#ps tut

[kingsleigh]

MANIP TUTORIAL

this is a picture based, 8-step tutorial, showing you how to achieve something like this:

these edits can be accomplished with all sorts of free editing softwares, but today I will be using Photoshop !  (which you can also find download links for online if ur sneakyyy ;) 

TUTORIAL BELOW THE CUT:

pre-tutorial notes:  just as an FYI, there are several different ways you can crop people out of pictures in PS; you can use the lasso tool freehand, the polygon lasso tool with individual lines, the magic wand tool to select and delete certain sections of a photo, or even the quick selection tool.  Today, I will be using the Lasso tool to crop out the general shape of Alice, and then i will go back in with the eraser to get out any extra edges, or soften up parts like her hair, to make her look more realistic.  Let’s get started !

Step 1: first, open up both of the images you are working with, of your two characters.  In this case, I have an image of Tarrant Hightopp, as well as a separate picture of Alice Kingsleigh.  They are each in their own document tab as you can see in the image below(circled):

Step 2: Since I will be cropping Alice out of her picture, and putting her onto the picture of Tarrant - we only will need to crop her out; and not edit the picture of him.  But - before we do any cropping out, make sure your layers aren’t locked!  Sometimes when you open an image, the layer will be locked, preventing you from doing certain things to it.  All you have to do to change this is to click the little lock icon, and it should go away.  Look at my screen below:

Step 3: Now it’s time to crop!  Again, as I said above, I’ll be using the lasso tool to crop Alice out of her picture.  Basically, you just click+drag with the lasso tool, around the person’s whole shape, and then let go; and you’ve got a selection of them.  (Make sure you don’t let go too soon !  You’ll end up cutting the person essentially in half !)  If it’s easier for you - you can also select bits of the background around your person, and delete those as you go, to crop the figure out.  Here’s my screen, as i select Alice:

Step 4: Now, once you’ve got your selection - there are a couple of things you can do.  You can either mask your image with that selection; OR you can delete the background around the person.  Masking is a bit more safe - because if you make a mistake, you can always remove, or add more of the original photo back in - however sometimes it doesn’t matter, and i just like to delete the background.  The first gif below shows you how I delete the background (by right-clicking & inverting the selection, and hitting the delete key); whereas the second gif shows you how I mask my image selection(hitting the icon at the bottom panel, underneath the layers).  Whichever method you choose is up to you!

Step 5: At this point, you’ve got your character cropped.  There may be some harsh edges still, but don’t worry about that yet - we’ll clean that up soon enough.  What I tend to do now, is move my character into the other picture; and get them positioned correctly before fixing the edges.  To do this, I select the picture of Tarrant, and then drag the document tab of Alice’s Picture, over the picture im on.  Then I click-drag the picture of Alice into the picture of Tarrant.  I know it’s confusing, but try using this gif as a reference:

Step 6: So now we’ve finally got both images in the same document !  Here, i usually adjust the sizing of each character to make sure they look the same height, as well as their positions, etc.  When that’s all settled, it’s time to fix the edges !  You can use the lasso tool again to take out bits of the edges, or you can do what I like - which is using the eraser tool!  I like the eraser because you can change how soft or hard the eraser is, as well as the opacity.  It’s nice for making softer edges around the hair, and harsher ones around fabrics, or body angles.  The below image is just an upclose shot of me erasing the edge around Alice’s hair:

Step 7: After all the edges are properly erased, zoom out, and look at your full picture.  Does it look perfect?  Is anything odd, or out of place?  For me, when I zoomed out, I felt that Alice needed a shadow behind her.  This is obviously optional, and you can do this several ways - but I added some slight shading behind her and here was the result:

Step 8: Now you have a complete manip!  If you are me, usually im making manips for edits and what not - so I’d go in here and add a psd or filter over the image - but that’s really all there is to it!  I hope this helped you guys out, and if you have any questions, feel free to send them to me IM, or in my ask box !  ♥︎ - Jess

PS: this tutorial was made by request of @thedarknessxwithin :)

[blackpink]

How to gif + How to use Topaz Clean without Photoshop crashing

So due to popular request I decided to write a gif tutorial. It’s really detailed so I hope everyone will be able to follow the steps! I’m also showing you how to prevent Photoshop from crashing after using Topaz Clean!

1. First go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers...

2. Choose a .mp4 video (preferably 720p or 1080p quality) and select the part you want to gif.

3. Make sure you have the Animation window checked (Window > Animation)!

4. Choose all Frames and click the following button that says “Convert to timeline” (Image of the button you have to click here).

5. Select all Layers and go to Filter > Convert to Smart Filters

6. Now it’s time to crop and change the size! Select this little symbol on the side and crop out the part you want to be shown.

To change the size go to Image > Image Size.. (you can find the dimensions here):

7. Next apply Topaz Labs (Filter > Topaz Labs > Topaz Clean 3). You can find my Topaz settings here.

It should look something like this:

7. Then sharpen the gif to make it look HQ: Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen!

My settings are the following (usually I sharpen two times, you can adjust them ofc):

8. Add your .psd of choice! (yeahps has some good ones available, also make sure to check out this tag!)

9. Now select the .psd you added (in my case I added a group/folder named “Suzy is a god!!!”) and also select the converted Layer (in my case it’s Layer 70). 

Then click this button:

And click Flatten Frames from Layers:

10. Scroll down in the Layers window and delete the Layers that are not visible, aka the ones with no “eye” in the box^^ (in my case it’s “Suzy is a god!!!” and “Layer 70″)!

11. Next click Convert to animation!

It should look something like this after:

12. We are almost done, hang in there! All you need to do now is click Make Frames from Layers.

13. Once again select all Frames and change the delay to 0.1 seconds!

14. THE LAST STEP!!! FINALLY!! Go to File > Save for Web & Devices...

Make sure you use the following settings and never forget to set the Looping Option from Once to Forever!

Save, AND YOU ARE DONE!! 

Big thanks to @blindkpop​ who once showed me how to do this :D

[fluffy-jack-blog]

Coloring tutorial

This one’s requested by anon. I did this all on my own. it’s basically just experimenting with stuff.

Program used: Photoshop CS6 (yes I know I have CC 2017 but making tutorials is easier on CS6)

Okay so this is the gif I used:

Step 1: first make/open your gif (and adjust it the way you want.)

What I’m going to eplain now is how I do it. How the coloring gifs look, differs per person. The best way is to just experiment with it and don’t hold onto one thing. Maybe you want to start with the Vibrance or Contrast, that’s entirely up to you. But this is how I usually work:

Step 2: click the half circle button and click Brightness/Contrast

Step 3: adjust the Brightness to your liking. Because this gif has a lot of dark shades, I want to increase the Brightness. I leave the Contrast out of it because it usually makes the gif a bit darker and I don’t want that at this moment.

Step 4: click the half circle button and click Vibrance. For this gif I increase it to 100 because it makes everything just a bit more colorful.

Step 5: click the half circle button and click Exposure. Now I want to make it darker. Here I experiment with Offset. I suggest you to keep it between -0,1 and 0

Step 6: now we want his hair to be a bit more greener. Click the half circle button and click Hue/Saturation. Decide what color you want to isolate and choose that color from the menu that currently says Master. We want to select green. Increase the saturation of green to about 33.

Step 8: we’re done! save the file :)

before:

after:

So I hope this helped you all! If you want me to do more tutorials, just let me know :)

[scottdrummond]

ECCC Monsters & Dames Process Post

I thought I’d put together a post talking about my process for creating my ECCC Monsters & Dames print. 

Step 1: Thumbnails

The first thing I do is rough in a few thumbnails for compositions. I wanted a few different ones, before I came back to my original one that I was really excited about: a calm and collected futuristic fantasy warrior on top of a dragon. 

Step 2: Pencil Sketch

Next, I duplicated my thumbnail sketch layer to fill the frame and started filling in tighter detail. I found a few snake and lizard references when for the head of the dragon. I also did a quick 3D sculpt of the general shape of the warrior’s sword and moved it around in space to make sure I was getting the angle right.

This is all done in Photoshop with Kyle Webster’s Animator Pencil. I’ve tweaked the Texture Depth on it a little bit (moved it from 22% to 6% to give it a slightly “harder” feel), but it’s easily my favorite sketching tool for Photoshop.

Step 3: Inks (with Bonus Reference)

Slowly but surely, I build up the final line work. All that texture takes time! I keep different areas of the inks on different layers in case I need to select them for coloring on their own. Here, the front and back arms are each on separate layers, as is the dragon body. The warrior and her saddle are on a separate layer from that, and her hair is a layer on its own, too.

For inking, I used a variety of Kyle’s Inkbox brushes, but I think I mostly stuck to the Pro Comics Inker. All of my inks are either black or white (no greys in between), and the Pro Comics Inker’s “Dissolve” setting is perfect for that effect.

Step 4: Flats

Nobody likes flatting, but you have to do it. I usually flat with an automated program called Peltmade (you can watch my process with that in this video), but for this, I decided to flat by hand.

The key to good flats is the (obviously) keep inside the lines and (not so obviously) not have any color aliasing. This helps you maintain consistent selections when you go to color the piece.

I also added a little bit of war paint to the warrior here. 

Step 5: Shadows

Next, I start putting in shadows. Using the selections from the flats, I put in the shadows on the unlit side of the figures. These layers are usually set to Multiply and I use the Pencil tool to get these as crisp as possible, as well. I also use the flats to paint in a slight gradient for an extra bit of volume.

Step 6: Highlights

Lastly, I add in some highlights. These are just bright white also using the Pencil tool. I like to keep these white so the full brightness of the paper will show through when it’s printed. I also have some blue highlights from the saddle’s dashboard shining on the warrior, giving her a nice underglow. I wanted the blue to be a little softer, so I used a round brush for that.

This piece will be a part of the Emerald City Comicon Monsters and Dames 2017 Charity book. Be sure to pick one up if you’re going to the show. It’s for a good cause!

If you want to see more of my work, check out my superhero webcomic NIGHTSMOKE at nightsmokecomic.com.

Thanks!

[kingsleigh]

hi !! so i'm new to tumblr and i'm honestly so glad i found your blog, your work is amazing. i have started mine only recently, i absolutely enjoy starting new threads but my style isn't pretty much there yet i have seen people doing these lines, before they put their icons and i found it really pretty! all i know is that you make them when you edit the post on tumblr, but i have absolutely no idea how. i don't really know how else to explain, but it looks like this: | | | ( the icon )

Hey there lovely!  I’d be happy to help you!  This is actually super simple to do!  I’m going to include screenshots, so I can show you how I do this!

HOW TO ADD LINES BEFORE ICONS IN TEXT POSTS:

1. First step - add your icon to your text post, and whatever your roleplay response/text is.  This is what my example looks like:

2. Next - click the little gear icon at the top right corner of the post, and move your cursor to the part that says ‘text editor’.  Click the drop down arrow, and change the default ‘Rich text’ to ‘html'.  The following images are what this looks like before you select html, and how the post changes, after you hit html:

3. Next - the post may look weird right now, and probably confusing, but don’t worry, it will all make sense once you break things down.  Just so you know - in html, your icon is represented in the

tags.  We want to put our lines (also called ‘blockquotes’) BEFORE our image.  To do this, you have to put some

tags before and after the

tags.  This is what it looks like on my screen after i’ve added the blockquote tags:

(hint: the more blockquote tags you add, the more lines their will be in front of your icon!  Also, make sure that when you put your blockquotes at the end of the

code, you have the ‘/’ in your closing tags.  Feel free to look at my image above for reference.)

4. Next - I reccommend hitting preview, and saving as draft.  This way, you can go in later and make fancy text, or whatever other things you want to do.  Doing this just ensures that Ive got my blockquotes out of the way.  Basically though, you’re done, and this is what our post looks like: 

Hope that clears things up nonnie!  Welcome to the rp community!  I’m so happy you’re joining!

[fluffy-jack-blog]

how to: isolate colors in a gif (or image)

Hey there! this one was requested by @redk5 . I got a little help from this tutorial btw! This is how we want to make the gif look:

Program used: Photoshop CS6

Step 1: first make/open your gif and adjust it the way you want.

Step 2: click the half circle button and click Hue/Saturation.

Step 3: Decide what color you want to isolate and choose that color from the menu that currently says Master.

We want his hair to be grey so we select green.

Step 4: decrease the saturation of that color to -100. If you want it to stand out more, increase the saturation

Step 5: go to the other options in the menu and reduce the saturation for blues and magentas to -100. We want to keep red at 0 because we still want his skin to have it’s normal color.

Step 6: now go to cyans and increase the saturation to +100 to make the t-shirt more blue.

Step 7: you probably have to decrease yellow to -100 too because his hair has some yellow tints/shades in it.

Step 8: save the file!

before:

after: 

So I hope this helped you all! If you want me to do more tutorials, just let me know :)

[lourryps]

So, you don’t want the background of your picture, but the damn actor has stupid bits of hair everywhere. You want to keep them, but get rid of the background. Understandable, so here’s how to do that.

Alright, this is much easier than you’d think. First, open up the image in photoshop. Duplicate your layer, so you’re working on the duplication, rather than your original image. Then pick the Quick Select tool, this one here.

Now select your image. Do the body first, then when you get to the hair, make sure you select all of the little bits. You’ll have to leave out some of the very thin hairs, but play with it. Remember, there’s the little button with the + sign on it, and use that to select more, and the one with the - sign to touch it up if you select too much.

Once you have the hair selected, hit the refine edge tool. On the little window that pops up, change the View Match to white on black, and then  on the edge detection, check Smart Radius, and change the radius to 1px.

Then, leaving the window open, left click the edge of the hair on the photo, and drag along the hair. Do it a few times, just on the edge of the hair. It will look like this while you’re doing it.

Then, change your View Mode to on black, and if there are any little patches of the background, like I have on the right of his hair here, left click over that area.

Then hit OK, it should look something like this.

Then just hit Apply Layer Mask, that little button I’ve highlighted in red near the bottom right, and ta-da! You’re done!

Delete the original layer, and apply your new background. I gave Kit some snow, because I thought it would make him feel at home, and this was my result.

Apply some textures, and the whole thing should take about ten minutes.   A lot faster than other methods, and it looks a lot better.

[octomoosey]

Making pattern overlays for icons and graphics

how patterns differ from textures - making simple pattern overlays for icons/graphics ( tutorial uses CS5 ) difficulty/ps level;; easy/medium.

M E T H O D - using photoshops custom pattern tool.

photoshop comes with a couple of ‘pattern default’ settings.  you may have stumbled over the ‘blue bubbles’ or the psychedelic neon;

probably not something you would like to use on too many graphics.  but one of the neat things about ps is that you don’t always need to find a texture to overlay your graphics. 

textures; are usually a whole image in and of themselves.  something that you can open and overlay onto your graphic with a variety of blending options.

patterns; can fill any selection size and aren’t dependent on the original size of any kind of texture graphic.  

step 1.  making your custom pattern.

start with a blank canvas - make it large so it’s easier to work on - i usually use something around 200px by 200px or larger.  then plan out your pattern.  remember this will be something that repeats so the edges need to have a seamless join.  it’s not that tricky to create something seamless...

all i’ve done here is to draw a circle on a canvas - but i want to make sure it’s aligned perfectly center.  just make sure to have your circle layer selected AND your background layer.  when you have two layers selected and also the ‘move’ tool, then another set of icons on your menu will highlight and become available for use;

just click the middle icon in each section to perfectly center your circle on the background.

now here’s a trick for getting the sides of your shape to repeat on the edge of a pattern...  select your shape layer, then go to filter > other > offset

it’s important to remember the original size of your canvas - if you enter HALF the height of your canvas ( 100px for me ) in the vertical box, and make sure the ‘wrap around’ box is ticked, it will move your circle to the top and bottom edges -

you can do the same horizontally - 

or you can do both - 

this is a really nice trick for getting any custom shapes to repeat.

you can then add other features to your pattern, this one is going to be very basic - so I’ll just add a square to the middle - again, make sure it’s centered using the align tools from before.

you can leave the image as is, but i prefer to turn off the background layer so any ‘white’ becomes transparent.

2. saving your pattern.

now, depending on what you want to use it for, you might want to resize your pattern.  for icons i try to make them no bigger than 10px by 10px, preferably down to 4px depending on the complexity of your pattern.  if you can get away with smaller then do! go to image > image size, and make your adjustment.

then click on edit > define pattern - and give your pattern a name

and that’s it - you’ve saved your pattern.  i would also recommend saving the PSD so you can go back and play with it if you need to change the size.

3. how to use your pattern on icons

open your icon and do all of the preparation, crop to size, add any psd’s etc.

this is my starting icon;

to add the pattern overlay, just click on - layer > new fill layer > pattern and choose the pattern you just saved.

it will look fairly terrible until you set the overlay values - depending on the pattern and the colours you chose - you might need to change this or play about with it a bit - for this i set the layer blend to ‘hard light’ and dialled the opacity down to ‘14′.

then just added a brightness/contrast layer -

here’s the same image with a checkerboard pattern -

and again with a really simple crosshatch -

or even a coloured pattern over black and white -

and that’s it!  hope you found this useful, a like or a reblog is always nice if you wanna :3