Help Discussion

oh my god flei, the outcome is AMAZING!!! love your style
to be honest, when i saw that sig i was as clueless of what to do next as erotic devil ^^'

Erotic Devil: Yay, glad everything helped!

Ugh, C4Ds. I have a bunch of them, but I can't get them to work right. ;; I usually use them as light textures, actually. XD /fail

blackcatme: Lol, thank you! <3

When you've got a pic and are completely clueless, the best thing to do is start throwing textures, brushes, patterns, C4Ds—basically anything at it. And once it's all mixed together you'll find parts you like and start working from there and getting rid of the other useless parts you had previously added. Speaking as someone who almost always has no idea what to do with a pic, this method has proved itself almost every time~

awesome graphics makers,

First time poster here. I've seen a lot of awesome graphics here and heard people talking about Topaz. I went searching and there are a few types of Topaz.

My question is which type of Topaz do you use when making sets? What is your advise if I want to use it? I'm a beginner at making sets although know how to use PS. Any suggestions and advise is very much appreciated.

Thank you very much for all your kind help in advance.

Chawsu: Hello and congrats on your first post! <3

I rarely use Topaz, but I'm pretty sure the one that everyone's using is Topaz Clean. Use either the 'Cartooned' or 'CrispStyle' and play with the settings to get the proper affect for your sig.

My advice is less is more: Use Topaz to make your clean sigs even cleaner. Topaz doesn't look so great on grunge. ;; You should also watch out for extreme Topaz settings. If you max out the Topaz levels, it starts looking really weird. And keep an eye on the background because it's the most affected by Topaz. XD

Uh, I think that's all I've got.

I have a bunch of different Topaz, but I rarely use it. When I do use it, I like Topaz Clean and Topaz Adjust. It is mostly good to help make crap pictures look better.

@ Flei - Thank you so much for your input. I saw the flawless sigs and wonder how did they achieve that kind of flawless and smooth finish.

@ Halite75 - I see. Thank you. I've admired your sigs for a while now. Did you make any tuts by chance? I'd love to know how you go about making them.

@Chawsu My one and only fan! Hmm. I've only made one sig tutorial and it wasn't anything fancy or complicated. The other tutorials I've done have been for just basic things like making borders--real newbie stuff (posted in the tutorial section here).

Something I've learned with sig making is that the quality of the original picture you are starting with is very important, especially if you are going for a "smooth" or "shiny" looking sig. If you use a picture that is in opposition of the ultimate look you are going for, you are going to have a very hard time getting the results you want. I've learned this the hard way! Not all pics, no matter how much you like them, are suited for sigs.

Halite75 - Thank you for the link to the tut. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I totally agree. If I use the non HQ pics, the result is a disaster. Sometimes I just can't use a pic, no matter how hard I try.

I'm Photoshop CS 5. I can't find the extract tool there, which I usually use to extract pics from background. My question is which tools do you use to render the pic from background? I know that using pen tool is better, but I'm not really proficient at it. Thanks for your help in advance.

I use the magic wand tool if it is a solid background color and then delete, otherwise I use the eraser and/or background eraser tools. One good thing I've notice about CS 3 is that the magic wand tool works MUCH better than it did in CS 1. This is going to save me so much time in rendering!