Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Signature Design
Author: Laurence Total-Replies: 4

Um.. I think you signature would look a lot better if you had text that fitted the background more, like a grunge type, and if you added some effects to it, and the color of the text wasn't so rainbow like. But I guess you can't really do much seeing how you're using paint..

Posted in Computers & Tech / How-To's and Tutorials / Graphics and Animation
Author: levimage Total-Replies: 5

GIMP Working with Text


1) Start a new image with dimensions that hold your text. Plan for extra room.

2) Text Tool: Create a Text. Type in a name or something. Pick a font and Size of 50 pixels.


3) Adding a Shadow:

There are different ways add a shadow. There are many ways to add a basic shadow but some will
result in your shadow being clipped on the edges. So I'll show you a work around. This would also
Apply when part of your blur - or other filter - gets knocked off the text selection you apply it on.
I've found out you can do two things.

3.A) In your text dialog, you can enter a line return before the text, add some spaces before and
after the line of your text, and add a line return after the text. You can also set the text alignment
to center. This is a fast method to make empty space around your text. This makes your text layer
larger but might make it difficult if you use guides to align layers.

- or -

3. Under the Layers menu, select 'Discard The Text Information' on your selected layer. You wont be
able to edit the text so make certain this is the size you want. Now under the Layers menu select
'Layer Boundary Size'. The layer size may say something like Width: 337, Height: 52, add the amount of
space around the text. So if I was going to add a Gaussian Blur at 25 pixels, I would need to make the
width 337 + (2*25 pixels) = 387; height 52 + (2*25pixels) = 102. So I unchecked the lock icon, enter

the
new values, click the Center button, and finally resize.

4) Now make two (2) Duplicate copies of the layer (Duplicate button on Layers Dialog). You can rename
the layer to note any modifications on it.

5) Now on the Filters.. Blur.. select Gaussian Blur (on the Menu). Select 4 pixels and click OK.


6) On the second layer. Make a second Gaussian Blur with a pixel of 15.


7) Make three (3) copies of the layer. Right-click the layer copy (layer dialog box) and select Merge
down. Do this till all the duplicated copies are merged with the original. This shows gives a deep
shadow behind our text.


8) Make a copy of the original Text Layer. Right click the copy (layer dialog box) and select 'Alpha
to Selection'. Now that your text outline is highlighted.

8.1) From the Select.. select Grow (on the Menu). Select 1 pixel and click OK.

8.2) Now select the Bucket Fill Tool. Make sure the 'BG color' and 'Fill whole selection' is selected
(on the Tool options). This will allow you to paint with the white to the entire text selection. Now
with the paint tool click inside the selection.

8.3) From the Select.. Select None (on the Menu)


9) Now click the foreground color to open the color selection dialog. Change the foreground color to
something like blue. Select 'FG color' in the bucket tool options. Finally select the background color. Paint
the background blue.


10) Congratulations. You're done. You can save this as the native GIMP format (.xcf) or export to
jpeg.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Graphics Design
Author: levimage Total-Replies: 7

I think it looks pretty kool. What programs did you use?

To me though, I'd use it if there was no text and text shadow. It reminds me of some like of light on a water droplet. It could use a reflection if it that is what you're going for, or texture if it is an opaque sphere, or maybe even like a fetus if you wan't something biolife. The colors make me wonder what the light sources are. Maybe you can add something lout of focus behind it then distort it as it crosses the circle, or add some smoke to give it a sense of depth of field. Something. Try different colors like the negative and make it a wallpaper or a backdrop for a powerpoint.

Post an update if you could and let us know how you did it, okay?

Posted in Others / Website Review (No post count..
Author: SunBlind Total-Replies: 13

I'm personally not too crazy about the choice of colors (my site is teal and lime green Lol) And I agree with techocian, the text is a little hard to read. I have horrible eyesight, so without pressing my nose to the screen, all I see is black blur. Try making the text a little larger in font, possibly bolded, and then try adding a 1 or 2 pixel white stroke with an overlay blending mode.

Other than that, great work! I'll be posting up a link to my site here in a few, don't forget to stop by and return the ccq

Posted in Computers & Tech / How-To's and Tutorials / Graphics and Animation
Author: Snake Total-Replies: 10

Hello, I will tell you how to create a nice userbar in the open-source software called GIMP.
You should GIMP 2.4.6 installed on computer, and if you don't, go to The GIMP Website.
Make sure to view a few beginner tutorials to have a basic understanding of GIMP.

This is what the finished userbar will look like:




It is very simple, and I learned it easy.
I will guide you through all the steps of making a userbar.

~ Now we will go through all the steps.

1. Open GIMP and click New(Ctrl + N) and make the size for your new image 350 by 19.
Your screen should look like this:

You can make your screen full windowed if you want.

2. Go to the tools list and click on the gradient tool.
Set your foreground color and background color.
As my foreground color, I will chose a dark green and a lighter green.
Once you have your colors are picked, make sure the gradient tool is set on the setting
'FG to BG (RGB)'

3. Once you have set your settings, with the gradient tool hold your right clicker on your mouse and drag the line
straight to the other side.
It should look somewhat like this:

Now release your right clicker on your mouse, and your colors should be in a gradient.
This is what my gradient looks like:


4. Once your gradient is set, add a new layer and name it something like "Scanlines"
It doesn't really matter.
Add Scalines to your image and go the layers window and sell the Opacity to something like 30 or whatever fits your userbar.
If you don't know how to add scanlines, Click Here.
The Scanlines on my userbar look like this:


5. Ok, your scanlines are set, now what?
Make a new layer and name it. I'll call it "toplight"
Select the Eclipse Select Tool.

Now, make a circle for the light source at the top of your userbar by holding your mouse right clicker.
Try to get it good, and not covering too much of your userbar.
When it's good, stop holding your mouse's right clicker and it should outline the area you selected.
Mine looks like this:

Now fill in the selection with white.
Then set the layer opacity to 20 or whatever fits your image.
Then go to Select -> None
My image looks like this, yours should look similar. :


6. Now, we will add the text.
Select the Visitor font.
If you don't have it download and install it on your computer and save your image as a GIMP xcf.
Restart GIMP and it will be in the font list.
It can be downloaded here.
Now, select the font tool and set the font to Visitor and the font size to about 10.
You may use a different text color.
Click where you want to add your text and type it in and click close.
My image now looks like this on the background layer:


7. If you want an image in your sigbar, read this step.
If you don't, you can skip this step.

Anyway...

Go to File -> Open and open your image.
It will appear in a new window.

Now select what you want in the image with the Free Select Tool.
Then copy the part of the image and paste it into your sigbar in a new layer.
You can move your image around and put it where you want it to be.
My signature bar now looks like this with the image on the background layer:


8. Now...

The Final Step...

The border part.

Save your image as myfirstsigbar.png (I recommend png)
and select 'Flatten Image' and save.

Then zoom in 800% and select the pencil tool with the color you want as the border.
(It's Usually Black.)
Select 'Circle(01)'
Then start pixeling your border. Hold shift for a straight line.

9. YOU ARE DONE! Yay!

This wonderful tutorial was made by Snake.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Operating Systems / Windows (All Versions)
Author: Chesso Total-Replies: 7

I'm looking for something (preferably freeware if at all possible), for creating icons for Windows XP generally (not sure if I need XP specific features) that has a focus on or very good tools to create purely textual icons of up to 64x64 at the very least (so it display reasonably well in explorer etc).

I more or less want to create mostly textual icons, but nicer ones with effects and such that don't cause any transparency issues (like having a pink background and trying to anti-alias the text, only to have it screw up when the pink background is made transparent (leaving pinkish colours all about).

Any ideas? I have done a little searching, but some of the larger contendors I used to see about, I can't seem to find via Google anymore (can't remember any specific names, but if I saw them I would remember).

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Signature Design
Author: abhiram Total-Replies: 5

I don't know why, but these days, I've started taking a liking towards the gimp. Ever since I installed gentoo on my system, I absolutely abhor booting into windows. In fact, I haven't even logged into windows for the past 3 weeks.

After getting Photoshop 6 running using wine in Linux (the other versions wouldn't even install) and having a lot of stability issues with it I've started getting the hang of the Gimp. But, there are a lot of features that I'm having trouble with. Let me show you what I mean... here's a sig I made using gimp:



First of all, I'm not really artistically talented, and as you can see, all my sigs are quite amateurish. But, I'm learning and recently got the hang of using fractal brushes to make sigs.

With that out of the way, here are some questions I need some help with:

1. What do you guys think about this sig? Rating, criticism (good, bad, anything goes), tips and suggestions would be a big help.

2. Can any experienced user in gimp explain to me how to add the blending options like glow, bevel and emboss (that are so easy to apply in photoshop) to a single layer (such as any text on the sig) without affecting the other layers?

Till now, I've been had to create the text in a new file, apply the desired script-fu and then merge the layers in the new file and then copy past the text into the original file. Now, this isn't too much fun if I've got to try out different kinds of script-fu and keep repeating this laborious process.

3. Finally, I've got the layer-effects plugin from the gimp repository, which supposedly is supposed to imitate 'blending options' in photoshop. But, it isn't working like it's supposed to ... the decorations and shadows show up wherever they want to and sometimes they don't even show up at all. Has anyone got that plugin to work?

This is kind of a long post, but it's these small things that have been driving me crazy for the past few days. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks .

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Signature Design
Author: Orca239 Total-Replies: 9

Those are really good! Very nice in my opinion. I think that you might have gone a little overboard on the text in the first two, but the rest are very nice. There is something about the third one though, not really sure, maybe just too much? That doesn't really make sense though, oh well, anyway, good job!

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Graphics Design
Author: marijnnn Total-Replies: 15

well, basicly, what you have to do is make your background in photoshop. you take just any picture, edit it as you wish, so you finally have the background for your website.
then you save your picture and open imageready, which is delivered together with ps.
you open your picture and choose the slices tool. you draw a rectangle for the area where your text should come. you can draw more of them if you want several text areas, for example: you want an area for some sort of menu and then you want a menu where the text will be. once you're ready, you choose 'save as html' in the file menu somewhere.
now you'll have a html file and a folder with the image slices. open the html file and in the cell that should contain your text, you just start typing. your text will be in the right position and you'll be able to see your background. or you could open it with frontpage or words or whatever wysiwyg editor if you're not that good at html.

see? it's really easy to make a good looking website
check www.everybodylovesyou.tk to see an example. this one is a little mor advanced. the picture opens in a new window that has the right size and the text is opened in an iframe. but that layout is done just the way i described above.
you can see the code by rightclicking just next to the border and choose 'view source'. feel free to use it. but please don't just copy it, try to understand it

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Signature Design
Author: Backas Total-Replies: 11

It looks very good but change the font colour I cant see your text. And my screen resolution is big so it looks good but other people see this sig very big try to make smaller.

Posted in Computers & Tech / How-To's and Tutorials / Graphics and Animation
Author: Sizux Total-Replies: 9

This page contains several images. Please allow it to load.

This tutorial is for making a game-related signature. Signatures off-topic can be made using the instructions below, but will be much harder.

First off, we need to find a game that you enjoy. In this example, I'll take Halo 2. We now need to search for the Starting Image, a simple image that people have already made. However, we want to be careful and choose the correct one. Follow these rules and you should find a decent one:

Good Images:

1. Ones with a colorful background.
   
2. Ones with the main character on them.
   
3. Ones with good color and art quality.
   

Bad Images:

1. Ones with a lot of text.
   
2. Ones with plain color.
   
3. Ones with someone elses name on it.
   
4. Ones with black & white art on it.
   
5. Ones with the game case on it.
   
6. Ones with "real" people on it.
   
7. Ones with text on a angle
   
8. Ones with gameplay footage.
   
9. Ones with small height & width.
   
10. Ones with random monster/items/character on it.
    
11. Lastly, but most important, ones commonly used.
    

With the above in mind, I found this image:



Now it's time to Crop, or cut down the images of excess material. To do that, we are going to use an easy program called Microsoft Paint. If you do not have that, you can still follow the directions below and use your image program to follow along.

Open up Microsoft Paint by clicking on Start, Programs, Accessories, and Paint. Now copy the image you found on Google, and paste it into Paint. Or, if you saved it, open it up from that location.



Now we want to select the portion of the image we want for our signature, since this is way to big. Select the image to be larger in width then height. Also try to include the head of the main character. You can select the image by clicking on the icon shown like this: When it's selected, it should look like this:



Press Ctrl + V, or click "Copy" from the context menu to copy the image. Then open a new Paint program and paste it.



Now we need a font. Go back to www.google.com , but don't click on images. Instead, just search for the font under web. For this, we are going to search for Halo 2 font. After a little searching, I found this: http://www.free-font-downloads.com/downloa...332.Halo-2.html Simple save the font anywhere.

Now we need to extract it. Get Winzip, or another program similar. Then extract the file. Inside should be a file similar to this one.



We need to install it. First off, copy the font file. Then, find the fonts folder. On my operating system, Windows XP, you simple right-click on Start and go to explore. Then click on WINDOWS and find the folder "font" Paste it there and it should install properly.

Now visit your logo in Paint. Find a nice spot to put your name (bottom right is good). Click on the text button. Then select the portion you want the text to be. Be sure to click on the second button at the bottom left hand side.



Now type in your text. My name is Sizux, so I'd type that in. I recommend you make your name in all lowercase letters--it just looks better. To change the font, click on View and Text Toolbar. Change it to the new font type (Halo 2) and your perfered size. Also change it to white, so people can see it. This is what my signature looked like afterwards, just so you know how cool they can be. Hope you found this helpful.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Graphics Design
Author: friso Total-Replies: 19

hey, i downloaded Pixia, it's really great, but...

i need some help, tutorials, or just your advice. i wanna knowif, and how...

- can you make the text 3D like the logo?

- do you make a bg, and then paste a image with a white background over it, without seeing the white square?

that's it for know, i'll let you know (unless i find - or you give me - a good tutorial)

ty

Posted in Computers & Tech / How-To's and Tutorials / Graphics and Animation / Photoshop
Author: 04dsmith86 Total-Replies: 34

Very nice! I was having trouble at first because I made the oval in a new layer. It needs to be on the same layer as the black background for the color adjustments to work. I ended up recording the action so I can flameify (new word) anything. I played around with it some more and came up with a blue flame effect. I added some smoke and text and voila, nice little text-effect. Here it is:

Posted in Computers & Tech / How-To's and Tutorials / Graphics and Animation / Photoshop
Author: pyost Total-Replies: 35

How to make a userbar by pyost


Lately the userbars have become very popular with people. They are mostly putting them in their forum signatures, which is very practical. They are small, but can be used for linking.

A lot of userbars can be found at www.userbars.com and www.userbars.org, but sometimes people can't find exactly what they want. This is why I have decided to make a tutorial on how to make you own userbar.

The pictures in this tutorial are made in Photoshop 6.0, so don't be surprised if you're Photoshop is different. I will be making a Thunderbird userbar.

First of all, you have to create a new picture. The dimensions are as shown in the picture below.



Next, you must choose you background color. It is best to use the gradient tool and the colors that would suit the thing you are making a bar for. In this case, I will be using a light blue color going to white (because of the Thunderbird logo).

It should look like this.



Now, we must add the diagonal lines seen in all the userbars. To do this, create a new picture, dimensions 6x6 pixels and transparent. Next, use the pencil tool on that picture to create a diagonal line like this.



When you draw that, go to Edit -> Define Pattern and choose the pattern name. Now go back to the first picture and the Pattern Stamp Tool in order to put lines into you picture. Since the lines are too bold, I would advise you to lower the opacity. I use 15% myself, but it's up to you to decide. After doing that, you get something like this.



Now it's time to add the logo to the picture. The logo must have transparent background, so when you put it it should look like this.



Now we've got only two things left. The first one is to add text to the userbar. For this, most people use the Visitor -BRK- font. That's what I'm going to use, too. When you choose the font tool, choose Palettes and do the following. Set the font size to 10pt, turn of anti aliasing, and increase the character spacing to 25. When you write the text, use the stroke option to create a black or white 1 pixel border, depending on the font color. Here's what you should get.



Then, you should add the elliptic transparent white part. In order to do that, choose the Ellipse Tool, select Create Filled Region and set the opacity to 30% or less to get the best quality. Create a new ellipse with this tool so that it's bottom part is located in the top of the picture.

The final thing to do is to add a 1 pixel border to the whole picture, and do it with around 20% opacity. I hope that there is no need to explain this. And here is the product – Thunderbird userbar.



If you have any further questions or want to comment my tutorial, you are free to do so.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Web Design and HTML
Author: Niran Total-Replies: 13

Anybody needs Animated FavIcon with your site address scrolling on that along with your logo?

Check this site!

Thats the site without any customization Options!

But if you need to customize the Animated Icon, please reply here
(In the sense, Fonts & Color Customization)

Im doing it for Free!

Example is here:

checkOut the fav icon for:

www.niranvv.com
and www.fun.niranvv.com

You can see one Icon along with one Scrooling Text: NiranVv.Com in the icon!

So, if you need that one, ask here!
I'll give you the animated favIcon(Gif Format)
along with Shortcut Icon(Ico Format)

ITS TOTALLY FREE!!


All You need to Give:
The small Image to be displayed as Icon( Or some Small Text To be displayed)
The Text to be displayed as Scrolling One!


( Edited:
Note: Animated ICONS (GIF Files) presently works only with FIREFOX & Netscape!
IE will show only static ICO Files )


How To Insert The FavIcon To your page:
Insert the code in between your <head> and </head> tags




Niran