Photo Editing Questions & Tips:Updated 2/18/07
| Author | Message |
|---|---|
| Kurtni Moderator  Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 32227   | Ok this thread is where you can ask any photo editing questions you may have. Tutorial Sites Iconastic is a really good site to find icons, complete with tutorials by Meg (Bloodraine) that can help you make icons, and the same ideas can be appiled to any image you edit Coloring Tutorials for PSP Meg is also making a Q and A for icons, so if you have any questions you think she should include, post them here Links!!!! Don't know where to download textures and brushes? I do! Here are some links that you may find helpful. Brushes Neat set of Masks More Brushes Text Brushes Textures Photofiltre Tutorials Photo Filtre basics Cropping  First, Open a new image from the file option on the toolbar, or paste a picture in.  After you have your image, select the rectangle option.  Then, after making a selection, click the squaring button. This makes the icon a perfect square, so that when you resize it, it won't become distorted.  After you have the selection placed where you want, right click and select crop.  Once you have the image cropped, right click again and select image size.  For icons, you want to make the width and height both 100 px. Make sure you have the "preserve aspect ratio" option selected, so that your icon wont become distorted. Then you can decorate your icon and do all kinds of things to it:   Coloring Coloring is one of the most important parts of an icon. Typically, I do my coloring before applying brushes or masks, but thats more of a personal preferance. RBG Layer Mixer You can download this from The Photofiltre site. It's another method of coloring aside from the default that photofiltre comes with.   After you select it from the drop down menu, that window will pop up. Move the bars around to your liking. Make sure before you click ok, you have the "mix the layers in the current picture" option selected. Color Balance This is the default method of coloring. Typically, after you apply color this way, you'll need to increase the contrast a littel bit.   Adjust the bars to your liking  Here are some common colorings I use: For Lighter Images, or images with lots of white RGB Layer settings: Light Blue Red:100% Green111% Blue:125% Peachy Red:115% Green:100% Blue:78% Dingy Green Red:102% Green:120% Blue:94%  Color Balance Settings for Light Images Rusty Peach Red:22% Magenta:-7 Yellow:-26 Dull Blue Cyan:-24 Green:3 Blue:25 Sandy Yellow Green:20 Yellow:-30  Brightness  Start with your base, and decide if it needs to be brightened.  If so, then increase the gamma of the image until there is a mild glare, almost like you placed a light white film over the icon.  Then increase the contrast to get rid of the film. Then color and decorate your icon however you please final product:  Text Text is also quite important to icons when applied correctly and they can add a nice decoration to a beautifully colored icon.  On the toolbar, select the "T" which will open up the text window.  There a few key things to notice here. You can change the color and angle of your text here. You can also adjust the size. Never make your text smaller than 14, doing so will cause the text to become distorted and pixelated. If 14 is still too big for your icon, a way to make it smaller will be discussed below. Always make sure that your antialias option is checked, which makes your text more blended with the image, and less sharp (which you want). You can also format the text to be bold, italic, ect. here as well.  After that, you will be able to place your text where you wish on the image, however if your text is too big and you want to adjust the size, you can do so by right clicking and selecting manual settings.  That will open up a new window for you. Here you can make the text smaller, without causing it to be pixelated. Make sure you have the preserve aspect ratio option checked when you adjust the size. In the upper right hand corner, there is a a set of boxes that have an option you can select. Selecting one of those will make the text move to that exact spot on the image. (used for centering text) Final Product:  Tiny Text Tiny text is a nice decorative element that can be added to virtually any icon. You can use brushes, but its quite simple to just make your own.  As before, select the text option from the toolbar, and format your text as you normally would (size 14). Make sure you have it set to bold, and pick a good font. I use violation and windsong alot for tiny text, both can be found on Dafont.com Right Click, select manual settings. From there, adjust the width of your text until it becomes very small, and you can no longer read it. When I use tiny text, I often put a light blob over it, along with some readable text.  To make a light blob, go to the right toolbar and select the spraypaint tool. Set the disperssion as low as it goes, and for tiny text light blobs, I usually put the pressure somewhere in the middle. Final Product:  Black,White, and Color Having one section of an icon with a vibrant color, and making the rest white and black can produce very nice icons. Before you make any icon black and white, color it and adjust the brightness, contrast, ect. as you would normally. Pretend like you arent making an icon that will be black and white. If you have a dull, dark icon in color, it will still be dull and dark in black and white.  Zoom into your image, which makes it easier to trace around. Then, select either the polygon selector, or the lasso selector and trace around the section of the image you want to keep its color.  After you have the section you want to remain in color traced, click invert, then on the upper toolbar, click the black/white button. Before Final Product  Masks Masks can make any icon seem detailed and pretty. You can use photoshop masks on photofiltre, as long as they come with an image pack, because abr. files won't work on photofiltre. To install masks (or brushes, you put brushes in the same place) Download an image pack, and extract the files to My Computer> C-Drive>Program Files>PhotoFiltre>Masks Folder. Then, restart photofiltre and they should appear. Masks can do all kinds of things.  Color an icon as you would normally, then click the mask button.  That will open this window. From here, you have all kinds of options. Select a mask. Then you can decide what color to make it, or you can choose a pattern to fill it with like I did. You may need to invert the mask to make the section you want of the icon you want to see visible. For icon masks (100x100px masks), click the "tile mask" option. For larger masks, use the stretch option. I don't advise you to use smaller masks, they will be blurry and distorted. Final Products:   [size=150]Textures[/size Textures are yet another useful element when it comes to making icons, or any graphic for that matter. You can use textures as background, an accent to text, something to fill space, ect. To install textures, download some and save them in My Computer>C-drive>Program Files>PhotoFiltre>Patterns  For making a background for text, use a predefined shape such as the rectangle selector to define a region where the text should be.  After placing it where you want, right click and select stroke and fill.  Make sure the "fill" option is checked, then select fill pattern and pick a texture of your choice. Final Product:  Background Texture  First, use either the lasso or polygon selector to trace around where you don't want the texture to be.  Then, click invert.  After clicking invert, right click, select stroke and fill. Apply a texture as described above in the text background tutorial. Final product:  Alright, so this post is VERY long. Instead of adding more and more tutorials, I put the basics in this post. For more specific tutorials, I'll post the icon I made with it. The icon is a link, click it and it will take you to where it tells you how to make that icon    Ok, those are all tutorials for the photo editing program called Photofiltre which you can download for free at the link provided. photoshop and Paintshop Pro are also great image editing programs. If you have any questions on editing images, please post the program you are using and ask your question and we will be more than happy to answer them. You can also request tutorials for any image editing program, and we can link you to one or make one. If anyone quotes this post I'mma shoot you  |
| Dehren McGhengland Was Here 2 Weeks Ago  Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 43191 | How to make colour/light patches on avatars [Photofiltre]: For those who have not a clue what I'm talking about, I mean:  [avatar by Alex (Devils!)]The small pink patch on the avatar.   ------- How to copy a 'frame' [Photofiltre]: (you can tell that I had no idea what to call this tutorial) This is what I mean for the people who haven't a clue what I'm saying:  [avatar by me (Michelle.)]    |
| Emmer-x Idiot  Age: - Gender: - Posts: 748 | |
| George Ryan Ross III Idiot Age: 17 Gender: Female Posts: 614 | |
| Kurtni Moderator Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 32227 | Emmer-x:  What are blends... photofiltre might use a different term... |
| Bloodraine Post Whore  Age: 17 Gender: Female Posts: 24232 |  Those are examples of blends, if it helps. I don't know how this works in PF, but you basically just copy and paste your image onto another image and erase parts of it thought several techniques in photoshop. |
| Kurtni Moderator Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 32227 | |
| Emmer-x Idiot Age: - Gender: - Posts: 748 | o i see... well thanks |
| steady riot. King For A Couple Of Days  Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 2907 | |
| Bloodraine Post Whore Age: 17 Gender: Female Posts: 24232 | |
| wake the dead. This Board Is My Home Age: 20 Gender: Female Posts: 30440 |  I made this aaaaaaages ago [so don't judge how shit it is xD], and I used something called "threshold" I think. But now I have no clue how to find it again. Does anyone know where "threshold" is on PS7? ;_; |
| Bloodraine Post Whore Age: 17 Gender: Female Posts: 24232 | |
| wake the dead. This Board Is My Home Age: 20 Gender: Female Posts: 30440 | |
| Dehren McGhengland Was Here 2 Weeks Ago Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 43191 | Mmkay, this question is for anyone to answer [but specifically Courtney cause she's better at Photofiltre then me]. Does anybody know if you can do this on Photofiltre:  Like, make that little patch of red on the avatar? |
| Kurtni Moderator Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 32227 | Michelle.: Im trying to figure a way out I'll post a tutorial if I can ever figure it out. What we would need it s way to adjust the opacity on the custom paint brush and that would work.. I just dont know if we can do that |
| Dehren McGhengland Was Here 2 Weeks Ago Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 43191 | I_worship_tre_Cool:Damn. =\ Does it say nothing on the Photofiltre site about it? |
| Kurtni Moderator Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 32227 | No, but I think there is a way. If I make my own mask, where there is a thing in the center, you could adjust the opacity to what looked best and do... that. I read how to make masks, I'll find it. |
| Dehren McGhengland Was Here 2 Weeks Ago Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 43191 | I_worship_tre_Cool:Alright, thanks. Hopefully I'll be able to follow it. xD |
| Kurtni Moderator Age: 16 Gender: Female Posts: 32227 |  Michelle, I can do that and so far thats all I can figure out.. |
| Dehren McGhengland Was Here 2 Weeks Ago Age: 15 Gender: Female Posts: 43191 | I_worship_tre_Cool:That's good enough for now, I guess. How'd you do it? =\ |
Options
Go back to top
Go back to top
