The secrets on how to make artwork of the Sam/Jack ship family thread

[Jumble]

Jumble I agree I really want to know too
and thanks for posting the dimensions
*looks at PS, looks at revision*

ROFL! Surely no contest But you should do the revision Aveo, plenty of time to play when the exams are all passed

And I bet Josiane will make it all sound so easy.............

[josiane]

ROFL! Surely no contest But you should do the revision Aveo, plenty of time to play when the exams are all passed

And I bet Josiane will make it all sound so easy.............

Believe me, Jumble, it really is easy. I don't do anything very complicated, not skilled enough with all the fancy gimping things

OK so...

Padme's Always there for her sig



First off, open up a new canvas - my sigs are usually 600x190 px.

The bottom layer is the three 'head on shoulder' pics, blended together. First the Death Knell one, resized and pasted onto a new layer. Then the Metamorphosis one, likewise, and finally the Beneath the Surface one. Then I blended these how Oma taught me - use the rectangle select tool to select the part of the pic you want showing, with a reasonably high feathering (I think I used about 30 here), then 'select > invert' and 'edit > cut'. I blended the Metamorphosis one into the Death Knell one first, hiding the Beneath the Surface layer (clicking on the eye symbol by it in the layers box) to keep it out of the way. Then I showed that one again and blended it in the same way into the Metamorphosis one.

Once the three background images are blended, it was time to add the Threads overlay. You wouldn't believe how long I futzed around with this picture, trying to work out how to get it to fit in with the other three Then suddenly I hit on the overlay idea and it worked better than I'd ever imagined! Funny how that happens...

So, I opened the Threads image separately, and then used the crop tool to cut out the part of the pic I wanted (just their heads pretty much) at the right size to overlay on the sig (600x190). I was lucky in that my copy of the Threads pic is pretty much 600 px wide, so I didn't even need to resize! Once it's cropped, I copied this and pasted it onto a new layer in my sig. I realised it wouldn't work coloured, and so I turned it black and white using the 'colours > desaturate' option (which I learnt from luvnjack's tut!). I accepted the default for this, 'choose shade of grey based on lightness'. Then I used the opacity slider in the layers box to make it transparent, adjusting until I got the right effect. I'm particularly proud with this one that I got the right point where neither image is dominant - sometimes you look at it and see the black and white one, and other times you see the background ones first. It's just under 50% opacity. See I told you it was simple!

Then I added the text - font Angelina (which I downloaded from dafont.com), colour e2e2e2.

Finally the borders. I used Jann's inner border tip - duplicate the black and white layer (layer > duplicate layer) and then use the rectangle select tool to draw where the inner border is going to be. In the selections dialogue box, click the right-hand button at the bottom for 'stroke along selection' and (as Oma discovered because I didn't notice how I did it! ) as long as your foreground colour is the silver (e2e2e2) the stroke will be that colour too! I think it's a 2 px stroke, can't remember... but it's thin. Once that's done, hit delete or 'edit > cut' to get rid of the majority of the duplicated black and white layer - if you look carefully you will see that the black and white is stronger outside the border than within it, this is because there are 2 layers there and only one in the middle!

Then I used 'filters > decor > add border' to add a 2 px black border round the whole thing and that's it.

See, really not a complicated one at all Although it's taken me way longer to explain than I thought it would!

And now I tag... hmmm... does APA play over here much? Because I want to tag her for this, since it's beautiful:


Maybe I'll go prod her in the family thread...

[Oma-1]

Great tus Josiane! It's great to see how much we've all helped each other! I noticed you gave me credit for the silver inner border, but you did it! There was just the slight drawback that you couldn't remember how. I only worked out how you did it


ETA: Inspired tag for APA's sig....I've been looking at it for ages wondering how on earth she did it

[josiane]

Great tus Josiane! It's great to see how much we've all helped each other! I noticed you gave me credit for the silver inner border, but you did it! There was just the slight drawback that you couldn't remember how. I only worked out how you did it


ETA: Inspired tag for APA's sig....I've been looking at it for ages wondering how on earth she did it

Me too Hopefully she will come over here and tell us!

And it's great how much we've learnt from each other indeed! *huggles GimPS and Eve for making the thread* I'm loving getting all the tips from everyone and now whenever I'm gimping I'm always thinking 'oohh, I could do that that so-and-so showed us'. It's awesome!

[Luvnjoe]

Another MOP postcard. I'm really loving this gradient against a b&w background! Anywho...



EDIT: And that size just does NOT seem right!

[Oma-1]

Ooooh, nice post card! I like that gradient too, it's very subtley pretty - if that makes any sense

I made another set of MOP stuff too. I may have lost a lot of pics, but fortunately I had stashed some on hubby's laptop

[Aveo_amacus]

Nice work Oma!

Most of the sigs that I've made aren't really MOP as they're not really asking for confirmation, should I put the MOP penguin on a couple if I made them into postcards?? Or should I just stick with my confirmation ones?

[AstraPerAspera]

Um....you guys asked for me?

[mara-anni]

Ooooh nice art Shippers!!

Well, I have no talent. I'm only posting coz it's the quick, easy way to get this Thread on my list

[Oma-1]

Um....you guys asked for me?

Yep! We play tag here, and you're it!

Basically, one of us tags someone to write a tutorial on how they made a piece of art, then gets to tag the next person...and so on.

Josiane tagged you for your It only takes a moment sig

Wanna play?

[Jumble]

Believe me, Jumble, it really is easy. I don't do anything very complicated, not skilled enough with all the fancy gimping things

OK so...

Padme's Always there for her sig

Spoiler:

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm88/timepresent/forpadme2.jpg

First off, open up a new canvas - my sigs are usually 600x190 px.

The bottom layer is the three 'head on shoulder' pics, blended together. First the Death Knell one, resized and pasted onto a new layer. Then the Metamorphosis one, likewise, and finally the Beneath the Surface one. Then I blended these how Oma taught me - use the rectangle select tool to select the part of the pic you want showing, with a reasonably high feathering (I think I used about 30 here), then 'select > invert' and 'edit > cut'. I blended the Metamorphosis one into the Death Knell one first, hiding the Beneath the Surface layer (clicking on the eye symbol by it in the layers box) to keep it out of the way. Then I showed that one again and blended it in the same way into the Metamorphosis one.

Once the three background images are blended, it was time to add the Threads overlay. You wouldn't believe how long I futzed around with this picture, trying to work out how to get it to fit in with the other three Then suddenly I hit on the overlay idea and it worked better than I'd ever imagined! Funny how that happens...

So, I opened the Threads image separately, and then used the crop tool to cut out the part of the pic I wanted (just their heads pretty much) at the right size to overlay on the sig (600x190). I was lucky in that my copy of the Threads pic is pretty much 600 px wide, so I didn't even need to resize! Once it's cropped, I copied this and pasted it onto a new layer in my sig. I realised it wouldn't work coloured, and so I turned it black and white using the 'colours > desaturate' option (which I learnt from luvnjack's tut!). I accepted the default for this, 'choose shade of grey based on lightness'. Then I used the opacity slider in the layers box to make it transparent, adjusting until I got the right effect. I'm particularly proud with this one that I got the right point where neither image is dominant - sometimes you look at it and see the black and white one, and other times you see the background ones first. It's just under 50% opacity. See I told you it was simple!

Then I added the text - font Angelina (which I downloaded from dafont.com), colour e2e2e2.

Finally the borders. I used Jann's inner border tip - duplicate the black and white layer (layer > duplicate layer) and then use the rectangle select tool to draw where the inner border is going to be. In the selections dialogue box, click the right-hand button at the bottom for 'stroke along selection' and (as Oma discovered because I didn't notice how I did it! ) as long as your foreground colour is the silver (e2e2e2) the stroke will be that colour too! I think it's a 2 px stroke, can't remember... but it's thin. Once that's done, hit delete or 'edit > cut' to get rid of the majority of the duplicated black and white layer - if you look carefully you will see that the black and white is stronger outside the border than within it, this is because there are 2 layers there and only one in the middle!

Then I used 'filters > decor > add border' to add a 2 px black border round the whole thing and that's it.

See, really not a complicated one at all Although it's taken me way longer to explain than I thought it would!

And now I tag... hmmm... does APA play over here much? Because I want to tag her for this, since it's beautiful:
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/m...--a-Moment.jpg

Maybe I'll go prod her in the family thread...

Oh yes, of course its easy, if you're not a total ditz and actually know where to find the Layers Box with the Opacity Slider I've seen it mentioned before but never actually found it until now *headdesk* *twice* I think I have a one track mind, and seeing the word 'layer' I assume its the one at the top of the box But now out of total frustration I clicked everything until I found it under Dialogues *slaps self* why I didn't look there before is anyone's guess.
*ends rant at self*

Thanks for the tut Josiane, I love that effect and now I can do it *happy dance* (((((Josiane)))))

Edit: Can I respectfully request that those doing future tuts explain each step fully, because I'm getting a headache and sore cheeks.......

[SeNedra]

I was making a new sig, I quiet like it. I think I may scare someone cause of the pink colour And thank you all for the tuts, I found out I was able to do the same but usually much more difficult way!



I don't think it needs text, it seems to be too full even now.

[LiliJ]

I love that sig! And it must be really great as I hate pink! I think the pics and the beauty of the sig balanced the colour, for me anyway, and it is a very skillfully made sig! Well done!

((((SeNedra))))

[jasminaGo]

I was making a new sig, I quiet like it. I think I may scare someone cause of the pink colour And thank you all for the tuts, I found out I was able to do the same but usually much more difficult way!

http://nd.blog.cz/s/senedra.blog.cz/...y/29126300.jpg

I don't think it needs text, it seems to be too full even now.

*Hides in the corner, trying to shield her eyes*

I love the picture you used and the the additions you made (the invitation, the flowers, rings...). Are those brushes or did you insert pics?

[Jumble]

I was making a new sig, I quiet like it. I think I may scare someone cause of the pink colour And thank you all for the tuts, I found out I was able to do the same but usually much more difficult way!

http://nd.blog.cz/s/senedra.blog.cz/...y/29126300.jpg

I don't think it needs text, it seems to be too full even now.

I like it, the pink suits the pics. I don't think its too full, but then I am known for cramming loads of stuff in It looks well balanced, very nice

Do you want it on the MOP site?