Preserved Topic: Tutorials (Page 1 of 2)

Hey anyone know where i can get turorials on making diferent text effects and a good matal background. Oh and can you guys tell me what you think about the logo i made for my web design company which i will be starting soon.



[This message has been edited by Cr0n0 (edited 20-06-2000).]

I like the brushed metal background--very smooth. The type, however, isn't very readable. Especially for a logo, it should be clear and easily recognizable. Some contrast would help in that area, too--silver on silver in this instance doesn't work very well.

BTW, if you're interested in type effects, there's a series of books called Photoshop Type Magic; I learned some neat techniques from one of them.

I think your logo is pretty nice. The metal looks really good, did you make that yourself? The lightning is also awesome.

Now for what I don't like; I think that you could make better use of space by either increasing the size of the text or decreasing the size of the metal plate. I don't know, just a thought.

Over all I like it, you have some nice skills. Again, the metal is very good looking. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">


www.bl00k.com

I don't want to sound harsh, but I think the logo needs quite a bit of improvement. First off, while the brushed metal effect looks reasonably good, it's far too overused now-a-days. The multi-colored lightning looks out of place, and the word "design" is almost unreadable. It probably would have taken me a while to identify the word if I didn't know in advance what the logo was for.

It seems very thrown together. Fire, lightning, metal and warped text all tossed in a blender <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/confused.gif">. The fact that the word "bota" is way on the left and then "design" is right in the center just isn't very aesthetically pleasing. You've got all that empty space on the right. I'd say, keep it simple. Get rid of the fire, get rid of the lightning, use a single font for both words and either shorten the whole brushed metal thingy so the word "design" is in the bottom right or add a small logo or something on the right.

It's certainly a start, and it shows you have some tricks down, but if I saw a web design site with that logo, I'd pass it right by.



-=Human Shield=-

I appreciate your suggestions and help! Human Shield, a little harsh but very helpfull as well. And Wes, any idea where I might get Photoshop Type Magic for free. BEcause I' a cheap bastard and can't offord it! <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/redface.gif">

BTW, Human Shield is it ok if I get your icq number so I can ask you a few more questions here and there?



[This message has been edited by Cr0n0 (edited 20-06-2000).]

to be honest I think it´s no good for a logo

Sure thing... I've actually got two numbers. My home account is 3554391, which I have up a lot, but am usually in N/A mode, even though I'm not N/A. My account at work is 51307496, and I almost always am on there from 10 till 6 EST.

Sorry for bashing your logo, I'm really picky about logos. I'm never happy with any of mine either, so don't think I'm picking on you.



-=Human Shield=-

CrOnO, the only place I know where to get a book for free is the library.

I don't know....you might want to check out the basement where you said that DocCyber was at...or was that "you guys are stupid, he's in the basement"?

Yeah...check there

Wes you need to trie out project gutenberg.
http://promo.net/pg/

That is the best place to get literature for free. Can't say you will find something on web graphics, but hey it is an alternative to the library (works wonders when one is trying to do a book report on the weekend, or at 2:00 AM).

I will definately agree with Human Shield here -- it does show that you have some tecnique down, but the sense of design and composition is about NIL. It did take me about 20-30 seconds to figure out what the word "design" was. I also definately agree that the brushed metal concept is far too overused -- everything you see lately is metal and wires and digital screens...kind of overkill and time to move on IMHO...

The lightning and the "watery" effect of the design text is cool -- try to work on clarifying that into something more readable and more cohesive is my advice.

A good text effect was posted by F1_Error in a thread called "cephloplastic metal" look for it in the "Photoshop Archive" here at the Asylum. I've also been told that this is a cool text effect: http://kublai_khan.tripod.com/dagnabit/skytaffy.html

(shameless plug there...thanks for indulging me.. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif"> )

Oh, and 2wins -- it was:
"Nothing U idiots DocCyber is dead! He's Locked in my Basement"

<img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">

Hey Dl-44 thanks for the reply! I'll really consider what you said. O and u said someone posted something about "cephloplastic metal"
Do you know where? Because i searched the photoshop archive in the asylum, but i couldn't find it.

http://www.innerworld.com/F1_error/CPM/

- Dan -

WarMage-
You're right, I forgot about PG, but of course it's all stuff that has passed into the public domain.

Yeah, that's the one Dan. It's really a great tutorial -- a lot of cool tecniques that you can use seperate from each other for cool effects all on their own.

Hey DL-44, I was readig your tutorial on making that sky taffy text. Well it's pretty good and comes out nice. But I dont have any fonts thick enough to make it look as good as yours. So can you tell me the name of the font you used in the tutorial.

O and doc Ozone, everyone of you logos has the same text font with diferent effects. Well, all i wanted to know is if you hand drew that or is it a font?



[This message has been edited by Cr0n0 (edited 23-06-2000).]

I won't speak for Doc, but I always assumed he did the font himself. By the way, Cr0n0... if you need some places for fonts, let me know and I'll send you a few URLs when I get home. By the way, I do like the effect you put on your name there in your sig. It kinda looks like carved pieces of wood with blue paint on them.

Thanks Human Shield. I just got bored and decided to play around with the filtors. I made one more similar to that and another thats diferent can you tell me which one to use.

Personally, I like the last one (blue on blue) but I think that on the top and bottom, there should be a lighter blue stripe, like, above and bellow the words, and the color should be in between the background and the text. Maybe with a reflectiong image of a building or something on a layer above the rest, set on overlay, with 65% opacity... Just a thought.

- Dan -

After re-looking at the immage, screw the idea of the reflaction map over-top. I'd duplicate the text layer, and brighten it a little bit. Maybe after duplicating it, blue the one bellow by 1 pixle.

- Dan -

I agree with Dan.. use the blue on blue one... of course, I have a variety of different logos I put up. You can always do that too. I do like the smaller blue on blue one more though. Less flash, more finese.

Ok I liked that one better too. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif"> Ok i tried to the what you said dan, and here is what I cam up with:


is this what you were talking about? <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/confused.gif">


[This message has been edited by Cr0n0 (edited 23-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Cr0n0 (edited 23-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Cr0n0 (edited 23-06-2000).]

Hmmph, its not as noticable as I thought it would be.. =[
But, its a very nice logo.

Oh, I see, what I meant was brighten the top layer of text, and blue the second one, leave the background dark. So theres more contrast.

- Dan -

[This message has been edited by Dan (edited 23-06-2000).]

I meant, blur the second layer, not blue...

O OK, IM iLL TRY THAT. I dont think theres anyway you can do this but anyway... You know how when u make a logo o any image you have all the layers displayed unless you flatten it? Then you finish it and save it. Ok, now i close photoshop, open it again and open that logo, it's all going to be one layer, right? Well is there anyway I can make it go back to all the layers it had before I closed Photoshop?

No, thats why you gotta save the PSD file.. It keeps layers stored.. =[

- Dan -

Btw, always save the PSD file before you flatten the image, that solves problems like this.

- Dan -

OH ok! I never knew that! Thanks a lot Dan <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">

OK i came up with two more similar logos please tell me which of these you prefor.

The top one, the fire looks out of place on the logo...

- Dan -

Nice, very nice.. I actually like them both. The fire is rather interesting. That's a V A S T improvement over your first logo.

Thanks Shield, really appreciate it. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif"> But i dont think it would be anywhere close to a logo for a web design company. This is my first time trying to make a profitable site, so I dont know where to start. I know you guys are really experianced with what Im attempting to do so please help me out with this. THANKS! <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/biggrin.gif">

Heh, well I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was a good logo for the front page of a site... but it's a nice logo to use in your messages. It's far too small for a site... not to mention the blue background would be awkward. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif"> But it's a nice sig.

don't have time to read all the posts, but to answer your question crono, the font in the tute was Beesknees, and the one at the top of the tute is Flexure.

Ummm no offense but I don't like any of your images. Its sorta weird, maybe its because everyone knows your a beginner but every other message board I've posted in look down upon using different plugins. Personally what i think you should do is go over to www.phong.com or www.designsbymark.com and read there photoshop tutorials on text effects. There simple and easy for beginners and they look a lot better then plugins. While plugins can be useful, they make a lot of ugly things that don't seem to fit and I think thats what your doing here.

So in my opinion hop over to those sites, read up on what you can, practice hard and I'm sure you'll find yourself making much better art. Theres also many books out there too that can help, one of my favorites is "Photoshop 5/5.5 WOW! Book". Its an easy to follow book for beginners and has tons of great info.

If you need any help at all feel free to IM me at either ieJestah or on ICQ at 77252449.

Im not an expert with Photoshop but I do think i can help you a great deal with it

Hey! We ain't prejudiced like that here...we don't mind beginners, in fact we like them...if there wern't any beginners, then who would look up to us and say, 'that's great, I wanna be just like you when I grow up, Mr. Skaarjj, sir'. Beginners are the life blood of any feld, grahpics to, because without beginners, we wouldn't get fresh talent and ideas, and then the whole graphics industry would just keel over and die.

And that's my rant for the day.




Sex is evidence that God has a sense of humour. - Elie Oberdury

I agree, go check out all the tutorials you can find. This site has some good ones and alexdg.com has good rust/scratches tutorials. When I first started, I downloaded Eye Candy and Xenofex right away and that's all I would use. I finally figured out that it wasn't getting me anywhere and deleted them. The only filters I use are the ones that come with PS. (Lighting Effects, Gaussian Blur, Curves, etc..) My abilities have increased dramatically since I got away from the filters. At the least, give the tutuorials a try. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">

Right On Brother, or sister, what ever.




Sex is evidence that God has a sense of humour. - Elie Oberdury

Talking about fonts, does anyone know how I go about making my own?

Anyfreeware progs to do it?

To look down upon using plugins is ridculous. Plugins are there to make it easier to create certain effects. Sure, you can do any effect using basic filters and by hand, but if you've got a time restriction, then a plugin can be very useful. Sometimes a plugin can create an effect that you're not sure how to do on your own. Just because an image was done using a plugin, doesn't make it ugly. What you need to do is just look at the image, and not care how it was done... just that it WAS done.