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Questions, Discussion, and Tutorials

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Posts

  • MustangMustang Arbiter of Unpopular Opinions Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Could be a usb issue, did you try another port?

    Mustang on
  • Rich_macabreRich_macabre Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I am a new artist and an aspiring graphic designer with not much experience in photography either. All i have is a little point and shoot cheapo 100 dollar Panasonic 8 mega pixel camera. My question is how can i make these normal pictures look better? i have photoshop CS4 and one semester of photoshop classes. I'm not completely new but still learning so i don't know what little things can be done for results. I know simple things but what steps would a professional take before lets say posting a picture in a magazine article? i was going to upload some pix i took of my wife today but i don't seem to have the option. Any suggestions?

    Rich_macabre on
  • MagicToasterMagicToaster JapanRegistered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Photoshop wont save a picture, it can enhance it somewhat... but you have to make preparations before you click the picture. I work with a photographer, and I see him do a lot of steps before a shoot, but I'm not a photographer my self.

    I think the secret to a good photo is lighting and composition, not photoshop.

    MagicToaster on
  • MaximasXXZMaximasXXZ Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Does anyone here know anything about registering Copyrights?

    I went to talk to base legal and spoke with a lawyer regarding Terminal Lance. He told me I need to try and register the copyright ASAP in order to prevent the Marine Corps from trying to take it. Obviously, I understand things are automatically copyrighted, but registering it will make it public record just in case.

    I think this is a stellar idea, but going through the Copyright site was confusing as fuck. There simply is no category for webcomics. Has anyone here ever tried to register a webcomic as a copyright?

    MaximasXXZ on
    zombiegirl8ki.gif
    TL_Sigblock.jpg
    PSN: MaximasXXZ XBOX Live: SneakyMcSnipe
  • ManonvonSuperockManonvonSuperock Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I would imagine that the Marines would have a pretty good work-for-hire argument against your copyright if they wanted it.

    ManonvonSuperock on
  • spookymuffinspookymuffin ( ° ʖ ° ) Puyallup WA Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    You should talk to the guy that runs Air Force Blues. He's getting his stuff published in the Air Force Times, and he doesn't seem to have problems running his site. He had a hand in launching the Armed Forces Comics Forum, which can probably help you out a lot in this matter.

    spookymuffin on
    PSN: MegaSpooky // 3DS: 3797-6276-7138
    Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
  • MaximasXXZMaximasXXZ Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I would imagine that the Marines would have a pretty good work-for-hire argument against your copyright if they wanted it.

    That's the problem, fortunately I created Terminal Lance "on my own time", and not the Marine Corps'. The guy told me it's really unlikely the Marines would actually try to take it, but still worth taking precaution.

    Thanks for the tip, Spooky. I had no idea that comic existed. :P

    MaximasXXZ on
    zombiegirl8ki.gif
    TL_Sigblock.jpg
    PSN: MaximasXXZ XBOX Live: SneakyMcSnipe
  • JohannenJohannen Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Hey guys, what does "Upsell from Freehand" mean?

    Johannen on
  • newdalsnewdals Registered User new member
    edited March 2010
    What are these called again?

    2181887756bcbf8e47c1jpgpa.jpg

    I'm sure I found that image here, but I forgot what the name for that is, and I want to find more like it.

    newdals on
  • Angel_of_BaconAngel_of_Bacon Moderator mod
    edited March 2010
    Angel_of_Bacon on
  • F87F87 So Say We All Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I have been sick for the past week or so and haven't touched my tablet.

    Now that I'm good to go again, I fire up photoshop and lo and behold my pressure sensitivity doesn't work.

    I unplugged the tablet/switched the usb slot it was in/restarting my computer and photoshop multiple times and nothing fixes it.

    Any ideas on where to start? I hope my tablet isn't dead. :(

    F87 on
  • NibCromNibCrom Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Tablet model? Windows? Mac? Is your pen nub stuck?

    NibCrom on
  • rtsrts Registered User regular
    edited March 2010

    If you don't have access to one already, you should just buy one.

    rts on
    skype: rtschutter
  • F87F87 So Say We All Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    NibCrom wrote: »
    Tablet model? Windows? Mac? Is your pen nub stuck?

    Wacom Graphire4, WIndows 7, I just updated my drivers. As far as I can tell, the nub is normal, wiggles slightly.

    :(

    F87 on
  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited March 2010
    Any way for you to test the tablet on another system?

    Iruka on
  • F87F87 So Say We All Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Iruka wrote: »
    Any way for you to test the tablet on another system?

    Actually, yes. Great idea, I will try that out.

    F87 on
  • rtsrts Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I would try removing the drivers and reinstalling them entirely. The issue you are describing is certainly a software one.

    rts on
    skype: rtschutter
  • OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Anyone else have a Serial Tablet and Windows 7 64-bit? I'm wondering if buying a GOOD USB-Serial cable and using the USB drivers will solve my problem. My friend included a converter cable when he sold it for me but the damn thing never worked. The tablet worked just fine for me when I had XP. As the last page says, no go for serial drivers in 7 64. :(

    OtakuD00D on
    makosig.jpg
  • DarkWarriorDarkWarrior __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2010
    Can anyone give me some tips on drawing with a tablet? Im struggling to get clean, smooth, straight lines. Ive been talking with Fletcher who does the comic here but I dont like to keep bothering him. From our discussions I have the same device as him (Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch) but I really struggle to get artwork as clean as his own, for instance I thought he was using the circle tools for heads, thats how much trouble it is to get a nice circle shape.

    Plus I use the paint brush (in Photoshop) because Pencil leavesjagged lines, but brush has this spray effect around the edges, barely noticable but it bugs me.

    Are there any tips for this? Are there certain brushes I should be using? Is Photoshop not the best? Any advice would be appreciated.

    DarkWarrior on
  • Angel_of_BaconAngel_of_Bacon Moderator mod
    edited March 2010
    Can anyone give me some tips on drawing with a tablet? Im struggling to get clean, smooth, straight lines. Ive been talking with Fletcher who does the comic here but I dont like to keep bothering him. From our discussions I have the same device as him (Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch) but I really struggle to get artwork as clean as his own, for instance I thought he was using the circle tools for heads, thats how much trouble it is to get a nice circle shape.

    Plus I use the paint brush (in Photoshop) because Pencil leavesjagged lines, but brush has this spray effect around the edges, barely noticable but it bugs me.

    Are there any tips for this? Are there certain brushes I should be using? Is Photoshop not the best? Any advice would be appreciated.

    1. Draw at 2+ times the size of your intended final size. ie: draw an 800X600 picture at 1600x1200, size it down when you're done.
    2. Make sure your brush hardness is set to 100%.
    3. Turn the brush spacing down to 5-10%.
    4. Turn brush smoothing on.

    Angel_of_Bacon on
  • DarkWarriorDarkWarrior __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2010
    Where abouts can I do that? I the options bar I can only see flow and opacity.

    DarkWarrior on
  • Angel_of_BaconAngel_of_Bacon Moderator mod
    edited March 2010
    Brushes window. On ps7 there's a tab next to File Browser at the top, dunno where it is on newer versions. If you can't find it go to Window>Brushes on the drop down menu and it'll show up.

    Angel_of_Bacon on
  • DarkWarriorDarkWarrior __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2010
    Thanks. I guess the other problem is just down to practice using the tablet.

    DarkWarrior on
  • DarkWarriorDarkWarrior __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2010
    AoB, can I ask for more help? I tried changing the settings but they seem to keep resetting themselves between brush changes so spacing keeps going back to 25% instead of 5% for instance. How do i make them stay?

    DarkWarrior on
  • WassermeloneWassermelone Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    AoB, can I ask for more help? I tried changing the settings but they seem to keep resetting themselves between brush changes so spacing keeps going back to 25% instead of 5% for instance. How do i make them stay?

    You actually need to save that brush. When you are 'reselecting' that brush... you are actually reselecting the one that Photoshop originally had, not the one that you just created.

    So when you get the brush to your liking, hit the button in the red circle, name it what you want, and you should be dandy!
    savebrush.jpg

    (No worries if you Photoshop looks different than mine, the button you press should be the same icon)

    Wassermelone on
  • DarkWarriorDarkWarrior __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2010
    Thanks guys.

    Any tips on colouring? Nothing fancy just flat colours. I watched some older PA inking videos and it seemed like he was Magic Wanding the open space and then fill it with the colour and sometimes using a Stroke to fill the gaps that seem to still appear. Doing it then having to track down the gaps is a bit of a pain. Maybe thats how it is, its been a while since Ive done digital stuff and I was doing it with a mouse before but Im trying to do a considerably bigger project here so the more efficient I can be the better.

    DarkWarrior on
  • ThinkjunkThinkjunk Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Where is the cheapest and best place to get prints made online and shipped to you? Like, rolled prints on photo paper poster sized. I want to be able to upload a .jpg and have them shipped to me.

    Thinkjunk on
  • MustangMustang Arbiter of Unpopular Opinions Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    You don't have a print place locally?

    Seriously I have a choice of 5 different print places when I walk out the door at work, all within 100 meters of each other. Either there's a fuck ton of printing business in this town or a lot of people who use them as front for laundering drug money.

    Mustang on
  • ThinkjunkThinkjunk Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Mustang wrote: »
    You don't have a print place locally?

    Seriously I have a choice of 5 different print places when I walk out the door at work, all within 100 meters of each other. Either there's a fuck ton of printing business in this town or a lot of people who use them as front for laundering drug money.

    Just a FedexKinkos. I imagine I could find a cheaper place online for prints, even with the shipping. Is this not the case? I've never used a place for prints, I had an old drafting printer I used for prints.

    Thinkjunk on
  • MustangMustang Arbiter of Unpopular Opinions Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I have no idea what the costing is like in the US but printing really isn't all that expensive if you're just doing a single job. You're looking at under $100 even for something as large as an A1 print in colour.

    EDIT: Well under $100 in US money.

    Mustang on
  • ThinkjunkThinkjunk Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I was just looking for what everyone else used for just for smaller prints up to maybe 20'' in height. I'm just now considering selling prints and I wanted to know where to get them made, and how much they cost per unit.

    Thinkjunk on
  • MagicToasterMagicToaster JapanRegistered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Thinkjunk wrote: »
    I was just looking for what everyone else used for just for smaller prints up to maybe 20'' in height. I'm just now considering selling prints and I wanted to know where to get them made, and how much they cost per unit.

    This depends on the paper quality, size, quantity and print method. It's impossible to answer this question as it stands.

    I'd also suggest finding a local place, you get better service than the brand name print shops and more material variety. Also, you're able to arrange prices at a small shop, you can't do that online.

    MagicToaster on
  • gogglesgoggles Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Who here calibrates their monitor and how do they do it?

    goggles on
  • hadokenhadoken Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    hey guys, i was wondering how you learn/do that perspective stuff? what do you do when you draw a cool rat-turtle and want to put it in a setting? (just an example)

    All i can do is draw random shit on a blank page, cant make the page a place.

    hadoken on
  • F87F87 So Say We All Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Well, Hadoken, that's quite the question.

    Study (the rules, other artists examples, real world) and Practice (over and over)the following:

    1. Perspective
    2. Rats
    3. Turtles

    Then you should be good to go! Seriously though, it will take practice.

    F87 on
  • nakirushnakirush Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Say I want to be a comic line artist. What steps should I take to get there? Tips for portfolios? Where should I focus my study/energy?

    Thanks in advance!

    nakirush on
  • Angel_of_BaconAngel_of_Bacon Moderator mod
    edited April 2010
    Aumni wrote: »
    Okay for the last month or so I've been getting into the digital side of drawing and have been exclusively using hard round brushes with 100% opacity for everything. I thought this would be good practice, and it was, but I'm not really sure where I should go from here tools-wise. I want to get a softer look to my images and I'm not sure how I can achieve that look in Photoshop.

    Well, yeah, you're not going to get a soft look with those settings. Working that way is a good way to practice putting down specific, planar shapes, and forcing yourself to be very discriminating with the colors and shapes you put down- all good things to practice, especially starting out. But to knock it up a notch, you are going to have to go ahead eventually and pull out a soft brush and choose which edges to soften.

    Open up your brush settings, go to "other dynamics" set your opacity to "pen pressure". Get in the habit of using the number keys to change the brush opacity on the fly. Go to "shape dynamics" and find the "hardness" slider- you can use this to make the brush either hard or very soft. Try not to get in the habit of relying on soft brushes too much, though- it can easily lead to the form getting lost- you generally need a variety of soft and hard edges to get an effective turning of form. Better to start out as you have been, with hard edges, and then going in and softening them subtly, than to try to start off soft and end soft.

    Went over your orange with some softer brushes real quick, but made sure to go back in to areas I wanted to have hard edges, like where the corner of the orange slice comes in front of the whole orange, so it popped out, whereas I softened areas like the back of the orange going into the shadow, to push it back- I tried not to just soften for the sake of softening.
    aumni_orange.jpg

    EDIT: Well thanks for making me look like a crazy person by deleting your post. :x

    Angel_of_Bacon on
  • AumniAumni Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Aumni wrote: »
    Okay for the last month or so I've been getting into the digital side of drawing and have been exclusively using hard round brushes with 100% opacity for everything. I thought this would be good practice, and it was, but I'm not really sure where I should go from here tools-wise. I want to get a softer look to my images and I'm not sure how I can achieve that look in Photoshop.

    Well, yeah, you're not going to get a soft look with those settings. Working that way is a good way to practice putting down specific, planar shapes, and forcing yourself to be very discriminating with the colors and shapes you put down- all good things to practice, especially starting out. But to knock it up a notch, you are going to have to go ahead eventually and pull out a soft brush and choose which edges to soften.

    Open up your brush settings, go to "other dynamics" set your opacity to "pen pressure". Get in the habit of using the number keys to change the brush opacity on the fly. Go to "shape dynamics" and find the "hardness" slider- you can use this to make the brush either hard or very soft. Try not to get in the habit of relying on soft brushes too much, though- it can easily lead to the form getting lost- you generally need a variety of soft and hard edges to get an effective turning of form. Better to start out as you have been, with hard edges, and then going in and softening them subtly, than to try to start off soft and end soft.

    Went over your orange with some softer brushes real quick, but made sure to go back in to areas I wanted to have hard edges, like where the corner of the orange slice comes in front of the whole orange, so it popped out, whereas I softened areas like the back of the orange going into the shadow, to push it back- I tried not to just soften for the sake of softening.
    aumni_orange.jpg

    EDIT: Well thanks for making me look like a crazy person by deleting your post. :x

    Wow, sorry AoB. Thank you VERY much for your reply. After I posted that question I watched a few things, read a few things, and did a few things to make me understand stuff more, but this post is friggin' awesome.

    Thank you for takin the time to do this!

    EDIT: To clarify the post I deleted was a call for help on how to achieve soft edges effectively, since all my digital work has been soley with hard round brushes. AoB was a saint and redid one of my pieces.

    Aumni on
    http://steamcommunity.com/id/aumni/ Battlenet: Aumni#1978 GW2: Aumni.1425 PSN: Aumnius
  • NoodlesaladNoodlesalad Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Does anyone use those little figure drawing mannequins or something of the like? It seems like they would be pretty useful for working out poses when you don't have a model, but I've never used them so I don't know if they actually help.

    Noodlesalad on
  • spookymuffinspookymuffin ( ° ʖ ° ) Puyallup WA Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I actually just got one of those yesterday as a gift. It's a wooden figure that doesn't have a lot of articulation, so I can't see it helping that much. Maybe if it was fully poseable, it would be better. I'd imagine you can do pretty much the same thing with any random action figure you might have laying around.

    spookymuffin on
    PSN: MegaSpooky // 3DS: 3797-6276-7138
    Wii U NNID: MegaSpooky
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