Help with banners...

[Tygleris]

All the cool photoshopped banners with avatars and screwy backgrounds. I was just wondering how people achieve some of the effects. One problem being, getting the avatars in the backround without crappy lasso tool cutting and pasting. I know there is something about taking a specific color and giving it a green screen effect.

Another one would be how to make transparent layers...

And finally how to make all the cool multicolored swirly flashy backgrounds that is all over the place.

[Gyotsha]

This site will show you everything you need to know
good-tutorials (http://www.good-tutorials.com).

[Amadaun]

I don't know what version of Photoshop you're using, (I use 6.0) but the tools I use are pretty much universal. Here's what I do to make a sig or banner.

1. First of all, the magic wand tool is your friend. Open up Modelviewer and get the model you want. We'll use my cute lil' taru in his brand-new lizard armor. Put him in the pose you want, and hit the stop button by the animations list. Use the Print Screen key to take a screenshot of him, and then paste him into a brand new canvas in Photoshop.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/sidhejester/tut1a.jpg

2. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool and select around the model. Go to Select > Inverse in the top menu. Hit delete and clear out most of the screen. Then use the magice wand. Set the tolerance to about 30 and select the flat color around the Taru. Delete that, and you're left with nothing but the model.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/sidhejester/tut1.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/sidhejester/tut2.jpg

3. Since the taru is now on his own transparent layer, I usually open up a new canvas, about 2-3 times the size of the final image. Copy and paste the taru into it, resize if need be. Use the first two steps if you want to add any other models to the final product.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/sidhejester/tut3.jpg

4. Go to the tutorial site that Gyotsha recommends and poke around for background ideas. I've thrown something in, as an example. (It's quite ugly, isn't it? But you get the idea.) Add text if you want, resize and save!

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/sidhejester/tut5.jpg

Play around with filters and layer effects for something more attractive. My sig, that you see below was the result of playing around. I got the cool gem effect completely on accident! Combine two, three or more tutorials...whatever you like.

Hope this helps a little!

[ruffrydasean]

tag.. thank you

[Tygleris]

Well, your post helped out immensely. I've been poking around trying to find stuff for backgrounds but I've had no luck on that so far. If you can narrow my search maybe by a small bit, that would be helpful.

Thanks for the help thus far though.

Double Post Edited:
Ooh nevermind, I didn't realize that by random they meant like a random 5 out of over 1000. I'll continue investigating!

[Tygleris]

Well this is a start I guess. Just trying out some of the techniques. I wish I would've seen that the pencil sketchy one doesn't look very good until long after I flattened the image and saved it.

[Lunaryn]

I use the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/), and the principle's the same, there are just a couple extra gotchas.

First, if you want to use the file-export screenshot from the model viewer instead of the clipboard, make sure you use bmp; jpg will leave an 'aura' of colors similar but not quite the same as the background color around your model that are hard to remove. If you're bringing in a bmp, you'll need to go into the background layer's context menu and select Add Alpha Channel. If you paste into a new image from clipboard, this won't be necessary.

Delete the background color by using the Select by Color tool and clicking the background, then using Cut. (for some reason we don't have Delete... oh, well)

This works best if your background color is not also present on the model, obviously. A glaring, chromakey-type color is good.

Finally, don't get stressed about the program not letting you put a new layer underneath your background layer. Simply use Duplicate Layer on the background layer to get a new layer, select the background layer, select your image, and Cut. This will leave you a free layer with your model on top of a completely empty background layer. You can go ahead and decorate the background layer, or just load another image as a new layer and put it between the model's layer and the background.

Hopefully this will help those who can't afford Photoshop to try out some image doctoring. :)

[Kagerou]

Tyg, use better fonts. Cool fonts could be found here

www.dafont.com

I recommend Visitor (must), Base 02(must), 3 thehardway RMX, 911 Porscha, Baphomet, and Dark11

[Tygleris]

Okay, need a few more pieces of advice. One... when I select the odd color background and go to delete it, it just fills it with my background color. I want it completeley gone, showing off the grey checkered boxes showing that there is nothing there.

Also, I'm using photoshop, and I wanna know is there a way to be able to change the size of something without having to enter the height/width? Like be able to grab the corner and stretch it manually.

Edit: There, a second attempt is up. Comments/criticism please.

[Kagerou]

EDIT: New tut on next page

http://www.xaliasx.deviantart.com (thank you Alias for ur awesome brush)

need this brush for the tut shown in the next page.

[Kagerou]

EDIT: New tut on next page

[Tygleris]

I have... no clue... how to get that kinda effect with the brush. I kinda started reading, and saw that, and had a panic attack. Then I tried messing around with the brush, realized how much it sucked, then had another panic attack.

[Kagerou]

Did u use the brush from the link? If u filled it with black, just start clicking on the background with the brush (brush should be set to white). Try using mixtures of different brushes for better effect.

Just post what u got. I'll tell u whats wrong with it.

[Tygleris]

Well, I can't do any of that. I'm pretty new to photoshop and I can't even find the stupid brush tab to edit all the things he talks about, and I have no clue on how to download and install brushes... if that's possible...

I'm using 6.0 if that helps any...

[Kagerou]

oh. u have 6.0... then u can't use that brush anyways lol :P

then just use filter effects for now >.>

[Tygleris]

O.o Damn, that's what I was afraid of. Could you list the versions that can use the brush tools like in those tutorials and such? I might be able to 'find' some other version of it, so knowing what to look for would help. I may be able to get my hands on CS too without having to pay too much.

[Kagerou]

EDIT: Times up.

[Tygleris]

Thanks. Now maybe you can enlighten me a bit. What exactly are these brushes? Just backgrounds? Because I've seen brush about 50 times and I'm starting to think there is more than one meaning to it. I thought it all meant a brush tool, but now I'm starting to think the backgrounds mean the same thing >.>

Again, I might be able to get 7 or CS, so I might be able to do all that fun stuff soon anyways.

And thanks for all the effort put into helping me. Sorry all the confusion ended up with me just being sad about my PS version, but I appreciate the effort.

Double Post Edited:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/Tigler/PLD3.gif

Another attempt.

[Kagerou]

yeah, the problem is, those brushes I found are not "fitting" for FFXI sig making. If u want, I can make u a sig temporarly until u get Photoshop 7.0

Also, just a quick tip. Try not to use the invert effect or the glowing edges effect on ur render; filter effects are for backgrounds only. And I forgot to tell u the basics of text making. >.<

Double Post Edited:
Text Tutorial

1.Grab a background (I'll use this one). select white for ur foreground

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/4831/newcopy8jo.jpg
http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/8917/newcopy1sw.jpg

2. Make sure u selected white. Now go to the font option and click on any part of the sig where u want to place the text click on it and type whatever u want. Mine looks like this (used 911 Porscha)

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/4746/newcopy7ar.jpg

3. Now its pretty obvious it looks way bad and the font doesn't stand out. So right click on teh font layer (on ur layer window) and click on blending options

[Kagerou]

continued

4. Now click on the stroke option and apply this setting.
http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/6797/untitled1copy1sc.th.jpg (http://img366.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled1copy1sc.jpg)

5. Now the font stands out a bit more. Now leave the blending option and apply the soft light blending effect. After that duplicate the font layer. click on the stroke option (it should be visible below the font layer) to cancel the stroke effect. Now set ur mode to "normal" and change the opacity to 50%. This is what I got.

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/2731/newcopy9mo.jpg

6. Add a render of whatever u like. My final result.

http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/7343/newcopy8cc.jpg

[Amadaun]

Okay, need a few more pieces of advice. One... when I select the odd color background and go to delete it, it just fills it with my background color. I want it completeley gone, showing off the grey checkered boxes showing that there is nothing there.

Also, I'm using photoshop, and I wanna know is there a way to be able to change the size of something without having to enter the height/width? Like be able to grab the corner and stretch it manually.

Edit: There, a second attempt is up. Comments/criticism please.

This is probably a little late for any answers, but here are a few anyway. ^^

I think your problem with the backgrounds is that you opened a new canvas with that color set as your background. When you go to open a new canvas, a box should pop up with a bunch of options like size and resolution. At the very bottom of that, there's a section labeled "Contents." Make sure that the last of the three options, "Transparent", is selected. That (I hope) should fix it.

And as to changing the size of something... If you're changing the size of the canvas or resizing the entire image, as far as I know, you have to input your height/width. On the other hand, if you're just changing the size of one of the layers, you can go to Edit > Transform > Scale, which will give you a click and drag box.

Also, here's a super-short tutorial for adding brushes into Photoshop if you find any:

http://www.photoshop.brushes.btinternet.co.uk/addbrushes.shtml

Don't get discouraged with using 6.0. It's the version I use, and once you get used to it, you can get some fairly decent stuff out of it. Granted, I use it mostly for painting and only recently branched out into effects, so I'm still learning, myself. ^^

[Tygleris]

Should be getting 7.0 tonight ^_^

Double Post Edited:
Okay. 7.0: Check.

Now if someone would be so kind as to tell me how to use brushes with 7.0...

[Kagerou]

use or load? If u need to know how to load brushes, check Amadaun's link. If u want to use it, well just start clicking on the background with ur brushes (and don't drag).

[Tygleris]

Gracias. And just one last thing. What brushes did you use to make 1.) The awesome red dante-like sig for your website, and 2.) The black and white > earth colors one you showed me for the tutorial?

And I'm having one particular problem. Whenever people have mentioned do something to a layer, duplicate it then do something then merge the layers... that never seems to work for me.

What layer should I be editing? The one on top or on bottom, and when I do this, all I can see is the layer on top... what should I do. I'm probably just missing some little step like setting an option.

[Kagerou]

The brush I used for the tut can be found in that link to deviantart. And the reason why ppl tell u to create different layers is for two reasons.
1. u get a cool effect by selecting different blending options.
2. Its easier to modify parts of ur work if its in different layers (less risk of screwing up ur entire work)

Sig tutorial 1 (making grunge sig)

1. Open a 425X 110 document (RGB color)

http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/4695/untitled10kw.jpg

2. use the brush found in #3 of my previous tut and start clicking on it until u get this effect. Be sure u use different combinations of brushes than using the same brush over and over.

http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/732/untitled10sk.jpg

3. Now click on new layer.
http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/8332/untitled14wh.jpg

[Kagerou]

continued

4. And start clicking away again this is what it looks like now

http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/9891/untitled19sn.jpg

5. Now u should notice that the only layer u see is the top one (u mentioned it earlier). Now here is what u do. go to the blending options here.
http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/5674/untitled15ei.jpg

U notice the default is normal? Now, I changed it to hardlight (u can try other blending modes).

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/2325/untitled18ps.jpg

[Kagerou]

Final

6. Now repeat steps 3-5 till u get a background u like. Time to add color

7. Go to the color balance option found here.
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/3000/untitled17yw1.jpg
move the bars around till u get a nice color. I recommend either dark blue, dark red, or orange for grunge sigs. (I used brown)

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/539/untitled14sg.jpg

8. Now heres something extra. U don't need to do this but learning this helps. If u want to make the background muti-color, go to Filter-->render-->clouds WITH UR COLOR BALANCE LAYER STILL SELECTED. Now repeat step7 and choose a different color. Apply the cloud effect again, the sig should look muti-colored

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/9931/untitled16uu.jpg

9. Apply text (text blending tut can be found above) and ur render and u got urself a sig.

Sry if this isn't so clear, its just that theres a 3pic limit to each post so I had to cut down some detail. >.<

One more thing. U might consider this a good sig, but in fact, THIS IS JUST THE BASICS. Its important that u try experimenting regardless of how it looks at the beginning. Keep trying and u'll get better.


EDIT: show me what u got, and I'll give u more tips. :P

Double EDIT: thnx to Amadaun for clarifying some things I missed. ^^

[Tygleris]

I'm just wondering what brush that is specifically. He has a lot of them there, and I'm probably going to end up downloading them all, but it's hard to tell what is what.

Here are a few. Same thing just with different color and blending.

[Kagerou]

very nice for first try. Don't use really intense colors though. Heres a awesome tutorial site I used back when I was still a newbie.

www.pixel2life.com

If theres anything u need, PM me.

[Tygleris]

Here's my second attempt at making a decent background, and I even added a few things to show how it would look if I tried making an actual banner out of it.

[Kagerou]

cool. I tend not to make the sig size more than 425X115. Just kinda looks too big for my taste. But ur getting the hang of it. Try to make the taru in that sig stand out a bit more. And lower the stroke size to 1pt. :P

Can I have that taru render?

[Tygleris]

Actually, that wasn't a render. That was just a snapshot I took out of translated model viewer. As for how transparent he is, I didn't really want him to stick out. It was meant to be a blank template with no pictures or words, but then I added in the words to show that it was a template... then I was messing around in the model viewer and couldn't help but sneaking him into the background.

I'm gonna end up making em smaller, but I'm giving myself plenty of space to work with for now.

And for my last post tonight, I'm working on a banner for my RDM, reflecting how he's both part Black Magic, part White Magic. I want to have everything have some level of transparency so nothing actually is an exact color, but has like a white or red or black tint to it. I'm going to use a different background for it, but I just grabbed one of the ones I showed earlier to just show off what I mean, so if you have any comments about how everything is WAY too red, then don't worry about that.

Just looking on suggestions on how to pull this off with a nicer more professional kinda look.

[Tygleris]

Doh! Never actually posted the picture. Well I worked on all of the things I said without any outside advice, so what do ya think for now?

(I also posted the first try (the bottom one) to point out the improvements between the two.)