AnimeSuki Banner Contest - July 2007 - "Sky"

[bigdave]

Aoie>> are u serious even mine? Mine is horrid xD
I need to fix it up more to make it look better

Don't worry I make tons of bad ones but to get a good one u have to try new things and see what works

Cyz>> haha u don't have to worry either just do what u do

cuz I think u have a better Eye at spotting what looks right then me, I mean u have experience with ur crop sigs

edit:
Here is the revised version.

[Kensuke]

Tried to make the first banner better.

1.


2.

[Deathkillz]

very nice guys lets see if i can tweek any ^.^

Originally Posted by bigdave

Aoie>> are u serious even mine? Mine is horrid xD
I need to fix it up more to make it look better

Don't worry I make tons of bad ones but to get a good one u have to try new things and see what works

Cyz>> haha u don't have to worry either just do what u do

cuz I think u have a better Eye at spotting what looks right then me, I mean u have experience with ur crop sigs

edit:
Here is the revised version.

bigdave ~

1st banner ~ i think the girl is sharpened too much ~ i can see jagged edges and whatnot >.< tip for you is to duplicate her layer and give it a blur of around 1 pix set blending mode to overlay and adjust the opacity so that it looks right also i would clear some clouds overlapping her as well as fixing the clouds on the far left side...i see a line O.O

2nd banner ~ besides missing off the words "forum" from the banner id say it look pretty good...though a font change is in order here :3 also it would help the effect if you place a lens flare on somewhere ^.^

Originally Posted by Kensuke

Tried to make the first banner better.

1.


2.

kensuke ~

both your banners look really nice and have minor faults...but one thing i would question is the colouring ~ perhaps you should play around with the contrast level on your image layer only! also the fonts seem rather boring but it isnt a heavy blow to the overall banner so change if you feel like it ^.^ but to mee both of them seem rather empty...its missing some effects or objects...hmm...perhaps try getting some bird brushes or creating an artificial sun?

[saphyre]

This is my third banner, feel free to give some feedback on what you think of it.

[Jinto]

@bigdave,

Regarding your clouds transition... The clouds fade very much thus you'll need to take special care with blending.

Spoiler for explanation:

1) Figuring out the problem:



On the left side of the image you can see the current version of the banner
In the middle there is a version with higher contrast to better see the edge
On the right there is an edited version, that does smoother.

Your clouds are fading much, they are very dull and not clearly defined. Therefore it is difficult to fade them right.

With the magic wand tool one could select all the blueish stuff (can penetrate the clouds heavily) like shown in the example picture:



After that contract the selection by approximately 15
And then feather it by 10
Now keep hitting the Del key until the edges are away (like 5-7 times maybe)

After this is done the space may appear a little too blank, but that can be corrected with the special blending options for the cloud layer. The use of outer glow works quite good here. If you use the outer glow, you will want to slide the quality range slider to 1% to better see how far the glow reaches out. If it touches the border, then you will have to reduce the size of the outer glow. If the layer is bigger than the background layer, it is possible that there is something drawn near the borders... which makes the outer glow penetrate the borders. In this case copy the clouds layer into an extra image that has the size of the cloud layer and select the entire side of the image up to near before where the clouds start and delete this region. Copy back the layer into your project and proceed with the outer glow stuff. In the example picture the outer glow setting with range = 1% is shown. In the red area you can see how far the glow reaches out.
After checking that the border is not touched I've chosen a range of 100% for the final result.

Spoiler for screen:

Of course this just one of many ways to do it

[KiNA]

3rd revised(and hopefully final revision) for my 2nd submission >.<

Calling exotic anime fans.. we have mushishi last winter, guys... this time around, zilch >.<

And there's no Kairin banner aswell except for mine and Jinto's.. Kairin would be sad.

[Ice Climbers]

@KiNA- very nice banner, the feel is just great =3 (but I do prefer girls in the banner )
@saphyre- I dont think it's "skyish" enough >< but thats just IMHO

Anyways, my fixing the banner before:


Again, comments plz =3

Maybe I need to fix the borders a little more...

[KiNA]

*Kick Icey*

That a girl, dammit .. More like, a woman then a girl! That Balsa-oneesama for Seirei no Moribito .. Best anime series for the season.. currently, Only rivalled by Claymore in terms of storyline.. SnM still wins for epicness ^0^

[saphyre]

Originally Posted by Ice Climbers

@saphyre- I dont think it's "skyish" enough >< but thats just IMHO

Aha thought so, looks like I need to redo the background .

[Ice Climbers]

Originally Posted by Kira_Naruto

*Kick Icey*

That a girl, dammit .. More like, a woman then a girl! That Balsa-oneesama for Seirei no Moribito .. Best anime series for the season.. currently, Only rivalled by Claymore in terms of storyline.. SnM still wins for epicness ^0^

Itaiiyo KiNA-san!!! >< sorry about that then, she just doesnt look...like a woman to me lol; well overall its still a great banner, good job KiNA ^^

@saphyre- don't worry, I'm pretty sure you can pull it off, gl

[saphyre]

Version 2 of my 3rd banner...



Looks abit more 'skyish' that my first one.
Once again, feedbacks and such welcome.

[Deathkillz]

oh very nice overall an improvement with one nit pick...make your lens flare brighter! right now it just looks a bit dull ^.^

[saphyre]

Hmm... Any better? o.O

Also changed the type of flare, thought it looked abit better...
Here's version 3:

[Deathkillz]

looks good but i think the other flare was better...main reason is because you can see a "circle of light" which is what happens when you look at the sun...perhaps if you combine this version with the old flare type :3

[Jinto]

In my dusk and dawn banners here you can see a sun glare effect. I wanted to provide this sun glare effect for all users.. maybe someone finds it useful. So here it goes (works best with dawn and dusk images, because I rendered it on dark blue background, and the semi transparent rays appear to fade into dark blue thus dawn and dusk images work better with it).


http://www.digital-soul-drift.de/sun_glare_effect.png
(approx. 800Kbyte; 1024x1024)

edit:

@Saphyre,

Nothing to criticize on your 4th version. Looks really nice, fluffily and airy

[saphyre]

@Jinto Lin - Ooh looking at that gave me some ideas, maybe I should try making a dawn/dusk one. Thanks for that.

As for my banner, Version 4 . Probably won't be editing this one anymore since I really like the look of it atm, but who knows!

[kira_lacusXX]

no inspiration at all to make more banners for me ><
I have some images in mind, but it will take so much wooooork (I'm lazy) and skill (I don't have not much)! Need to vector and colour and stuff.. sigh..

@saphyre, very cute and fluffy banner ^^b good job!


I like the image a lot (: the text is very ordinary and plain to me though :/ and the postition of it just doesn't work :/ center it, enlarge it, do something to make it stand out more

[Daniel E.]

Meh, I still need to fix my banners; I have been feeling really lazy this last couple of days and it may take me a day or two to finally get around to do something.

Good thing there's still more than a week left.

[kira_lacusXX]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Meh, I still need to fix my banners; I have been feeling really lazy this last couple of days and it may take me a day or two to finally get around to do something.

glad I'm not the only one (: I'm not gonna do anything more to my first one. I didn't get any feedback so I'm guessing it's good enough? ah well, less work for me (:

all the banners are lookin' pretty good!

[Jinto]

You mean this one? Personally I think it is very nice. The only thing I would work over is the blue of the sky (partly color blending with a blue of the gradient?).

But then again I am not known for having a good taste with colors