The graphics thread!

[Juub005]

Hi everyone,

There is a lot of information on the Internet on making computer graphics. In an effort to narrow down where to look, I would like to ask you all what tutorials or other resources you have used either to learn new techniques for using Photoshop, GIMP, and other graphics software, or to improve your graphic-making skills. :) Additionally, I'd like to hear if any of you have developed your own tricks for making graphics. It would be interesting to have this discussion because I rarely have ever seen this topic discussed at length in simfile communities. And, furthermore, I feel that my graphic techniques are getting stale after all these years.

I guess I should start with what I've learned and utilized myself. I use an old version of Photoshop because it works pretty efficiently with text effects and because I'm comfortable with using it. It's not great for modern "photoshopping" involving cutting out objects cleanly from an image (see what happened in Apricot Stone's background from Best-Mix 5 for an example), but it does the job for the most part, since I try to keep things simple. I generally work from a stock image with a Creative Commons license and work very precisely on text, and perhaps some single idea within the image. I am admittedly not very elaborate on filling up the larger space involved in backgrounds. On DDREvolved (when the site was still online, obviously), I posted a short tutorial for how to manipulate text, a while back. Most of my graphics work involves choosing a good stock image and manipulating text, and I'd like to branch out a little more.

So yeah. What do you guys do for your graphics? :)

[Telperion]

Well, I come from the other side of the graphic fence~ I took existing Photoshop tutorials and reworked them to fit the different toolsets and behaviors GIMP offers, and where there wasn't a good parallel, I had to blaze my own path. Roughly a year ago, when I had my method refined to the point where I thought it was simple and flexible enough to share, I wrote a tutorial on Z-I-v detailing the process; I just updated it recently with a couple tweaks and errata for the new release of GIMP :D It's not an especially novel approach, but it does the job for me.

How to Make Graphics using GIMP! ~the update~ [56k!]

About 80% of each graphic I make is covered by the general tutorial, and the other 20% is case-by-case. To sum it up, I take one or a handful of backdrop images and compose them together to suit the mood of the track - or, occasionally, highlight the song's origin or story - then I choose text effects to blend as seamlessly with the background as possible. I don't mind bright and colorful graphics, but since I mostly sim for ITG style I try to tone it down a bit, and I think my most rewarding efforts are where I can stretch a limited palette to do a lot of work for me.