Posted by leah49

How do you guys cut out images, like if you want to put a person in a scene they are not in originally? What do you do about blending and such? I'm having a hard time getting the edges just right.

the best thing to do is to start with good quality images. and it's also a good thing when the light in both images are similar (images that are in the same scene or in the same photoshoot are the best), because it's not easy to fix that. also, frizzy hair doesnt's help. choose well your images and you'll get a better result.
i like to use the lasso selection tool for a start. then, for the detalis i prefer to use masks. that way, if i erase something that i shouldn't have, it's easy to fix. you don't really need the mask, it only helps you during the process. i start with a large soft brush and use a tiny one for the tiny bits. when it's done, i apply the mask.
when you want the blending to look realistic, the coloring and the lighting should match. so i choose one of the images to get the base for the coloring and then i use the coloring tools to make the other elements fit (mostly curves, and sometimes a brush).
i also think that adding a sort of glow (set to multiply) in the new element helps the blending.
and the last thing that i do is to to add a new color fill layer on top of it all. usually a skin tone set to softlight. the thing is that a new color applied to the image helps to even the coloring. it doesn't really matter what the color is. it could be a texture or a gradient.

wow! i thought it would be simple to explain. it would be easier with images as examples. maybe later. but i'm sure there are already tutorials about it somewhere. any doubts, just ask.

[leah49]

Ah, that doesn't sound so bad. Thank you for going through all that. I think I understand it. Thanks! I just wondered because so many of you all get such wonderfully blended (or at least wonderfully looking) images.

[Voldemorts8thHorcrux]

What I do is I'll try to find an image where the background and the person are completely contrasted, because then i'll use the magic wand thing in photoshop to delete the background. However, sometimes, i'll also use an eraser and do it manually and add both characters in. Then I would adjust brightness, contrast and color balance so they looked similar. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by blended though. what I'll sometimes do is save the original picture background, if it's a screenshot, cut out the character and paste it in another layer. Then I could only mess around wtih the background without ruining the person.

[wickedwickedboy]

It also helps to leave a bit of the background in from the picture you steal and erase the final bit after the transfer. Sometimes you get extremely lucky and the small area background blends into the transfered background so that you don't have sharp edges around the person you transferred in - if that makes sense. That generally can work if you pull the people from the same scene of a shoot, albeit from different caps. Although I used blur which lessens sharp edges of course, in my current avatar, the boys are actually from 3 different caps all joined together. Even before I blurred and such, the edges were barely noticeable because the background of the 3 caps was the same. All three layers of the boys have background pieces attached to them. Only Goyle's piece is funky at the top and that was merely because I got lazy - I could have easily made that blend in as well because the detail is the same (leaves).

[Rell]

In GIMP, I typically use the paths tool to make selections. It's an extremely powerful tool that allows for very precise selecting. (If anyone has GIMP and wants to know how to use paths, let me know )

Photoshop elements doesn't have paths, so I either do the selecting in GIMP and then copy and paste, or I do a selection with my tablet, which I'm pretty comfortable doing with precision. It's a lot harder to do with a mouse.

I don't know how to use masks though, can someone tell me how they work when making selections?