Custom Windows 7 Wallpapers [continued]

[PooMan UK]

Thanks derekimo...that landscape is beautiful

Final for today, I have saved the psd, so the lighting effect plus photo can be changed as our users will wish, even can put their own photo.

That looks really nice pal.

I hope it's ok if I give a little bit of artistic criticism.
With so much light coming in from the left you need to have some serious shadows coming off the items in your pic (balloon/picture frame/chairs) . I've done a really quick rendition of what I mean.

I also made a few examples for anyone who might need help with shadows in the future

 

[derekimo]

My last change on this is more light on the picture.
Have a great night sleep nokian.
View attachment 81906
:devil2:

That looks great Dennis!

 

[Arc]

Wonderful teamwork here .... The brainstorming must produce best outcomes.

And I am lucky .... I got the advises of PooMan Uk much earlier Always try to follow those .

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

Thanks very much PooMan UK.
I was too sleepy you know (I know it is a bad reason to say LOL)...thanks for the recreation / modification plus tips.
Best way is thinking the plan before and setting the angle same for all elements (layer by layer) just as you have shown. I have a bad habit of merging earlier.

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

I hope it's ok if I give a little bit of artistic criticism.

Surely...you did the absolutely right thing. C & C always welcome.

Foot note: My photography "Guru" will kill me if he see this one- a photo without camera (only Couches are real).

 

[Arc]

DP series Same wallpaper .... in four different color combination

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

Arc, need to change the font in my honest opinion. Anyway nice work!

 

[Arc]

Arc, need to change the font in my honest opinion. Anyway nice work!

Thanks for the suggestion. What type of font should I use then ?

 

[EdNygma]

Thanks for sharing your procedure, Ed . I often try to learn CorelDraw, but till no not good enough with it

Yer very welcome Arc. I started out in the vector based world with AutoCAD for technical drawing then migrated to Corel for illustrations many years ago. At the time I just felt more comfortable with proggies designed with a PC feel to them (Adobe has always been Apple/Mac based). Recently I have begun using Photoshop more and with all the improvements in the package I'm really liking the results. I still fall back to Corel PaintPro and Photopaint (aside from the familiarity factor) for certain things that Adobe still does not do. I just got my hands on copy of Adobe Illustrator CS5 and have to say it a vast improvement over previous releases, not the least of which it is compatible with Photoshop (as well as the entire Creative Suite). Anyway enough of that... here is something I threw together just to get feel of how they interact (Illustrator comes with a huge preset vector Symbols Library).

I do have a question that I hope someone might be able help me with. I always have difficulties smoothing the jagged edges like those found along the edge of the ellipse in this example. Is there a way to "smooth" that edge or is it simply the nature the raster beast?

All my best

 

[Arc]

You have ample experience, Ed I started very recently, learned everything in SF, all the members helped me to learn And Now I try my best to work better

Smoothing the edges of a shape, I draw a shape, at the shape layer right click at the vector mask, and click on rasterize vector mask . It becomes smooth, and at the shame time the path is also deleted . Do you want to do it , or I misunderstood ?

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

Arc, need to change the font in my honest opinion. Anyway nice work!

Thanks for the suggestion. What type of font should I use then ?

Arial , Tahoma or Verdana - I think.

The present font is stealing the seriousness of the work.:sarc:

 

[Arc]

Arial , Tahoma or Verdana - I think.

The present font is stealing the seriousness of the work.:sarc:

Ok , let it be pending upto the next morning The font I used is my favorite .... still it is always better to have a discussion . It improves the quality, I believe

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

Only easy way to smoothen is to Rasterize as far I know. Choose Rasterize from menu not right clicking the layer.Then choose which to rasterize (Type / Layer etc)...it gives different flavor (See in 100% or more).
Before Rasterizing make a duplicate (new) layer of it.

Yes Arc, This is a big difference in PS CS4 running on Mac and PC : The path is deleted in PC, not in Mac!
I dont know about CS5 have improved or not. Have no plan to buy CS5


Surely. One precaution: never use Comic Sans for any serious professional work. (Google Comic Sans + abuse).

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

Indian Girl

2.5 Mb , 3000 x 3000 pixels. Spinning to load in Deviant Art - I dont know if they have any size limit (must not have!). But uploading is taking too much time.
I will give the direct link from Deviant Art after it is uploaded. Just a screenshot for now!

 

[Arc]

Cs5 also deletes the path It is a bit helpful with animations, and so we use it.

 

[PooMan UK]

I do have a question that I hope someone might be able help me with. I always have difficulties smoothing the jagged edges like those found along the edge of the ellipse in this example. Is there a way to "smooth" that edge or is it simply the nature the raster beast?

All my best

Yeah pal it's not to difficult to do ... might take a bit of practise though.
It's actually easier to accomplish this in the vector state but it can still be achieved after it's been converted to a bitmap.

1. Mask the area around the blue ellipse decrease it slightly so it doesn't contain the hard dark outline, create a new layer.
2. Mask the area inside the ellipse of the grey border. Delete this part so you end up with a oval hole in the grey border.
3. Move the grey border to the top layer.
4. Increase the size of the blue ellipse layer so that the dark areas are hidden behind the grey hole border.
5. Put a drop shadow on the grey border (this gives more depth)

You should end up with something like this

If this doesn't make sense or is a bit confusing let me know and I'll see if I get chance to make a vid tutorial

 

[EdNygma]

Yeah pal it's not to difficult to do ... might take a bit of practise though.
It's actually easier to accomplish this in the vector state but it can still be achieved after it's been converted to a bitmap. <snipped>

All great suggestions thanks to all for the assistance.

I think I was proly doing exactly what you recommend PooMan. Though in this case the original object is not a raster image but a jpeg (see attached). I finally realized that I was bringing the artifacts into the project along with it, then adding a stroke to the layer only aggravated the condition. Doing just what you suggested, I created a circular mask (selection) then contracted it a few pixels - then brought the refined object it into the project. Big difference, still room for improvement, but like you say I do need more practice (and patience, these little refinements are much easier for me in Corel). The two other objects were originally vector art, I'm very pleased with the results there.

Thanks again to all

 

[Arc]

Hi Ed !
I told you earlier that I am not good enough with vector art (I mean Corel Draw), But PooMan taught me a technique to have a vector copy of any image. I tried sarc with that logo . it is exported to png format .

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

Nice Tutorial PooMan. Thanks

Arc, thats a cool vector.

 

[Arc]

Arc, thats a cool vector.

That's just a copy of the original image