Preserved Topic: Logo Critique

I made this in the future hopes of doing Graphic Design for a living. I made it originally as a desktop backgrond and later shrunk it down to see about using on a business card. PSD is 300 dpi (For printing) but the online image is a high quality jpg.

This the first I have posted anything for critique so rip away.

Looks good....

make the shiny parts....... more shiny.

I am finding it hard to find anything wrong with it. But I will try looking harder. Hmmmmmmm......Maybe Jaggies. Just a few here and there. Cant find anything else to improve on.

There's a problem with the drop shadow. It's not falling correctly over the silver/crome D. Apart from that.... ? yeah the jagies are kinda bad...

Nice though.

everybody needs a swamp bear

yes, it is pretty decent.

some things to work on:

jagged edges

sharper hihglights, not-so-dark shadows (you're losing part of the image to overgrown shadows)

make the 'contour' lines and reflection lines smoother


how to accomplish these? curves adjustments, selective hand-brushing, confined gaussian blurs.

maybe jack up that green too?

my 2¢

it says Finlinson? if that's what it says, the n's and the second 'i' have "grow together" problems.

Jason

Ok lets start with jaggies definitely there. I try to use blurs on the masks to try an eliminate these but I always seem to have a hard time totally getting rid of them. I partially made it this big and at a high res so I could shrink it down to hide these but I would like to get it down so it looks good big too. I know there are many post on this so I'll kinda search around but anything off the cuff that can help with this would be appreciated as well.

DL: Thanks for the great info: When I finally stopped messing with it and decided to leave it where it was I was not sure I liked the darkness of the gold text. I have tried to bring it out a little but not getting anything that appealed to me. I will try using curves I am a novice with them haven't utilized them much yet. On the confined gaussian blurs can you elaborate a little on where and how to keep the edges of the selections from being obvious after the blur.

Dracusis: Which section (or all) of the shadow falling over the "D" doesn't look right to you and what do think might improve it?

JK: I agree I like the liquidy look of the text but I wish I had either stretched them apart a little or moved them closer so they did not have the little gap between the parts that are ran together. Depending on how far back I go to make new adjustments I may try and fix this then. Thanks

Thanks all of you and anyone who still may comment. I half expected a royal ripping and am really pleased that you guys like it

1st: steve has a *wonderful* tutorial at the gurus network on curves: http://www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorials/photoshop/curves1.html


2nd: this is what I like to do for the dark contour/reflection lines

make a merged copy of the image shape.

jack the curves to exaggerate the contrast, primarily isolating the black lines.

select the shape, then go to select » color range, and choose 'shadows'

this will give you a good selection of the lines.....save it as a channel. on the channel, run a gaussian blur, then adjust levels to get a crisp edge but no jaggies.

when you're satisfied with the shape/edge, load the channel as a selection.

make a new layer above all the others, and fill with black.

play with blending modes and opacities, and blur as needed (make a copy so you don't lose the intact version).


do the same for highlights

just some thoughts