Replacing Colour

Just like in real life: if you don't like the colour of your dress, you can change it. Unlike in real life you can't change the colour of someone else's dress.

Here's how:
Use your magic wand tool to select (in this case a coat). You can do this by double  clicking the wand on the coat. You will see the outline of your selection. You can expand or contract the selection by making the number in the TOLERANCE box at the top of your screen. I used 30 for this selection. Don't worry you can always change it back, or if things get really ugly you can DESELECT under the SELECT menu. Mac users can hit Command d and start again. Your coat should look like this.

Jacket is selected.

Next go to the ENHANCE drop down menu at the top. Pull it down and select ADJUST COLOUR. This will bring out a fly out menu asking how you want to adjust the colour. Click on REPLACE COLOUR. Here'swhat you will see.

Replace colour.

Now a new menu will pop up and it looks like this.

Replace colour menu.

Notice that it will show the coat selection. Also notice that SELECTION is picked. Don't change that. However, in future you could miss the selection steps and just select the entire photo to change the tint if you wanted to.

Now you can play around with it using this part of the menu. You will see the colours change as you drag the HUE slider. If you don't then increase the LIGHTNESS slider.

Change the colour here.

This is all much easier to see on a light coloured selection.
When you are happy hit OK. The box will disappear and then you can deselect the coat.
Good luck and any questions or comment are appreciated and answered.

Vintage photo from Quaddles.

Take a Look at those Links!

Okay, I have tendonitis. I really tried to stay off my computer. I tried using my tablet with my left hand. But tonight I couldn't stand it anymore.

So I decided to organize my link list. It is now organized into smaller lists under different headings. I hope this helps you to navigate through the links and find what you want. As always, if anyone finds some links they think are useful, send them along and I'll add them.
Okay, I'm going to find a bag of frozen peas for my arm.

ADVENTURES IN PHOTOSHOP: FREE Images

ADVENTURES IN PHOTOSHOP: FREE Images

I took a whole bunch more while in Britian. But sadly, I lost my Ipod in Oxford.

More of my stock here.

http://stoneangel3.deviantart.com/gallery/

Graphic lettering

Okay. Here's a quick and dirty update on this technique. You'll only need 2 layers for this technique.

Open a  a new transparent background.

First PLACE a background layer. Use any pics.

Next add your LARGE text layer on top.

Then switch the two layers. Picture layer on top of text layer.

If you can't see the text you are right where you need to be.

Hold down OPTION key and click.

I added a shadow and a GRADIENT layer which goes on the to.

If you don'twant the white background save as a png.

End of... 

You can download a .png of this on my Deviant Art account here.

  http://stoneangel3.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4g56tr

7,000 VIEWS!

Thanks everyone for stopping by my blog. Trying to get together a giveaway to celebrate my 7,000 views. This time I'm hoping for sponsors to participate and provide prizes. If you're interested in providing something from your shop, shoot me an email. I'll provide the free advertising.

I have views from 87 countries. Here's a map of all the different ones.

87 Countries

 Also, for Grunge lovers everywhere I've added a link to a great collection of Grunge fonts including a ransom letter type font. Thanks from Shadowhouse for  the link.

SPAMMERS
Also a word about spammers. Yes, that means you, you creeps! FYI, I will not open any comments marked Anonymous , EVER. Spamming on my blog is a new thing. I've received 22 spam emails in the last 6 weeks.

TO ALL THE REST OF YOU
So please when you leave a comment don't mark it  Anonymous, otherwise I won't open it. Having said that I did open Tisha's comment today. That will be the last one. I absolutely love getting comments and feedback of all sorts from my readers. There's a button with a baby on it that says , "Talk to me." Click on it to email me. There's also a tab on the top of the posts that you can click to find contact info.

Here's a sample of the Black Casper Font. Feel free to download it. Or better still, you can get the font for yourself at

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list/style/Grunge

TIME TO COLOUR

I've started colouring in photoshop. I actually have a Bamboo Tablet. I bought it to colour and draw with. Also it came bundled with Photoshop6. I should probably use the tablet to colour with instead of using my mouse. But I use my mouse, so if you don't have a tablet, don't worry. Because  I'm lefthanded and I use my mouse with my right hand I devised a way to colour that didn't show up too much if I went outside the lines a bit.

Background: Land of Nod

© NeonSun Studios, All rights reserved 201

Okay, let's get started.
The first tip is to enlarge what you are colouring. Make it say, 200% by clicking the + sign in the righthand panel that says NAVIGATOR. The larger the picture, the easier it is to get into those little nooks and crannies. It also looks better when you shrink it down to the original size.

I use a round, solid brush from my default brushes. Don't worry about the size. Along the top where the picture of your brush is, are the SIZE, MODE and OPACITY.

SIZE - Has a slider that you can adjust the size of the brush. You can also type the size in a box. However, I like using the slider as I'm constantly changing the size of the brush.

MODE - Is the most important. To make it look more like a water colour I use the drop down menu here and choose MULTIPLY. When you paint over the drawing, you won't blot out the lines with your colour.

OPACITY - I use between 50% and 75%. As you can see in the picture above you can darken (increase the opacity) a bit and accentuate shadowing or add depth.

EYEDROPPER TOOL - Located on the top lefthand tool menu. I use the eyedropper tool a lot to fill in spots I've missed or copy colours for other parts of the picture. It's good for picking a darker shade of a colour.

So, those are the tools and how to use them. Give it a crack. Feel free to post questions or send pics or advise. I'll publish them here.

Ooops!

I think we have all been there. You make a piece of art, it's 3am and you hit the save as a psd button to work on it later.

Sadly sometimes we flatten the image first and only have 1 lousy layer for our PSD.

I did that with the image below. I was hoping to work on it later. Now I have a flattened image that I can't work on. I can't unflatten it. When I opened the .psd file there was only the one layer. My, "Oh, No, No, No' echoed through the building. I wanted to cry.

I googled, Unflatten image in photoshop and found page after page of people pleading for help. Why does photoshop do this? I even checked the Adobe site. It was basically, Sorry sucka.

There is one tip I have to offer. When saving, look to the bottom left of the save  screen. There is a box that asks, save as a copy? Check that box. Apparently it will save the original .psd.

Save as a copy.

I know it's not much, but it's all we have.

Getting My feet Wet

As I promised, I'm doing digital art again. Decided to get my feet wet by doing a challenge on Flickr.

© NeonSun Studios 2011. All rights reserved.

www.flickr.com/groups/makeitinteresting/discuss/72157627527361135/

Starter image with thanks to "http://www.flickr.com/photos/27805557@N08/3330979732/Joes Sistah
Skin, wings, halo - JoesSistah
Model: JoannaStar Model pack at Deviant Art
Background: Darkwoods
Wreath: Ms.Bailey
Eyes: LoveandStyle at Deviant Art

It took about 2 hours. I'll probably go back and do some more work on it. For now (at 4:30 am) I'm happy with it.

A small tutorial on this image:

The vines were actually a wreath. After positioning it I used the eraser tool and wiped away the center of the wreath with a hard circle brush. I reduced the size of the brush and cleaned up the edges around the face and shoulders.

The skin is done using a S2 wrap. This method is so popular that there is a group on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/s2wrap/

Here's a quick and dirty way for photshop Elements users. Don't look for the alpha channel. There aren't any in Elements.
1 - Place your pattern layer directly above the face layer.
2 - Select MULTIPLY in the CONTENT pallette that your layers are in. This will make the pattern layer translucent.
3 - Select the ERASER tool from the TOOLS on the lefhand side and find a hard edge, round brush/eraser  from the lefthand top brush drop down menu.
4 - Scrape away the the pattern around the face. Adjust the size of the eraser brush to get into the nooks and crannys, like the ears, etc.
5 - Done.

For the wings which were originally white I used ENHANCE ->ADJUST COLOUR function. There is more on that here on the April 28th 2011 post.
http://neonsunshine-jody.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html3 - 

Let me know of anything you'd like to learn about and I'll see what I can do. I would love to hear from you. Also don't be afraid to leave a comment about posts. Tell me if the tutorials worked for you or feel free to add any info or links related to posts. Let me know if the TUTS didn't work for you and why. After all we are all in this together.

You may of noticed my snappy new social media buttons at the bottom of the posts. Try them out out. They work exceptionally well. Better than anything I've used before.

Time For A Move?

Should I or shouldn't I? To move or not to move?
I'm thinking about a lot of things lately.
Thinking about my art.
Thinking selling on Etsy is a very poor way to make a retirement income.
Thinking that maybe in order to go forward I have to step back.

When I started on computers I used to fix my own computer, crack open the casing and scratch my knuckles raw to add components. Ahhh, the good old days---NOT! However I do look back at my days of working with open source operating systems and programs with a certain fondness in the sense that I was constantly learning and suffering along with others who couldn't print after downloading the latest Linux release.

First background.

I started doing art on The Gimp. I coded my web pages from scratch and my first header was done on The Gimp.

My first website Header

I started trading ATCs on the Nervousness site. My first intro to collage.

Before I understood copyright laws.

I've drifted away from that community. A community I trusted and loved. I miss it.

Somewhere along the way I (maybe all of us) drifted into a world that lacked even basic privacy. A world where total strangers are asking us personal questions in order to use their websites. A world where computer support means walking into the Macstore and being flogged some piece of hardware to fix my problem. Where, who you are, is what you own.

I want back quality.
I want back my privacy.
I don't want a world where Google knows more about me than my friends do.

So I'm opting out of Google+
I'm winding down my Etsy shop.
I'm going to spend more time blogging and doing the artwork I love. I'm going to spend more time on Flickr and follow the work of some of the great digital artists there that have such a wonderful inspiration.
And I'm going to spend more time learning to be a better artist. I started this blog as a journey to share what I've learned with other like  minded people. I still think that's worthwhile.

I've always been an artist and artisan. I've always thought that it's good to share knowledge Because I know a technique that someone else doesn't know, doesn't make me a better artist and vice versa. I know I am in good company where that belief is concerned.

I'm looking into moving this blog over to Wordpress. It provides me with a bit more flexibility to do the things I want to do. Also it seems to be more graphically orientated. I will also move my shop onto my new site and will be able to sell things like digital brushes and Patterns. Digital work is something I love doing and want to focus my interests in that direction.

So as the changes take place I'll keep everyone informed. There are people that follow me in 83 different countries. Not everyone wants to stand up and be counted, but knowing you are out there keeps me blogging.