Jeez, that's what I'm talkin' about! Thanks Havoc. Anymore tips n' strategies? Also this isn't only for me, it's also for those people who don't know much on signature making.
I know tons of shortcuts, I'll try to find a tutorial that shows all of them, some really save time Anyway, I have a few tips. - If you've started something, and it looks crap on the first layer, or the 50th layer, don't stop, the sig/lp still has a good chance to turn out great. - Don't just use colour balance, try and experiment, use all the others, such as curves, levels, etc. But this doesn't mean leave out any of them. - If you're new, look up tutorials, after a while, know how to make your stuff, every graphics artist has a time when they decide they don't need any more tutorials, they know how to do what they want. - Experiment, practice, what everyone else has said, basically. - Learn about composition, good colour schemes, flow, etc. There are arguably 2 ways to do this, first is to read tutorials on them which really doesn't help or go to classes and learn about them which is better, the more common method is to learn it visually. If you keep on getting comments such as "work on the flow + comop", you're going to want to know how to improve, eventually you will. My biggest tip is this, yet it may be controversial. - My biggest tip, is to have more than 1 style under your belt. Sure you can be excellent in smudging, but what about 3D? This is still tag based, but for large piece artists, what if someone wants you to vector them, yet you only knoiw how to perform photo manipulations? You don't have to be excellent in more than 1/2/3 styles, you just have to practice them, know the style in and out, and how any good stock or picture can be fitted in. You can also combine styles, Digital painting and photo manipulations put together can create something really interesting. - I have more tips, really, I just don't have the time to err.. post them. Hope I helped someone with this.
Wow. One of the more helpful posts here, no offense to the other peeps. ;\ Thanks for the tips. If you can, please post the rest of the tips.
I agree very much on this I myself always change styles, it really keeps me on my feet and it prevents slumps/blocks.
I could use some help with my text, I have no idea how people can get their names to look so appealing on sigs. (look at the text in my current)
My tips would be to keep your text out of corners, and don't make it too big or so flashy that it over powers your focal or stock/cutout. Also play with main text+sub text, text colors, fonts, and text size.Some times all it takes is a really simple font with black or white color.There are sometimes IMO where text just won't fit in the tag at all though.
Honestly, the best way to learn shortcuts is to just.. use em. The cheat sheet is nice, but the way I ended up learning them is just by.. using them lol. Granted, you have to know what they are, but you can hover/find the shortcuts very easy. Now that you have the cheat sheet, make sure you use it lol. I'm pretty sure everything else has been covered. If you find a tut that gives you a really nice outcome, save it. Do it every now and then and you'll pick that up. Little cosmetic tricks like borders and whatnot, same thing with those. That's what I did. I'm still not amazing tho
Most useful shortcuts I know are these: - Ctrl+Shift+N opens a new layer. - Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E creates a new layer with an applied image. - Alt+Backspace fills with the foreground colour. - Ctrl+Backspace fills with the background colour. - Ctrl+D releases a selection. - Ctrl+Alt+Z undoes multiple steps. Also, if you find Photoshop crashes when you're working on large canvas' go into EDIT>>Preferences>>Performance and increase the amount of system memory Photoshop can use and change the scratch disk to a faster/larger drive. Also, while you're there, I recommend cranking up the max steps in your History, so if you want to drop back many steps, you can.
couple more - Ctrl+J duplicates layer - Ctrl+E merges layer with the one below it - Ctrl+Shift+E merges all visible layers [the eye is showing] - x switches between foreground and background color - Ctrl+D [if nothing is selected] changes foreground and background color to default [black/white] just off the top of my head
This is going to sound odd...but I swear it works. Find a friend who shows these qualities: 1. Sucks at photoshop 2. Believes he/she is good at photoshop 3. Not matter how good you get, he/she thinks your work is "ok" You get mad, and you force yourself to get better...but each time he/she says it's "ok", and the process repeats itself. But more specifically, learn compositional elements and learn how to use them: -rule of thirds -leading lines -flow -high key / low key -range of colors -depth
Tutorials, although widely discredited in use of your own sigs (attempting to "rip", or call a tutorial outcome your own), are very, very helpful in learning how to grasp PhotoShop. There aren't (as HaVoC said) any "tricks", but you can learn a lot from Tutorials. Go find a few for free, a couple of beginner ones, and, I *THINK* It's Kirbir's Text Tutorial, is really good. iGhost
