Tutorials and Icon help

[-Emily-]

^^

Hope it helps

[.Cat.]

Just wrote up another colouring tut

http://xcatrionax.livejournal.com/7568.html

[OMG!How hot is martha and jack]

thanks it looks nice

[-Emily-]

Wow ta!

[Amir]

It's a really good tutorial!

[iloverobbie]

Welcome to another one of Cat's boring tutorials!

Now, to start off, a Graphic is no Graphic without a base. This is mine:

It's cropped to 600x300 (standered LJ header size), but this tutorial is pretty adaptable to other types of Graphics, so you can use a 100x100 image if you like.

You'll need a colored image for this. You can use a desaturated image, but in that case, you're needing another tutorial.

Now we begin.

Duplicate your image (Right click the layer in the layers Pallete> Duplicate Layer).

Desature (Ctrl + U).

Now the tough bit. You can choose different, but I chose to erase the earings, eyes, and lips on the desaturated layer. You have to do this carefully, otherwise you may muck it up, and we don't want that. I suggest you do this slowly, but remember, this is on a new layer, so you can easily delete it and start over.

The lasso tool might help deleting parts.

Before moving on, I suggest you take a closer look to make sure you haven't "gone outside the lines". The zoom tool is helpful.

This is my base now:

Now to say on the safe side, make a new layer, and Copy merge ( Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E). You can Merge all, but just incase I did any mistakes I copy merged.

I accidentally forgot this part! Duplicate your new base, and set to softlight

Now, because the stupid song has been stuck in my head all day long I decided to add in some lyrics from "Maneater"- Nelly Furtado.

I wrote "She's a maneater", in black, size 12, Courier.

I posisioned it as though it was coming out behind her head, and erased all the parts that were covering her head.

Now I zoomed in (make sure your text layer is Rasterized. You can do so by right clicking the layer> Rasterizing layer), and using the magic wand tool, selected any random letter in the sentence, so now that letter only should be selected (it may also select a few other letters..this is really confusing isn't it? Not to worry). I then selected the "Move" tool on my tools pallete and moved the selected layer slightly down.

I then moved a few other letters.

Then, in new text layers, I wrote a few other lyrics from the song, and repeated the last few steps (i.e. erasing parts covering Elisha, moving letters e.t.c).

This is my finished result. While writing out the tut, I forgot about the softlight layer, but this is it WITH the softlight layer:

That tutorial is great thanks.

[princess_jessik]

^^

Cat I am trying desperately to make something using the above tutorial. This is what I have made so far using that tutorial.

Its really bad but it's my first attempt at creating such things. As you can see i haven't moved the letters around. I am struggling to undestand how to use that Magic Wand Tool which enables such letter movement? Would you mind explaining futher if its not too much hassle? It would be appreciated. Thanks

[.Cat.]

Sure, Jess! I'll do it later today.

[.Cat.]

Ok, so to start off, open your image, do whatever you want, now in Courier (it probably works with other fonts, infact, it will, but I've only tried Courier) write whatever you want.

My Base:

Depending on how large your text is, you may need to zoom in for the next step.

Now Rasterize your text layer, but right clicking the text layer in the Layers Pallette. Now, select your Magic Wand tool, and hover it over one of the letters (the letter you'll be wanting to move), and click on it. It should now be selected.

Now, get your Move tool, and hover it over the selected letter. Click on that letter (make sure you are clicking on the selected letter ONLY), and move it down. Another way, and most probably the easiest, you can nudge it down by pretty the arrow keys on your keyboard, but it will only work if your text layer is RASTERIZED!

Continue to do this, with other letters, until you're happy. I've noticed that sometimes when you select a letter (in Courier), other letters get selected. I don't know how to stop this, though.

[princess_jessik]

Oohh... thank-you soo much!

Will try it later on & let you know how it goes.