Sig/Avatar tutorials by the makers [Index in First Post]

[KiNA]

Originally Posted by Crystal_Method

I usually would use png, but when I do it comes out to be double the maximum bytes for animesuki. That's why I thought using gif would be a solution. If you know a way for me to decrease that size on png, that would be cool.

:eyetwitch:
Well, I used the save optimize option and set it to optimized for 50K for all my av and sig, rarely I get both type differs muc =/ maybe around 5 - 10Kb at most.

Is there any links for tutorials on the calculation channels thing? I don't really understand how you would use that to cut out images.

Well.. the idea is simple.. go to channel tab, then Image->Calculation, try to get the best contrasting effect between the channel and blending.. create a new channel.. Now on the new channel , should be nearly B&W .. just use level so your channel reduced to pure black and white.. invert it so that the one you need is white and the rest is black.. hide the new channel and highlight the composite RGB channel.. CTRL + click the new channel so u get the ant marching line around the pic you wish to extract.. go back to your layer tab and copy paste. You have to play with the level adjustment several time.

Not a very good tutorial.. but rather an oversimplified explanation@_@

[Crystal_Method]

Thanks for the help kira, right now my sig is mostly done. All I need to do is find out what the black lagoon font is and see how it would look on this. If you know of any fonts that might work please tell. I'm not too happy with my current font.

[saphyre]

Originally Posted by Kira_Naruto

Well.. the idea is simple.. go to channel tab, then Image->Calculation, try to get the best contrasting effect between the channel and blending.. create a new channel.. Now on the new channel , should be nearly B&W .. just use level so your channel reduced to pure black and white.. invert it so that the one you need is white and the rest is black.. hide the new channel and highlight the composite RGB channel.. CTRL + click the new channel so u get the ant marching line around the pic you wish to extract.. go back to your layer tab and copy paste. You have to play with the level adjustment several time.

Not a very good tutorial.. but rather an oversimplified explanation@_@

Oh wow... I somehow managed to understand it.
This way definately is alot faster than quickmasking but the cuts probably won't be as clean.

[KiNA]

@ Saphyre , Select -> Shrink [1 px] .. also while editing the channel, you can turn on the RGB channels to see any leftovers.. would look like you are quickmasking ^^

It still depends on the original source pic too, if it dont have very contrasting color, it probably fail.

[xxmimixx]

Can someone show me a tutorial of how to make an avatar or signature on GIMP? I have GIMP. If so thanks ^^.

[felix]

Index Section H.

[xxmimixx]

Originally Posted by Cats

Index Section H.

What do you mean by that Cats?

[KiNA]

1st post of this thread... ^^

[xxmimixx]

Thanks for the help ^^.

[-Tsukihime-]

wow! thanks for the tut on how to make av/sigs!
and also on how to use PS CS2 & IR
thanks sempai's!
now i can make a sig by my own (noobs work)

EDIT**

err.. i just remember.. it's a bit big >.>
is there anyway to reduce the size (bytes) of my sig without losing any colors?
i tried to save it as .gif but the letter "i" had "white dots" :'(
85kb to 40kb is that possible? still a noob

[felix]

Sacrifices must be made try posting the 85kb one.

Post Scriptum
Tutorials are good for CS3 as well.

[KiNA]

^ He/she did.. in the sig that he used .. which get replaced.

[-Tsukihime-]

ahah~ just as i expected, it was replaced
i should have posted it as an img and not as my sig
gommen ne..

this what i call a sig is actually the product while i was learning on the first few pages.. see? see?

Spoiler:

that's in .png 85kb

Spoiler:

.gif format ( see the white spots? )

and if i save it as .jpg it won't be transparent anymore

Spoiler:

the design is based on what the tut says
learning stage

EDIT**

oh btw, consider me as a he

[felix]

I don't see a problem. Just save the left and right side as .png and the rest (middle) as .jpg.

Edit: Almost forgot to tell you HOW.

One Way.

You can use slices...
I've talked about everything concerning slices already, when I made Website Building - Slicing & Dicing in another thread.

The n00by Way.

You take the rectangle marque tool and mark the central area then you left click and select Layer via Cut. The select either the left or right side and do the same. (don' have to be exact just make sure it's all covered)

Now you have 3 portions of the sig on 3 layers.
Deselect all then just select one go Image > Trim save it... then undo from before the trim, and do the same for the rest. All done.

[felix]

One more thing, have you read this tutorial.

Probably not since I edite and rewrote practicly everything just now.

[Sinestra]

Hey guys this is my first attempt at making a animated GIF having some trouble with finner details. Its too dark for one i already read up on making a border for it. If anyone could help thanx. Also any other constructive criticism would be appreciated

[KiNA]

.. Fancy meeting you here.. and welcome to the world of headache .. well, not actually headache, but getting sig/av under the ASuki filesize limit sure is

Hmm.. Not bad for a 1st attempt, The only glaring mistake, but actually its ok for a 1st attempt, is that annoying BG .. but to correct the darkness, .. shi-- forgot how IR look like , dont think it have adjustment layer .. If you open/import the .psd file to PS, you can add a brightness adjustment layer and play with it.. I think Cats do have a tutorial for it . Index in 1st page

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by -Tsukihime-

ahah~ just as i expected, it was replaced
i should have posted it as an img and not as my sig
gommen ne..

this what i call a sig is actually the product while i was learning on the first few pages.. see? see?

I see...

Used Cats approach a little different making a 7 frames gif animation of it. Once every frame is loaded its just a normal signature. Though one thing was strange... I was sure to make the slices in a way to use an optimum of colors in each subframe. So I was kinda shocked, seeing that there is color jump in the green border/background thingy. First I thought I did not slice properly enough, but then I saw it is so strange in the source already (so its not my mistake, its looking like that )

GIF: (size 41.2 Kb, little color-reduction)	PNG: (size 83.4Kb)

edit:

Oh btw. here is a looping version, so you get a better idea of what was done...
(set it up in a way that each frame lasts 1 second)

[felix]

You used that hack trick ehh~
I love that thing, the only downside of is that, in opera if for example you move up, then move down the timing resets, which makes it look like it reloads. There's no problem with single images since they are cached and instantly loaded.

That and I'm a little too lazy to make it like that. It's probably better since it will display in IE6 or lower all nice but then again most people that use IE seem to use IE7 so no problem with just using png.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah that border thing appears in the png version as well and looks like some other colors don't exactly match too.
(pink on the right, purple on the left )

BTW nice job there Lin.

@ Sinestra - Photoshop Benefits... That should help. Tell me if you have trouble with anything. In short you would need to add a adjustment layer for either Levels or Curves (both effect the same thing it's just an interface thing) Other tutorials in Index Section H. Tips & Tricks should deal with fine tuning.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Cats

You used that hack trick ehh~
I love that thing, the only downside of is that, in opera if for example you move up, then move down the timing resets, which makes it look like it reloads. There's no problem with single images since they are cached and instantly loaded.
...

Yes, kinda Though I did not know there exists such a problem with Opera.
Lets see, I have a version with non-timed frames here. I wonder if it will reload like the other (with 1ms timing per frame). I mean thats more like a hack, since giving no time for a frame, means the viewer has to decide if it either shows all frames at once, or waits forever to show the other frames.

Anyway here it is:



oh, and btw.
(this is taken from my january webspace usage statistics)

Top 15 of 1482 Total User Agents

#

Hits

User Agent

1	4621	15,03%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; de; rv:1.8.0.8) Gecko/20061025 Firefox/1.5.0.8)
2	3348	10,89%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
3	2377	7,73%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9
4	1460	4,75%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
5	1089	3,54%	Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
6	799	2,60%	Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
7	692	2,25%	Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)
8	692	2,25%	Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
9	550	1,79%	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
10	382	1,24%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
11	362	1,18%	Opera/9.10 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
12	301	0,98%	Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)
13	298	0,97%	Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; WOW64; SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
14	281	0,91%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9
15	244	0,79%	Opera/9.02 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)

Ignore the first one though, that is my user agent (I can tell by the closing parenthesis at the end). But since the main traffic is induced by animesuki users, one can say, this represents the use of user agents in animesuki (Offtopic, Fan Creations, Tech Support).

based on this extract (not considering possibly masked user agents):

Firefox	65%
MSIE 6.0	23%
MSIE 7.0	7%
Opera	5%