tips for photoshop.

[Croyles]

Hey all! I would be really really really really really thankful if someone could give me some tips for making signatures. What I want to know is, what are some good ways of merging pictures side by side and making it look like one without using the Clone or Blur tool? Because both of those make the image look crappy. I've even tried putting the Clone tool down to liek size one to do each pixel seperately, but well you can guess what happened after that, I gave up because it took too long and it looked completely off. Any tips?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Shimeng]

Hmmm you could always try to use different layers, and then play around with the opacity for each of them.
Do you know how to do that?

Get the pop-up menu [Layers] - and if you don't have it in your window, get it from the top menu [Window]/[Layers]
After creating new layer for the both separet pictures try to get theire background colours to be a little matching ^^'
Either, recolour them by using the lasso tool an then just paint the background over, or use the tool [Image]/[Adjusmtents]/[Photo Filter] and colour them both so that they look a bit alike. ^^'
Or you could just put a spiffy colour on the background layer.

Either way, about opacity - use the pop-up menu [Layers]. In the topcorner of it there is a command called [Opacity] - that is the master opacity for the entire layer. Reducing it will make the background layer - or any layer underneith it - shine through. ^_^

Try that, for starters.
And if your not happy - we'll figure out another way. Oki? ^_^
Good luck!

[Croyles]

thank you Shimeng for you help.
I understand how the layers work, the problem with opacity is that it changes the opacity of the whole picture, rather than what I am trying to do which is around the edges, just so each picture follows the next one smoothly and so that the rest of the picture is normal.
I've also tried using the Eyedropper Tool and then use the Gradient Tool, which sadly can only choose up to 2 colours, if it could use a Gradient on each pixel from top to bottom of the two aligning pictures, then that tool would of actually been useful ^^

EDIT BY ME: I found a way to do it via the gradient tool. thanks for your help!

[Shimeng]

^_^
Good job!
I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help - but I'm glad you managed on your own.

Looking forward to seeing what ever it is that you're working on.

[Croyles]

NP! Thanks for your help anyway!

It will be a few days until I actually upload what I'm doing, since I've been pretty busy with college.

[Spiffing Cheese]

Use the feather tool (the rectangle with dotted lines).

[Croyles]

Use the feather tool (the rectangle with dotted lines).

I dont think there is any way to AVOID using that, lol. But i think you might have misunderstood what i meant. Anyway it doesnt matter now since i have figured it out. Thanks for the help anyway.

[Spiffing Cheese]

I dont think there is any way to AVOID using that, lol. But i think you might have misunderstood what i meant. Anyway it doesnt matter now since i have figured it out. Thanks for the help anyway.

Oh, okay. What I meant was use it with px 20 or something, they merge together good like that.

[Craig]

Is there such a thing as an opacity gradient? You know, like something along the lines of what the gradient tool does, but from visible to transparent, instead of different colours.

[Shimeng]

Yes there is - you just change the settings for the gradiant tool ^^'
But maybe that's not what you asked?
Hmmm...

[Croyles]

Yes you can set it to 'visible to transparent'. I have the newest version of photoshop (Photoshop CS2) so the settings might be at a different spot, but if you select the gradient tool, at the top left there should be what looks like a colour window (its not.), select it and a drop down menu will appear with lots of different icons with different colours. If you then hover your mouse over, I think the second one, it should be the transparency one.

And by the way, my signature (under this post) is the end product of what I was trying to create. It's a bit messy, but hey.

[Shimeng]

^^ That's what I was talking about. Glad I'm not making a totall fool out of myself... ^^' hehe... hrm...

Nice sig - I noticed it earlier ^_~
There's a little to much going on in it, for my taste, but it's still nice. Gotta LOVE Clouds expression in the last scene, ne?

Hmmm... could I make a request? Could you do a sig with just Sephiroth and Kadaj in it? With some beautiful shots at theire eyes to show the resemblens...
Pretty please? *puppy-eyes*

[Croyles]

Hehe ok, but it might take a few days as my life is a bit hectic somehow (I dont know how i spend so much time on EoFF) but I will make it. I'm guessing you don't want QUITE as many pictures in the sig. Oh and btw, im quite new to photoshop, so i dont know if I could get anything NEAR to the quality of YOUR signatures. But yeah, Ill try!

[Shimeng]

^^' hehe... don't say that you're making me blush.
I'm sure you'll do great! ^_^

[Craig]

Okay I got that, thanks.

Now is there anyway I could do that with an image? Like, instead of getting a colour to fade to transparent, get an image to do it? Or, get a whole layer to do it or something?