::Graphics Tips and Techniques::

[Fate]

Here's a thread where all you graphic artists around the forum can come share your techniques in Photoshop or GIMP or whatever you use to make your work. I think it'd be kind of nice to learn new tricks, and it's pretty cool when you see a couple of your techniques incorporated in others' works, too. ^.^

::EDIT:: With some suggestions from Dodie, I've decided that this could very well be used as a help thread of sorts, too, since I don't think we have one. So if anyone has questions on graphics stuff, feel free to ask here so the other people can give some answers to. =)

So, I'll go first with a few of the random things that I use in my Photoshop pieces a lot.
(Pasted from something I typed yesterday.)

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First, the colored-text thing is kind of cool. Here's what you do: if you're looking for text that isn't just one color, make the text a bit bold and black. Then, set the blend mode to either Overlay or Soft Light, and also, give it an Inner Shadow that's around 50% or so. After that, give it a little Outer Glow to make it visible but invisible at the same time.

Just black text:
http://i40.tinypic.com/8t8y.jpg

With the options:
http://i41.tinypic.com/wbxchd_th.png

Looking at the rainbow, I remember another one now. When you're using brushes and you want the image to blend, don't just choose a single color all the time. Something that can bring out the intensity of a color is if you use the brush as a white color first, and then put an image with the colors that you want over the brush mark. After that, delete the outside of the brush mark's selection from the image to get an image with the same shape as the brush mark. Now is when you set the blend mode to something you like; Linear Dodge, Color Dodge, Overlay, Soft Light, and especially Color Burn work best, in my opinion.

A normal brush mark:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2zyevmb_th.png

With an image:
http://i43.tinypic.com/zso282_th.png

Oh, and just a tip to make your images more creative: you can utilize opacity to give nice depth to your images. For example, if you have vines in your background that you made with a brush, brush more vines on a layer beneath the first one and reduce the opacity to just 30% or so; also, if you must, add an Outer Glow with the same color as the background to the main ones in front. It won't distract viewers by making your images look busy, but it'll add a nice effect to the main vines in front.

Some vines:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2mwar8x_th.png

With faded vines:
http://i42.tinypic.com/72d0ts_th.png

Oh, and something else, here, too, because I'm in Photoshop: if you want to add an Outer Glow to your image that follows all the colors of the render and not just one, then you can using blurring options. First, duplicate the render and put that duplicated layer beneath the original render layer. After that, look at your render and see how many directions of the render is showing; this decides how many more duplicates you need. If you can't see the right portion of the render and not the bottom, either, then make one more duplicate for a total of two. If it's something in a circular motion, make three more for a total of four. After that, move one duplicated layer in one direction a couple pixels using the arrow keys, and another layer in another direction until you basically have a Stroke of your render behind your original render. After that, merge all the layers aside from the main and original render into one layer. Now, you can choose one of two Outer Glow options: you can either just give it an all-color Outer Glow or give it a more broad one. To get the former, just give it a Gaussian Blur of around two pixels. To do the former, duplicate the merged layer that's the Stroke. Give the one on the bottom a Gaussian Blur of around ten pixels and the one on top a Gaussian Blur of, again, around two pixels. That was a bit long, but it's very quick; trust me.

A render:
http://i44.tinypic.com/azhrsx_th.png

Single blur:
http://i41.tinypic.com/28ivpkw_th.png

Double blur:
http://i42.tinypic.com/29vxceb_th.png

Oh, and back to depth thing now. I learned a way to make your images look more creative by adding direct cropped depth to them. To do this, after you have your finished image, draw a little shape and fill it with any color. After that, select the outline of the shape's selection and duplicate it from the original image. Now, Stroke that duplicated shape with a one-pixel white Stroke and give it a Drop Shadow; you're done. It's as easy as that, but it's quite effective. You can also add multiple ones if you want to.

Just an image:
http://i40.tinypic.com/25qyvtk_th.png

With depth:
http://i42.tinypic.com/14xo02x_th.png

Hope you got some use out of them. ^_^"