Your Honest Opinions Please.......

diego

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So I'm really new to photoshop, I've had it for like ever but never used it for my own creations. Thanks to a link from AbbysMom I have been able to do a bit of editing. My version was a bit different so I'm absolutely certain I do stuff the long way,
but I'm impressed with what I've done even though its very amateur
, its way more than I could do a week ago
.

Anyway I would really appreciate your opinions/feedback. Honesty is important, if you think they suck I need to know. Like the 1st sig 1, I had to do everything to make it smaller since I used too many photo's so it don't look nice.

Thanks all


The first one is a welcome to TCS pic.


Next is a R.I.P pic for the bridge.


The next 3 are just some sigs I made. The 3rd 1 being my actual sig.




I thought there really should be a candle in the RIP one.



Disclaimer: All the photo's used for my creations are my own work, no copyright infringements have been made. I didn't place this in the pic section because 1 is not a fur only 1.
 

anakat

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They are great, the only changes I would make would be to the welcome one. I would darken the pupils and slightly smudge the edges of the cat.
 
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diego

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Originally Posted by Anakat

They are great, the only changes I would make would be to the welcome one. I would darken the pupils and slightly smudge the edges of the cat.
I have absolutely no idea how to do either

If you know, please feel free to share the trick with me
 

icklemiss21

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When you cut them out, use a slight 'feather' from the select menu will soften the edges

For dakening the pupils, check out the eye challenge in the sig forum there are lots of ways to do it, just pick which one suits you
 

angi

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Great job!


I agree with Anakat, about the smudging (you can find the smudge tool hidden behind the blur tool) & darkening (which can be done a few different ways. Either by selecting the area with the wand tool or selection tool, & using curves [ctrl + m], or using the burn tool that is found behind the dodge tool...& some other things.)

For the photos you posted, I would suggest a few things. First isn't really a technique critique (
), the R.I.P. photo is lovely, but I would have used other colours besides red & blue together like that. Some people have problems with those two colours together like that, especially in writing.

In the other photos, I'd lighten up the kitties a bit.

Cutting things out will get better the more you do it, so practice practice practice!


 

arie85

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Those are really nice pics you have there. Have you thought about trying to use Dreamweaver as well? And the Magic-Wand function is really useful, try those two and you can make those with a background of a castle or flag, it could be look real nice


Anyway, way to go for this hard-work!!
 

renovia

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in your siggy, it seems the cats are grainy. Am I seeing things?
 

lunasmom

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I think that you have an excellent start on Photoshop. Some people can understand it, some just can't. IMO the hardest thing for anyone to grasp is the layers concept. The rest is easy to learn. Once you understand layers you have no limit to what you can do!
 

hopehacker

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In your "Welcome" graphic, with the close up of Diego's face, I would not cut out part of the whisker pads, I'm guessing to remove all traces of the whiskers. If you can't cut out the whiskers, than cut around the whisker pads, and leave the beginning of the whiskers there, because the way you did it, you actually removed a portion of Diego's face.

Now, to smooth out the edges, there are a few ways you can do that. The easiest way, IMO is to feather your cutting lasso, try it at about 2 or 3 pixels, and see how that goes. The way you do that in Photoshop is to go to the top left hand side, and there is a little section that says "feather", and it will probably say either 0 or 1, you just erase that and put in 2 or 3. You'll notice as you cut that it will be a little bit fuzzy around the edges, you don't want it too fuzzy, but you want it fuzzy enough that the cat will blend it with the background and not look "cut out". Another thing I do, is after it's cut, I run the blur tool around the edges. The blur tool is right below the Eraser, and it's shaped like a tear drop. (The blur tool can also be changed to a sharpening tool as well as a smudge tool) Make sure the tear drop is showing.

If you want to lighten or darken the image, you go to very top where it says "File" "Edit" Image" et et. Click on image and a drop down menu comes down. Click on Adjustments, and there are loads of things you can do, one of them is Brightness and Contrast. Click on that, and adjust the brightness, darkness and contrast accordingly.

If you want to darken the pupils of Diego's eyes, which I would, so the flash lighting doesn't show, you can go to the "burn" tool, and adjust your brush size to make it smaller then burn in the pupil of the eye. The "burn" and "dodge" tools are right below the Type Tool which is a letter T. The burn tool looks like a hand, and you click on the thing that looks like a black sucker, at least to me, and hold it down and the burn tool will show up, just click on that hand and you will have the burn tool. The brush size adjustment is up at the top, almost directly below the word Image. I would also ajust the "exposure" of the burn you're putting on, so that it's not too dark. Maybe set it at 10. The exposure setting is at the top in the same row that the size of the brush setting is, but it's more towards the middle. Once you are looking in that row, you can't miss it. It's still on the left, but a more towards the middle, under the words View and Window. I hope that helps a little.

Another thing, with a little practice you can paint in the whiskers on the side or sides where you had to cut the whiskers out. It takes a bit of practice, but if you see my signature of Simba the whiskers on the left side are painted in, because it was almost impossible to cut them out.
 

carolpetunia

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Wow. Hope, I've been using Photoshop for years (by trial and error), but you just clarified some things that have caused me to stumble around quite a bit... thanks!
 
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diego

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Originally Posted by Angi

Great job!


I agree with Anakat, about the smudging (you can find the smudge tool hidden behind the blur tool) & darkening (which can be done a few different ways. Either by selecting the area with the wand tool or selection tool, & using
Ha ha, after some frustration lastnight I finally realized that some of the tools, such as the smudge button were hidden behind other tabs.

Originally Posted by arie85

Those are really nice pics you have there. Have you thought about trying to use Dreamweaver as well? And the Magic-Wand function is really useful, try those two and you can make those with a background of a castle or flag, it could be look real nice
Dreamweaver?? no idea what that is.

Originally Posted by Renovia

in your siggy, it seems the cats are grainy. Am I seeing things?
Yep, if its the one with the 3 photo's in the sig, I imagine it was just too huge and to make it just 30kb or less I had to make some adjustments which did that.


Originally Posted by lunasmom

I Some people can understand it, some just can't. IMO the hardest thing for anyone to grasp is the layers concept.
Oh gosh, I tell you, that layers part is a
I feel like biffing my pc into the street, when trying to make sense of the layers. I can't understand Photoshop at all, I'm surprised I some how managed to do what I did.

Thank you all for the feedback, I never look in this part of the forum and didn't expect there to be info about photoshop. Yet another great thing about TCS.


Now I have 1 really important question.
Is it possible to do text wrap in photoshop? I think thats the word. I have just spent the past 90mins creating a picture which has a lot of text, I want to be able to make it so you can read the text and clearly see the pics, but at the moment its all overlapping everything else. Oh and some how I need the background pic to stay the way it is.
 
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diego

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Originally Posted by Angi

Great job!

For the photos you posted, I would suggest a few things. First isn't really a technique critique (
), the R.I.P. photo is lovely, but I would have used other colours besides red & blue together like that. Some people have problems with those two colours together like that, especially in writing.
I see, I never thought about that, I simply chose those colours coz they are associated with heaven as such. Red for Jesus, blue for Mary sort of thing.

Its kind of my way of putting a bit of religion in there without making anyone worry that I'm going to start bible bashing.
 

angi

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Originally Posted by DIEGO

Ha ha, after some frustration lastnight I finally realized that some of the tools, such as the smudge button were hidden behind other tabs.
Oh I know! It took me a very long time, I finally swallowed my pride & asked my bf (who's a graphic designer!
) about them.


Originally Posted by DIEGO

I see, I never thought about that, I simply chose those colours coz they are associated with heaven as such. Red for Jesus, blue for Mary sort of thing.

Its kind of my way of putting a bit of religion in there without making anyone worry that I'm going to start bible bashing.
That's really interesting, I didn't know that.
 
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diego

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Originally Posted by HopeHacker

In your "Welcome" graphic, with the close up of Diego's face, I would not cut out part of the whisker pads, I'm guessing to remove all traces of the whiskers. If you can't cut out the whiskers, than cut around the whisker pads, and leave the beginning of the whiskers there, because the way you did it, you actually removed a portion of Diego's face.

Now, to smooth out the edges, there are a few ways you can do that. The easiest way, IMO is to feather your cutting lasso, try it at about 2 or 3 pixels, and see how that goes.
I had the feather setting at 2 for his face. Whisker pads is that.... no actually I have no idea how to ask or explain what I think a whisker pad is.
I find it really hard to control the magnetic lasso and it often flicks and sets on a part and I want to cry when I undo and redo it and it happens again and again
. I can't use the free style lasso coz my mouse is an optical one and sometimes I haven't even moved it, but it flashes and wrecks my work.

I have to take my hat off to all who can do the wonderful jobs that you do.

Love Simba's whiskers by the way


ETA I just looked at the original pic again and thats actually the angle of his head
 

angi

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Originally Posted by DIEGO

I find it really hard to control the magnetic lasso and it often flicks and sets on a part and I want to cry when I undo and redo it and it happens again and again
. I can't use the free style lasso coz my mouse is an optical one and sometimes I haven't even moved it, but it flashes and wrecks my work.
Have you tried the polygonal lasso tool? I use that one, & find it the easiest. Honestly, I have no clue how to use the magnetic lasso tool.
 
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diego

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Originally Posted by Angi

Have you tried the polygonal lasso tool? I use that one, & find it the easiest. Honestly, I have no clue how to use the magnetic lasso tool.
No I haven't only because the name suggests to me funny shapes
 

xxtashaxx

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yes you can text warp the way i do this is once you have done the text right click on the layer with text and it gives you an option to warp text. or while you are on text mode at the top left there is also an option to do this.
 
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