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Image Editing Help Thread,; Help me<
Topic Started: Jul 11 2007, 02:19 PM (854 Views)
will_k_williams
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Miscreant
I recently decided I wanted to be able to create my own awesome artwork for use on here and other sites. 'How difficult can it be?' I asked, well, very was the answer.

I know there are a lot of Photoshop (etc.) whizkids out there and I'm requesting your help. It probably makes life a little more difficult as I'm not using Photoshop but another good and highly free programme.

How do I make borders?
How do I get all those neat layered effects?
How do I change the colours?

Will
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Monkey
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Smuggler
Unfortunately, I don't have any definite answers for the questions you asked. I happen to be using Adobe Photoshop, and I don't know if what applies to that program applies to the one you're using. Not to mention, I'm new to Photoshop and have had my frustrations with it as well. All I can say is tinker around with it until you get the desired effects. And feel free to experiment. That's what I did, and I can already see vast improvement each time I try, although I'm not by any means a pro.

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ElvenLight
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I would suggest looking around on the internet for tutorials people have created for your program. I recently decided much the same as you, and downloaded Paint.NET, but that doesn't seem to support the use of brushes, so I'm thinking of switching to the GIMP. Paint.NET's website was helpful in teaching me to do some things. I've also run across a lot of icon tutorials for the GIMP. I don't know what you have, but it couldn't hurt to look around. I'm not sure about the other things you listed, but working with layers is something you really have to play around with. I'm still trying to work it all out.
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Alia Atreides
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Journeyman Craftswoman
I have Photoshop CS2, and that's not what you said, so I'm not sure I could be of much help--but what program did you get?

I have a spare laptop (the motherboard is about to go anyday, I think) so I can download the program and there and just look at it--usually they will have very similar, toolbars and such.

Quote:
 
How do I make borders?

In my program, in order to do that, you want to use the rectangular marquee tool, and select the whole image you are using, then go to edit, then "stroke." From there you can choose the boarder color, as well as define the width in pixels, and other options.

They might do something similar in your program, but under slightly different names or such.

Quote:
 
How do I get all those neat layered effects?

Erm...define layered effects? I'm not entirely sure what you mean--since I think most of these programs do use layers--I use layers to colorise, and such, but did you mean like the sort of textures you get on the image and distortions, or something else?

Quote:
 
How do I change the colours?

For the entire image or just a portion? In Photoshop there are several ways, but on your program--I'd look for options that have "hue/saturation" or something like "color balance" and you can change it that way. In Photoshop (never used PSP or other stuff), you can also have a layer on top and then redifine it so that it isn't normal, but instead something like "overlay" or "lighten" "screen" etc.
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will_k_williams
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I downloaded The GIMP yesterday and that's what I'm using (after half an hour of trying to use Serif Photoplus and giving up). It's pretty cool, I've been having great fun titting about with the various effects. I'm still failing drastically to get a picture the same colour as another picture but I'm trying.

I just realised how much like my elderly relatives I sounded in that first post.
'Excuse me, I'd like to buy one of those broadbands, please', 'how do I download the internet?'

Will
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Alia Atreides
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Quote:
 
I just realised how much like my elderly relatives I sounded in that first post.
'Excuse me, I'd like to buy one of those broadbands, please', 'how do I download the internet?'

Hehehe.

Oh man, can I tell you stories about what I've heard. I've had frieds who work at the office of information technology at my university, and apparently some of the things the older professors ask are priceless. My experiences though come from trying to assist my grandparents with their computer. I was trying to tell them how to scan emails for viruses...fun times. :lol:


I'm actually downloading GIMP now to take a look at it. I'm glad I'm doing on my older laptop though, if I was trying to download it on this one *shakes head* well, let us say that when they say Vista actually asks you to verify everything you do...pretty much. I mean if the computer had a blow nose option, it would ask to double check that you really want to throw that dirty tissue away.

I can't believe I actually said that. :unsure:
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will_k_williams
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Miscreant
On the subject of the elderly, my grandmother loves computers, she doesn't really seem to know what she's doing and relies on constant technical support from my two aunts and my mother but for a 77 year old, she's giving it her best shot.

My father on the other hand is a complete technophobe, a self confessed Luddite. When I visited him recently I went on the internet with him to have a look at some amplifiers (for a Luddite, he sure loves him some amplification) and it was horrific. He kept pointing at links and asking 'can we download that?', eventually he left me to get on with it and within ten minutes I'd managed to find everything he wanted and had hindered me in finding for the past hour. He's 62 and has previously been fired from a job because he was not prepared to 'embrace modern technology'.

I finally figured how to put a border round my banner. Monkey made one for me earlier for which I thank her but now I just have a little white line around it. I was so proud.

Will
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wolfarcher
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Miscreant
I'm not very good at tutoring people in Photoshop, unless its an extremely specific 'how do you do this?'; because I just kind of felt my way through it, not reading any tutorials or anything, which is why, if you see some of my really early work, there is a freakish differernce; cut 'n paste to what I have as, say, my banner now. If you have any really specific questions I can help, because I can just open up the program and do it, but other than that I'm kind of vague.

"You know that thing with the colors? Yeah, open that, slide the thingy down till you get it to the... you know, then just fiddle around with that thing, then you're done. Oh, and then go to the color palletey thing and change the last box, and then maybe the highlights and it'll look better."

Thats how I might describe something for you... so you might not want my help. :D
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will_k_williams
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The other massive problem would be that you are using a different programme to me. I'm using The GIMP whereas I believe you're using Photoshop. It won't be the same but I'm trying to go for general problems.

I want to make something using two different pictures:
A
B

Now the problem is, the colouring of the two images is completely different. I want to make the colours of picture A more like those of picture B but whenever I try I just end up making everything look purple or turquoise. I've spent several hours over the last couple of days but it's still either cyan-central or mauve-mania.

I know I could have requested for someone to make this banner for me but I really want to do this myself. I'd just like some helpful advice.

Will
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Jonathan
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Wretch
Have you tried making them both sepia toned?
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wolfarcher
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Miscreant
Hmm... well, in Photoshop, you'd go to 'color variations', then add blue to it and change the contrast until you got it to match the other image; in Photoshop, I added some blue until he looked almost like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, then decreased the red a little so he wasn't purple, then darkened the shadows and lightened the highlights until it looked good, then pulled down the magentas in 'adjust hue/saturation', and finally went back to 'color variations' and decreased the saturation a bit more so he wasn't too vibrant and weird looking.

I don't know how much that will help, but see if you can find stuff in your program that corresponds at all to that, and see what you come up with. :D
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Alia Atreides
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Journeyman Craftswoman
I think I got it!

All right, you want to open the image you want to change the color of--I opened the Yan one and decided that I'd change it to a blue similar to what was in the one for Ming.

Go to "Layer" then "colors" from there you can use either the "Hue/saturation" or the "color balance" to adjust the colors. Hue/saturation is what I'd use myself on photoshop, but when I first started I found it really difficult to control so I used "color balance" so...you may want to try color balance first. When you open color balance it will list three value areas and they'll go from

cyan ------------- red
magenta --------green
yellow ----------- blue

(exactly the same as photoshop)

You can also select what range of colors to modify--the shadows, midtones, and highlights--quite honestly, this is really complex for a beginner I think, so what I'd just recommend you do is play around with that until you find something you like.

Now as I was playing around with this I discovered...well Yan is starting to look a bit purple as I made things more blue, so I undid the color balance and went back to "layers" "hue-saturation" and here I decreased the saturation to ab out -65, so that it should work better when I adjusted the colors-- I set the cyn/red to -25 and yellow/blue to 53.

At that point it looks similar to the Ming image, but isn't right there, but since I usually do a top layou of color in Photoshop over my image, it tends to adjust for the fact I don't quite get the things spot on correct. So, just play around with those settings a bit (once you're back) and see if you can find something you like. :)
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