Thread: Need Photoshop help?

I see a lot of people saying things like "I wish I could draw like that" or "I wish I knew how to do that." I'm not an expert in Photoshop and wouldn't even consider myself advanced. But I would like to get a thread going where people can ask about how to do certain things in Photoshop. You may want to know what each tool does or what certain menu options actually do; things like that.

So if you have any questions, ask away. Hopefully someone in PSOW's large userbase can help you out.

F.A.R.P. Section of Elfwood. Awesome tutorials for just about anything you can imagine

http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/farp/

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Want to know how to do all that cool anime art stuff (cel shading CGing, the works!)? Look no further than the PolyKarbon site

http://www.polykarbon.com/

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Lots of interesting tutorials for beginners & up at WetCanvas

http://www.wetcanvas.com/

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Phong! This is a site for the PhotoShop users lots of advanced techniques (not recommended for beginners). Lots of eye candy here!

http://www.phong.com/

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Attack of the Old Skool! This one is back up, great tutorials for 3d programs, mostly advanced stuff.

http://www.noir.org/

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Access Aelice, put together by a very cool gal. Interesting tutorials, I believe she has some neat stuff on cell shading.

http://access.winged-desire.net/

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I really hope these help you aspiring artists out there. They were great references when I was a beginner.

For those looking for fonts for their comics check out http://www.blambot.com. Some of the neat ones require $$$ but there are some good free ones.

Naer: Thank you very, very much for the Photoshop tutorials. I have been looking for some for a while now, and those really help. ^_^

Take care!

On 2002-11-26 10:42, IceBlink wrote:
Perhaps Pixel can share some secrets on illustrator... o_O

Uhm, Illustrator isn't my best program, but if anyone has questions about it, I'll try to answer.

Over the holiday weekend, I'll try to do a step-by-step tutorial with pics for a basic signature. It'll probably have an emphasis on layer masks and quick masks.

DreeElle: my pleasure =)


I have a whole bunch of other tutorial links written down somewhere...i'll update as soon as I find 'em.

Here is my tutorial for how to cutout pictures in Photoshop. The next tutorial will be on how to change colors of hair, costumes, etc. I compressed the screen caps a lot to help out the 56k users we have here. If you have any questions, please ask, and I will answer as best I can. I hope this tutorial helps.

I looked through the sig thread and saw all kinds of requests for someone to make sig with a specific character and a specific costume color and a specific hair color. Well, here's how to do it.

First off, you'll need a picture for a background and a picture of your character. The background I'm using is here. And the character picture I'm using is here.

Next, you need to make a new document that fits the PSOW sig limits. You'll end up with an empty image and a background layer. The background layer is automatically locked, meaning you cannot put any content in it.

Open your background picture, and position it so you can see your new image and your picture. With the move tool, drag the picture onto your new image. Then do this with your character picture.

It's a good idea to name your layers. This will keep you from mixing up what part is on which layer. You'll get a box that pops up looking like this.

You'll then want to turn off the layer your character picture is on, so you can get a better looking position out of your background picture by using the move tool. When your background is the way you want it, turn on your character layer and position it as well.

This step is one of the two more time consuming steps. This step will essentially cutout the character you want to be by itself. In your character layer, you want to add a layer mask. A layer mask basically lets you hide areas of a layer. When you're working in a layer mask, your foreground and background colors switch to black and white. The reason it switches to black and white is because when you're working in a layer mask, whatever gets painted black will be hidden, and whatever gets painted white will be revealed. Having your foreground and background colors set to black and white makes it easier to switch between black and white (hiding and revealing). You can switch between each color by clicking the curved arrows.

For cutting out pictures, I suggest using the paintbrush tool. The paintbrush is better than the pencil tool because the paintbrush tool gives you a softer edge on your cutout, whereas the pencil tool gives you a rougher, harder edge. You can see the difference here: paintbrush on the left, pencil on the right.

You'll want to zoom in on the character you want by itself. This will give you a better view of your edges. You should also turn off the layer that has your background picture in it and lock it. Locking it will keep you from accidently messing it up. Turning off the layer will give you a white background, which makes it easier to see the edges of your character as you cut it out.

After you have cutout the edges, go ahead and remove everything else that's on the character picture that you don't want shown. The last thing you have to do is turn on the layer with your background picture.

Here is the final cutout as a JPEG. And here is the actual Photoshop document; it's roughly 5MB (sorry for the size).

I need more tutorials >_>;

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: neko-chan on 2003-07-18 13:44 ]</font>