I suck ass at Photoshop but check this out!

[Bahumat]

Yes i know its god awful! but can anyone here do something to make it look better? I dunno, some fancy light source or some other amazing thing Photoshop can do...which i dont know about

First attempt at using the program so im not fussed if people insult me. Thought i did a mediocre job with the clone+Blend tool thingy!

 

[leviathane]

well for first attempt at using the prog, i'll be nice and say not bad, simple but alrite.

 

[Bahumat]

Its just a bit bland, not really sure how to improve it

 

[Dard]

Its just a bit bland, not really sure how to improve it

Raymond E Fiest fan ?

 

[Bahumat]

Haha yes-sir-ree

currently reading Krondor The Betrayal

 

[Thorwyn]

Change the background... don´t let it fade all the way to pure white. Just a small range of dark/light adds some nice effect. Also, change the direction of the background fading.

For the letters, use a drop shadow and of you can, add some highlights with dodge/burn.

The figure... make sure that the pixles on the edge of the shape are antialising. Otherwise they´ll look too sharp.

As for light effecs, go to filter - rendering filter and play with those lighting options. Some of them are rather nice.

 

[kirennia]

Haha yes-sir-ree

currently reading Krondor The Betrayal

oooh, I remember the old game, betrayal at krondor So difficult but so much fun Guessing it's the same story with Owyn, goreth and james?

 

[Bahumat]

Yeah Owyn Gorath and James hehe, really enjoying it so far Quite cool because i've just read The Rift War Saga with Pug and Tomas (Magician, Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon) so it's all fresh in my head

Thanks for the tips Thorwyn. I'm going to have a play around and see what i can do. Im liking the idea of not going 'black to white'. Will post an update when i get a little better hehe

 

[Bahumat]

ahhh donkey balls. I saved my only copy as a jpeg and im guessing i needed a png or whatever the original file format is.

Sucks as i cant edit anything previously done

 

[Thorondorito]

I've being playing around with it...

Here's what i got (im not a photoshop pro so... )

Edit: I made some glow in the eyes (short, i had to stroke it more), letters and body and some shadow and retouched background colors to make it more... cold

 

[Craft]

Feist is the shit, i got all his books, the new ones are good but i wish he made a 12 book monster just about them too, although i havent read the ones he did about set in the Tsurani home world, all politics i think, on a photoshop note its just as easy to mezz about with all the cool filters and just see what happens ctrl + z will be your next best friend. If you like the way the picture looks just save it as a .psd file and a .jpeg as you can always go back to a .psd and just peel the stuff off again and change it, also try to learn about layers and go from there, there are also alot of tutorials online showing you how to get pretty nifty looking effects all for free i think a good site is planetphotoshop.com or something... Experiment and Enjoi!

 

[kirennia]

Just noticed I've still got Krondor on my machine at the moment as well as a few other classics Megalomania, lands of lord, hate of fate, powermonger, star control 2

haha, wonder what I'll be doing for the next few hours.

 

[Bahumat]

I've being playing around with it...

Here's what i got (im not a photoshop pro so... )

Edit: I made some glow in the eyes (short, i had to stroke it more), letters and body and some shadow and retouched background colors to make it more... cold

Lol how did you do all that? infact, dont explain as i probably wont understand most of it! Going to keep playing around with the settings and see what i can create.

 

[kirennia]

One thing I would suggest (although it sounds a lil picky) is to make things more central. If you need to keep that size, move the picture of the guy right a tad and the writing right. If it doesn't have to be the same size, move the guy left and shrink it a lil

 

[Bahumat]

Good point Kirennia

How do i make the writing have that "Glow" effect?

 

[Thorondorito]

First of all you have to separate the text from the picture (if you have it splitted into layers, better, if not, mark the text, cut it and copy in a new layer at the same position, no need to cut in fact, just copy)

In the new layer, select blending options or whatever is called (my photoshop is not in english sorry) and play with shadows, strokes, etc

Hope it helps

 

[Ezteq]

rofl well my limitations are MSPaint so to me what you made looks pretty damned great!

 

[Morphius]

yep lol, my pc always opens up pics i want to edit in photoshop but in the end it's just fuck it MSPaint for life.

 

[Andrilyn]

Just noticed I've still got Krondor on my machine at the moment as well as a few other classics Megalomania, lands of lord, hate of fate, powermonger, star control 2

haha, wonder what I'll be doing for the next few hours.

You should try Return to Krondor, it's the sequel to Betrayal at Krondor.
Has a very good story and it's a very good game (though kinda old).

 

[Thorwyn]

1. Removed some of the semi-transparent pixels on the edge of the shape (which tend to look too birght when you put them on a dark layer).

2. Made a copy of the figure, changed it to completely black and slightly blurred it (thus softening the edges a bit more).

3. Added a shine/blur effect on the blade

4. Added a highlight with smudge (1 pixel... always a nice eye catcher)

5. Changed the background

6. Changed the font, adjusted the size, rasterized the font, then added a slight black blur under the actual letters.

7. Added a highlight in the middle of the letters

8. Added a lighting effect to the background layer

 

[Bahumat]

Damn you guys pwn!

Thanks for explaining what you did. I found Photoshop 7 on our work server's so i've legally installed that hehe.

Thanks again

 

[Bahumat]

Sorry with all the questions, but when selecting text with the Wand Tool, sometimes i miss parts of the letter, is there a quick way to select words?

Edit:- Zoomed in 400% and painstakinly selected all the bits the Wand missed lol

 

[Thorwyn]

If the letters are still on a separate layer, you can just "select all" (or use a wand, clock somewhere else, then "invert selection")
If the letters are already merged into another layer, you have to select them with a colour tolerance. Usually, a tolerance of 5-10 is enough, but when you added some highlights and stuff, you might need to go higher.
Generally, when I´m doing something that contains a text, I always make sure that I don´t merge this layer until the very end.

Post your current pic, maybe there´s even more you should take care of.

 

[Thorondorito]

If you have only the letters in a new layer you can just control click the layer on layers palette and you have them selected.

 

[Bahumat]

I managed to improve it a little bit. But it seems i caused myself problems by not layering things at the start hehe.

Added a brown tint to the background, moved the text (left the rogue due to having trouble selecting him with the wand), glow effect on the text with a drop shadow.

What i'm going to try is taking a real life picture apart via layers, then seeing what i can do with each part. My picture is simple so i dont have alot of ideas to play around with.

I love the Aliasing affect Thorwyn did, but gonna have to read up on how to do that hehe.

 

[Bahumat]

Oh and Thorwyn I prefer your background style, but bugger me sideways if i can figure out how to change the "Left to Right" to Outw4ards to Inwards".

Checked the blending etc in the new background layer, but couldn't physically change mine.

Why is ******ds filtered

 

[Thorwyn]

...give me an email address and I`ll email you the shape in .psd format, as a separate layer.

 

[Chronictank]

Theupright man

 

[Gamah]

Lol Chron!

 

[Bahumat]

Ahhh thats The Crawler getting me!

Thorwyn i'll send you a cybor message...i mean email address