Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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At the Banners of Madness

Netherworld

Well-Known Member
a.k.a. Nether’s Guide to Photoshop Things™

Short introduction is short. I’ve been doing Photoshop Things™ for 7+ years. You can peruse various examples here and here. Ideally, this will be a non-exhaustive compendium of tutorials, but I make no promises. Anyway, the idea is I’ll take one ‘type’ of design I do for Chaos stuff, and do a walkthrough-ish of it. The focus will be on the methods rather than the specifics used in that particular case, because the goal of this is to teach you how to make your own Photoshop Things™, not reproduce mine.

Happy artsing!

KEY:
  • Shoggoth – No knowledge
  • Dagon – Beginner
  • Cthulhu – Intermediate
  • Azathoth – Advanced



Dagon
PLANNING & SETUP


  1. Determine mood

  2. Scour the internets for inspirational and/or useful images.

    • Tip: Git gud at searching for specific things. It’ll save you a lot of headache.

  3. Throw your shortlisted images in a blank file of your chosen size. Push them around for a bit, change the layer order, see how and what fits.

    • Tip: Think about the foreground-background (or figure-ground) relationship. The focus of your splash should read well and be (immediately) obvious to the viewer.

    • Tip 2: Less is more.

  4. If you have text, add it now. Pick a font that fits your chosen mood and think of the composition when you determine its placement.

    • Tip: For splash banners and tags, you’ll generally be best-off centering the text. Signatures will (usually) have a different balance because of a character’s face competing for attention.

COMPOSITING

This is when you take your basic images stacked one on top of the other (on separate layers!) and start blending them together. This can be achieved through a combination of different techniques outlined below.

Masks

  1. Masks are your best friend.

  2. No, really, masks are your best friend. Don’t use the eraser or various selection tools to cut away parts of your images. BAD. Use masks. They’re non-destructive and allow for much more control.

    • Tip: Quick Mask (Q) lets you quickly ‘paint out’ the areas you don’t want to select. Press Q again to exit QM mode and receive a selection of everything BUT the stuff you painted out.

    • Tip 2: Ctrl+Shift+I will inverse the selection.

  3. For complex blending, you’ll want to use a real mask.
    3c76d40b36e0a35670118f7f8cb35676.png

    • Tip: Alt+click the mask ‘rectangle’ next to the layer to see the masked view shown top-right.

  4. Masks are really simple.
    Black = 0% opacity. White = 100% opacity. Gray spectrum= 1%–99% opacity.
    They make gradual fade-outs a breeze. You can use them for precise cut-outs (of people, shapes, text, etc.). You can use them together with textured brushes to create textured blending.

Blending modes

  1. Blending modes are your gay best friend.
    081b053b46fd54e3ed3cf56dabd8a453.png


  2. That’s all. Above guidelines aside, choice of blending modes is purely up to your visual taste. Experiment! Have fun!

    • Tip: If you like an effect but it’s too intense, try lowering that layer’s opacity.

Adjustment layers

  1. Not adjustments. Adjustment layers. Huge difference.
    Layers are 10000x more awesome because a.) they’re non-destructive b.) can be used with masks c.) can be tweaked later when you start stacking them, giving you a better end result.

    • Tip: Ctrl+Alt+G will clip an adjustment layer to the layer below, making it apply its effect/adjustment to that layer only. (Saves you unnecessary masking).

  2. Caveat: Adjustment layers aren’t that simple to use. It depends on what AL you’re using. Some are pretty straightforward, some require practice. Most complex AL have simpler alternatives (lacking bits of functionality, but 80% as useful and 100% easier to use).
    d257538d211f799ce3acd4281bfe38b6.png


BELLS & WHISTLES

With your base image done and blended, you may decide to spruce it up a bit. Most of the time you’ll do this with some sort of symbol or text that’s the centrepiece of your composition. How do you do it? Filters and layer styles. With these, err on the side of caution, and use them sparingly. They can quickly turn a nice piece into kitsch.

Filters
3dfbdf44348b846f863a9a19c0be3723.png


Using filter gallery is useful to preview (and/or stack) your filters and play with their settings. Not all filters are available through the gallery, however, and that’s why you have the categoric fly-out menus below. I won’t go into details here because there’s way too many to cover. Experiment and have fun.

Layer styles
40b19db498ad17a96b4128ddec4eb2ec.png


You can find layer styles/blending options for a layer via right click OR double clicking the layer tab (not the layer text). Like with the filters, you’ll have to play around with the blending options to get the best out of them. Practice and experiment.


BONUS: BLACKOUT LAYOUT

gN110wX.jpg

35ddd7ef4dc960ca76aee63c6b484119.png




Coming Soon:

  • Little gif ones

  • Nice thin banners
 

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