practise makes perfect

[catsallover]

Can someone (that would be me

) add in to this thread? I don't have anything but Picture It 10 (so no feathering brush, etc

), but I like trying the eyes with my own girls...

How are these? I did them by zooming in really far,
-then filling in with black with the regular paintbrush,

-then using a smaller paint brush to add the darker green/gold around the outside of the pupil and around the larger reflection spot,

-and then squinted my eyes and used the airbrush to go around the outside of the pupil again, to soften and straighten the edges of the pupil,

-added the smaller upper right reflection with the airbrush,

-used the darker green/gold across the top of pupil and part of the cornea to create a shadow effect,

-then moved up a line and redefined the top of the eyelid with a dark green/golden brown color.

-Then I traced the eye and used the blur feature to soften it to match the rest of the pic.




Then I went ahead and tried a sig

, but I don't have Photoshop, so that part was just for the heck of it and I've gotta show it to someone!

 

[anakat]

What a good idea, this is a brilliant way to learn

Scully



I cut and pasted the eyes from a different photo of Scully.
Sometimes if you hunt through Fur Pics people have put different photos of their cats to the ones they have put in the requests thread

 

[mooficat]

wow - this is a great tutorial

now if someone could just turn TCS off for 3 days while I get the hang of all this

 

[minxie]

Wow this is a great thread! I've learnt a lot e.g. the red eye pic of Scully...I was actually looking to correct the problem with the 'red eye corrector' facility on the software...but it wasn't working well..I was getting very frustrated and just gave up. Then from reading this, i see that you actually re-draw and blend a 'new eye' in (oh dear...I'm embarassed to admit that)

However, either the software I have is awful or Im embarassingly c**p at this (and too embarassed to post up my results yet) but with regard to the out of focus pic...its not sharpening at all well at my end to get into any kind of focus. The 'sharpening' facility just seems to be emphasing the pixels, not bringing it into focus.

I have photoplus 6 and Presto Image Folio - does anyone know if these are on the same level as photoshop? Or far inferior? Being the 'good' work person I am.... Im looking to blame my tools first lol.

Think I might download the photoshop free-trial and give this all another go.

 

[icklemiss21]

The over sharpening is the reason I make two layers of the blurry layer and set them at lower opacity on top of the sharpened layer, it makes it look more natural and lets you hide over sharpening.

catsallover, you did a great job with Picture It and way better for a sig than I could do in picture it as well, and of course anyone is welcome to come and try or even copy what someone else has done and post their try to ask how to improve. I think we can all learn something from this thread

minxie I haven't used either of those, but definitely give the trial the test, 'knowing' how to use it by using tutorials etc and already having a base knowledge from other software will make the 30 day trial a lot more helpful. And don't be embarassed, we all started to learn somewhere and that is the whole point of this thread. I used to burn the eye in until I realised I could do a better job cutting it out!

 

[anakat]

Well apart from getting carried away by his dreamy expression

I use the lasso tool for cutting out, I cleaned his eye with the clone tool. Drew his whiskers with the pencil then went over them with the blur tool.

 

[mooficat]

Originally Posted by Anakat



Well apart from getting carried away by his dreamy expression

I use the lasso tool for cutting out, I cleaned his eye with the clone tool. Drew his whiskers with the pencil then went over them with the blur tool.

great job Anne, I am really gonna have to give myself a few hours to get cracking on this !! ooo I'll be able to 'rescuue' all sorts of photos that I just didnt think were usable !!

 

[minxie]

Right...I have downloaded photoshop's free trial and I must say...this thread and other TCS info on photoshop has been excellent in helping me find my way around

I am starting to appreciate the intricacies of making a good siggy - I never realised all this before. So thanks Icklemiss21 for these tutorials...and everyone else too as I'm learning alot from you guys. ReesesPBc - thanks for the way you explain everything so clearly in your explanations - it really helps for beginners like me.

What Ive done is shown below.



1) Same procedure as explained by ReesesPBC and Icklemiss21. I used values similar to Icklemiss21, give or take 1-5 points either way.



2) Same procedure as explained by Abbysmum. I had fun with smudge tool!



3) Same procedure as explained by ReesesPBC. I also darkened the remaining outer yellow of the eye to try and make it look more 'natural'.



4) Same procedure as explained by Abbysmom and also on the photoshop tutorial Icklemiss did (freewebs.com one). I also nipped into photoplus6 to add a lighting effect on Bumper's face...I have no idea to do that on photoshop.

Query

1) where is the drop shadow facility and bevel facility on photoshop elements? My edges could have been a bit more 'prettier' if I could find these lol. I did try to refer to the photoshop help centre to locate these but couldnt work it out. Are these facilities on the free trial version?

2) what is the best brush to use to add on fur using the smudge tool in a) long haired cats and b) short haircats?

3) To replace a whisker...how is this done? drawing a thin white line and smudging it?
(post script - just come back to edit this as Anakat has posted how she drew whiskers

)

4) I realised that backgrounds are harder to do than I initially thought (e.g. with the brush)...can we have a tutorial on those one day?

Thanks again and I look forward to your feedback

 

[hopehacker]

Originally Posted by ReesesPBC

What did you do to fix the focus and make the color of her fur more consistant?

We should probably try and be as specific as possible with how we've done things so those who may not know can learn from this as much as possible.

Regarding the Scully signature I made yesterday (see above), I'm sorry I was in a rush. I actually made it in a rush, and I didn't have time to tell what I did. First of all I have Photoshop7.01, which is a great program, but it doesn't have as many features as the CS versions, so I had to work with what is available on 7.01.
First for the eyes: I used my lasso tool, and circled each pupil, and then painted the pupil black with a feathered brush, I remembered where it looked like the whitest part was, and made small white dots for the light reflection. Then, I used the lasso tool and circled each iris only, then I adjusted the colour to green, because I know Scully has the most beautiful green eyes. Then I used the blur tool to smooth the eyes out.

Next or 2nd thing I did: I Auto adjusted the levels and the colour.

Then I sharpened the picture, actually a couple of times, and then using the lasso I removed Scully from the background, placed him on the background I created.

Finally, I duplicated the layer, and used soft light, and then I Gaussian blurred it (I'm sorry I don't remember the levels) I just do it until it looks good to me. Then I duplicated the 2nd layer, and added more opacity to the layer. Then I went back to the base layer of Scully and using the blur tool around the edges, and then added drop shadow. Then flattened the image and that was it.

 

[anakat]

Help, I cannot get the hang of using that magnetic lasso, any hints?

 

[icklemiss21]

Turn the frequency on the lasso up to something in the 90s so it does more 'dots' and catches more delicate angles and have have feather on 3-4 depending on the size of the pic for a softer edge (you can always use the eraser to take more stuff off but its a paint to cut it out again)

 

[icklemiss21]

Minxie, they are great early tries

Some quick points, because of the fur where he is lying on his side, Magnum looks better if you have that fur outside the edge of the sig image and start the sig at his 'natural' face rather than his fur, or use a lot of feathering in that side to make it look soft. So his bottom ear is touching the bottom of the sig.

 

[reesespbc]

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

Turn the frequency on the lasso up to something in the 90s so it does more 'dots' and catches more delicate angles and have have feather on 3-4 depending on the size of the pic for a softer edge (you can always use the eraser to take more stuff off but its a paint to cut it out again)

That's pretty neat, I've always used the pen tool to cut stuff out. How do you turn the magnetic lasso tool off or go back if you make a mistake while tracing?

 

[icklemiss21]

You can't really, thats why I keep it on a really high frequency so I don't make mistakes the first time

 

[AbbysMom]

Originally Posted by minxie

1) where is the drop shadow facility and bevel facility on photoshop elements? My edges could have been a bit more 'prettier' if I could find these lol. I did try to refer to the photoshop help centre to locate these but couldnt work it out. Are these facilities on the free trial version?

Do you have the Styles and effects palette on the right-hand side open? You can find all of those there.

I am learning that some of the things mentioned above are not in Elements.

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

Some quick points, because of the fur where he is lying on his side, Magnum looks better if you have that fur outside the edge of the sig image and start the sig at his 'natural' face rather than his fur, or use a lot of feathering in that side to make it look soft. So his bottom ear is touching the bottom of the sig.

I thought the whole point was to draw fur.

I was going to line it up the way you said, but felt that was cheating!

 

[icklemiss21]

Yeah but you are more advanced than Minxie

 

[anakat]

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

Turn the frequency on the lasso up to something in the 90s so it does more 'dots' and catches more delicate angles and have have feather on 3-4 depending on the size of the pic for a softer edge (you can always use the eraser to take more stuff off but its a paint to cut it out again)

Thanks, it was better that way but I think I still prefer the ordinary lasso. I suppose it is what you get used to using.

 

[reesespbc]

What brush type/size does everyone use to draw fur? I was playing around with it but couldn't get it to look right.

 

[icklemiss21]

I rarely 'draw' fur, I do make a new layer and use the smudge brush with an 'skinny oval' brush to lengthen the fur as I did in this one:



First I used the magnetic lasso with a feather and width of 5 each because he is so fluffy its hard to be exact. Then I duplicated the layer and used an skinny oval shaped soft edged brush to lengthen and 'fix' the fur where I had cut it out. Once I had done that I used a round soft edged brush at low opacity to blur the fur and make it look softer.

Then I merged the layers and resized them to a siggy size. I duplicated the layers, one on screen and two on soft light at 40% opacity each and hand blurred the bottom 'original' layer using the same round soft edged brush.

I then made a triangular shape to make it look like he is lying on something to make the way the fur is lying more natural and used the edit > transform > rotate to rotate the text to the same angle as the triangle.

 

[anakat]

I used a small smudge brush set at 30 to sort of puff out the edges where i had cut it.