Pros

Brush selection toolbar - Much simpler to use than Photoshop's scroll menu. Also the edit brush option is very easy to use. There are also some cool default brushes like the clover.

Layer option - There are a lot of layer options in the toolbar including an easy way to create a layer mask

Extra tools - Tools like the rotate tool, shear tool etc make it easier to manipulate whole layers.

Cons

Brush Options: Although the option to create your own brushes is there a lot of the defaults I use in Photoshop are missing. Most of the basics are there at least.

Text Input - A major pain in the butt, when trying to move your text, resize the box etc. The default text box is very finicky and if you select the wrong spot you often go back to the actual text edit. Did I mention that the text edit is in another mini-window that pops up? It can be very frustrating when you are simply trying to resize the box.

Lack of tabbed images - I find it more efficient when cutting out parts of an image and moving them to use tabbed images like in Photoshop. GIMP unfortunately doesn't offer that.

Overall I found GIMP 2.6 to be a fairly decent program for minor image creation. I haven't delved to much into photo editing yet so we shall see the final results.

However, this is a tutorial on creating Pop - Art with Gimp.  The steps are not complicated, but they must be done in order or the photo will not turn out correctly. 

1. First, and foremost you must download Gimp.  This is a simple task, just can be time consuming depending on your internet connection and how proficient your computer is.  I downloaded the program in a few minutes.

• To dowload Gimp, go to www.gimp.org
• On the first page you will see the download button, click on that and you will be directed to another page
• On the second page there will be a link that says download gimp 2.6, click on that and a box will come up
• On some computurs it will block the downloading box, if so go to where the blocking bar is and right click and click on download
• Save gimp to your computer
• Now you are downloaded, just click on open and wait for it to load.  The first time it will take a few minutes to open because it is loading all the files and add-ons to it

         - If you need any help with this, feel free to ask me about it.

    2. The next step would be to open up the file you want to use.  This is done by going to file and then open.

    3. Once you have the photo you want to use, you will want to duplicate the layer twice.

• If you cannot see the layers box, go to windows, and then dockable dialogs and you will see layers there.  
• Once you are in the layers dialog, you will find the duplicate button on the bottom by the down arrow
• If you hover your mouse over the button it will say duplicate
• Remember to click it twice

    4. You will want to make both of the duplicated layers visible, and the original copy (which will be at the bottom of the list) invisble. 

   -You can do this by clicking on the eye in the box in front of the layer.

   5. Now you must invert and blur the picture.

• Make sure you are on the top layer (which will say background copy # 1)
• right click on the photo
• Go to colors
• click on Invert
• Stay on the top layer
• Right click again
• Go to filters
• Then to blur
• and then click on gaussian blur
• Set the horizontal and vertical blur radius to 7.0

    6. Set the layer mode for the top layer to dodge.

      - You change this on the layers dialog, just make sure you are on the top layer still.

     7. Next, merge the duplicated layers together. 

       - To do this, press ctrl + m, then in the box that comes up click on merge

       - Now you will see only two layers instead of three, make sure the bottom one is still invisible

     8. Now you make the black and white image that you will color over.

• Right click on the image
• Go to colors, then threshold
• move the up arrow to the right until it has the amount of detail you want, then press OK

     9. This step will be to create a new layer.

• Go to the layout dialog box and click on the new layer button
• Title it matte color
• Make sure it is set on transparency
• Also, make sure the mode on this new layer is set to multiply

     10.  Now you will start to paint on the matte color layer

• When you are painting the color on, make sure you are always working on the matte color layer or it won't work right
• First pick a color you would think would be good for a skin tone and just paint over the parts of the skin
• Pick other colors for the main objects and paint over them
• Then pick one color for the background of the picture and color it
• Fix any coloring mistakes while you are on this step
• To make the brush size smaller put the scale on a smaller number

        - If you make the matte layer invisible after coloring it you can see what you colored without the detail, but make sure to put it back to visible after looking.

        11. Now that you are finished with coloring the whole picture the way you want to, you want to merge the top two layers just like you did earlier by pressing ctrl + m

        12. The next step has three things involved with it -

• Make the bottom layer visible
• Drag the bottom layer to the top by clicking and dragging it
• Set the new top layer to overlay

       13.  The final step would be to give it the official pop - art look, which can be done in two ways

•   # 1 Newprint
•  Right click on the picture
• Go to filter
• Then to distorts
• Finally click on newsprint
• Set the cell size to around 15, whichever looks best in the preview box

         OR

• #2 Mosaic
• Instead of clicking on newsprint in the distorts list, go to mosaic
• Set the tile size to a number that looks good in the preview box

Note: You don't have to necessarily use overlay when you make the invsible layer visible, you can look at the other modes until you find one you like. 

        14. More accurately, the final step would be to save your work that you have created.

• Make sure you put  .jpg at the end
• If it asks you to export it, do just that
• and put the opacity to 100 in the final saving window

Hope you give this a try and have some fun with your photographs!  If you do decide to give it a try, let me see your finished product :)

To see some of my  Pop - Art work visit these links:

Hue Version

Overlay Version

cPop - Art # 1

There are so many features in Microsoft Word 2007 that it would take forever to list them all, but I’ll go through 10 of them that you probably didn’t know about.

Cover Page Feature

Submitting a school project or assignment, but realize that you forgot to include a cover page? No problem! On the Insert tab, click “Cover Page” to insert a fully-formatted cover page with a title, author, date and other information.

Bookmark Feature

If you have a 10+ page document and don’t want your readers using CTRL+F to try and find what they’re looking for, bookmarks are the way to go. On the Insert tab, click on “Bookmark.” You can then assign a name to a specific part of your document. After that, create a Hyperlink to jump directly to a bookmarked location.

Hyperlink Feature

Speaking of Hyperlinks, Microsoft Word automatically parses most URLs, but for those it doesn’t, you can do so by clicking the Insert tab and selecting the “Hyperlink” button. This lets you create a link to a Web page, a picture, an email address, or another program.

SmartArt Feature

Need a Flow Chart? No problem! On the Insert tab, click on the “SmartArt” button. SmartArt graphics allow you to visually communicate information. They range from graphical lists and process diagrams to more complicated things such as Venn diagrams and organizational charts.

ClipArt Feature

Once again on the Insert tab, the “ClipArt” button lets you insert drawings, movies, sounds or even stock photography into your document to illustrate a specific concept.

Balloons Feature

When reviewing a document for spelling and grammatical errors, the Balloons feature comes in handy. On the Review tab, click “Balloons” to activate the feature. When you make a revision to the document, it will show as a balloon, either in the margins of the document or within the document itself.

DropCap Feature

Ever wonder how they make it in books and novels so that the first letter of the paragraph is larger than the rest of the letters?  Well, the DropCap feature makes this a breeze to do. Sure, you can simply enlarge the font size of the first letter in your paragraph, but this way it’s much more fun. Just go to the Insert tab and click on the “Drop Cap” button.

WordArt Feature

With this nifty feature, you can insert decorative text into your document. Just click on the “WordArt” button in the Insert tab.

Header and Footer Feature

Also located on the Insert tab are the “Header” and “Footer” buttons. With these, you can force specific text to appear on the top and bottom of your pages when you print them out. This is really useful for titles and page numbers.

Watermark Feature

And we’ve saved the best feature for last! Placing a water mark on your page ensures that someone else cannot just steal your work, photocopy it, and claim it as their own. For instance, you can place your name as your Watermark, and it will be displayed in lighter font behind the text in your document. You can also select a picture to use as a Watermark. On the Page Layout tab, click “Watermark” and then click “Custom Watermark.”

So, how do you learn to create logos that are similar and just as memorable as the ones I just mentioned? Well, one of the best ways is to look at what others have created in the past. As long as you don't infringe on any copyright laws there is no harm in looking. I will get to more on that later, but first let me go over the steps I use to create a logo.

First, I meet with the company owner or executives and I discuss with them what it is they're looking for in a logo. This may or not be useful at times. Sometimes, in fact, it can just lead to several useless arguments over details that are really not important at all as it turns out so make sure that you, as the designer, lead the conversation from going astray. In other words, if the company insists that the initials F.B.I. should be included somewhere in the detective agency's logo, you might want to urge them to consider some common sense about the misunderstandings this may create. As designers, the reality of the job is that from time to time we are forced to create things we don't like to please the customer, but one way to get around this is to create several of your version of the design mixed in with theirs and nine times out of then, the customer will forget all about their idea once they see yours. However, when meeting with a company regarding logo design, you should be able to learn a great deal about the company's mission and their goals for the future in this meeting. In an essence, what are the key symbols that might represent that company? Get creative here and try to think of anything that might work. Symbolism is very important in logos.

Next, start making some thumbnail sketches. I usually create about 50-60 different sketches by pencil on tracing paper and narrow it down to about 10 or 15. If you are not very artistic, you can also create these on the computer in an application such as Adobe Illustrator™ with a drawing tablet. But, you don't have to be Picasso to do these sketches, they're just rough outlines and should not be considered final pieces of artwork. If you are not very familiar with typography there are several good books on this to use as reference. It's important to keep the typography in mind when starting out. Sometimes the type alone makes the logo. For example; you might not want to have a thin font such as Times for a company called fat burgers. But, then again, sometimes it can work to be different, it just depends on whether or not it works. Remember, the goal is to stand out in a crowd.

As I mentioned earlier, you can learn a lot from the logos other designers have already created. Once you narrow down the thumbnail sketches, try obtaining a copy of a logo book such as The Big Book of Logos. There have been several different volumes of these wonderful books published in recent years and I personally own and use a few of them often. You should be able to obtain a copy of this or similar books on amazon.com or in your local public library. Your local bookstore's art section should have several good logo books as well. I find these and similar books with logos indispensable because they are a great reference to what has worked and will continue to work with logos. Some of the logos will be familiar to you, some of them not. You may or not like all of them, but they are a great place to start. Find a logo or logos that are similar to your client's business and see what the designers came up with. Does it work? Does it stand-out? What is so great about it? Can you create something similar? If you can borrow some elements of the logo without breaking any copyright laws, such as a similar typeface or a color, do it. You can also learn a lot from the style of the logo. It's important to note that this should not be considered cheating in any way and should be a good tool for getting the creative juices flowing.

Try not to over complicate things, keep it simple. The logo should be readable and recognizable. Remember that some folks may have trouble seeing small letters or light colors, for example. Avoid things like cheesy clipart, star-bursts and type effects such as shadows unless they're used in moderation. These elements also reek of inexperience. Generally, I try to not use any type effects unless it's unavoidable. Take a look at the design books mentioned earlier and you will see what I mean. If you can pull it off and it looks good that fine, but it's just a general rule. Rules are made to be broken, however, and those that do it and pull it off make the best designers. The last thing you want to do is copy the latest style just because you think that's what's necessary. Go with your gut and create something unique, your own style. Also, avoid intricate details in a logo and be bold with the lines. Your logo should stand out on a quarter-sized sticker as well as a billboard.

Next, take your final sketches and scan them into the computer. Personally, I prefer to use Adobe Photoshop™ to do the initial scan resizing and formatting, but ultimately I will put the sketches in Adobe Illustrator™ as a background layer at an opacity of about 30%. Then I will trace over the lines using the pen tool and create my type as similar to the sketch as possible. Some designers I know prefer to start out in Illustrator first and that's fine if you can work that way. You should work in the way that makes you comfortable as long as you come out with the same results.

Once I have the thumbnails in the computer and have made them into vector graphics I am then free to mess around with the various elements of the logo. I like to play around with several different colors for the type at this point. I also like to move various elements of the design around and compare. For example, if the logo contains a triangle on the right of the two lines of type to begin with, I will copy the type and move the triangle to the left, below, above or wherever and then look at different versions side-by-side. Tweak the logo, change the fonts, try different things. Sometimes by shaking it up a little bit you may come up with something brilliant. You'll know when you've found something that works.

Now that you have a good idea where you're headed with the logo and should be close to finishing, get some second opinions. Some claim that you should never look to your spouse for opinions in this matter, but I disagree. Your client is usually not a designer, so if you impress your spouse, you should impress your client too. Take your five best logos and show them to someone in the office, maybe your spouse or a friend, or a relative. Find someone who will be brutally honest. If the person has suggestions, write them down. You may not think it relative at the time, but it never hurts to make minor changes for the sake of seeing how they look. There have been many times when I thought I had the perfect logo and I showed to my wife who made a minor suggestion that just really made it even better. It's the little changes at the end that can make the difference. Use your own judgment as to whether or not the comments are important.

Now, once you think you're finished and ready to meet with your client, open the logo book and compare your final logos to the ones in the book. Do they compare? Are they just as unique? Are they memorable? Can you see your logo in that book? When you go to the client never bring just one logo. This is a mistake. You want to show them at least 3 logos to choose from because you want to give them something to compare. I also create all my logos in full color, 2 color and black and white in large, medium and small sizes.

As time goes on, you will learn to create unique logos with greater ease, but there are always those challenging cases when nothing seems to work. Always remember your basics. Try and stay on top of the latest styles and new fonts. There are several great websites that show logos as well. Once you create several memorable and outstanding logos you will be sought after for your work as a great logo designer. Word of mouth will travel fast when business owners ask around about who designed what logo and your phone will be ringing off the hook before you know it.

Cover Flow is a feature that lets you browse the cover art (of the albums) of your iTunes library. You can flip through your albums by dragging the horizontal scroll bar with your mouse, spinning the mouse wheel up/down, or even your arrow keys. Heck, Cover Flow even has a full screen option; this option makes your computer screen look like a sophisticated audio player.

Search

Although I am sure most people have noticed the search box, some might not know its full capability. The search box is capable of locating results in your library for the songs name, artist, genre, album, and even the equalizer setting. And for those of you who are too lazy to click onto the search box, all you have to do is start typing the name of the song you are looking for, and iTunes will automatically highlight the closest result.

Visualizer

Unless you have looked fairly deep, you may not have noticed that iTunes has a Visualization feature. For those of you who like to look at visualizations, when you've selected your song, press Ctrl + T, and it will switch to the visualization screen. Press Ctrl + T again to exit to the normal display.

Cover Art

I am sure everyone knows that you can add cover art to albums in iTunes, however, it is a fairly long process that can take a lot of your time if you don't use the convenient shortcut that Apple has provided. In the bottom left corner of iTunes, there is a box that you can simple drag images onto, and, just that like, that image is now set as the cover art for that album.

Mini-Player

Like all media players, iTunes has a mini player. This nice thing about this one is that it is very "mini". Most mini players of media players are still big enough, defeating the purpose of a mini player. The amazing thing about the iTunes mini player is that it is very small, meaning you can have it in a top corner of your screen, control it, and not have to worry about it getting in the way of your other programs. So if you are too lazy to switch to your iTunes window to change your song, then the mini player is for you.

Song Options

If you've ever wanted to make a quiet song louder (or vice versa), or wanted to cut out a slow ending or into, song options are something you will want to check out. Highlight the song you wish to edit, then press Ctrl + I, and click the Options tab. Here you can increase/decrease the volume, set a starting/ending point, and much more features solely for the selected song. Highlight multiple songs, and press Ctrl + I, to set options for all the selected songs; this beats doing this to each song individually if you are looking to edit multiple songs with the exact same changes.

Lyrics

For those of you with iPod touch's and iPhones, you will really like this feature. To access this feature, press Ctrl + I, then press the Lyrics tab. The lyrics feature is a simple feature that lets you write or paste lyrics for a song. Then, when listening to the music on your touch or iPhone, you can tap the screen and it will display the lyrics on the screen, then all you need to do is scroll down and read it. For those of you who are unable to sync notes from your computer, you can paste any text you wish into the lyrics section of a song, and you can put on a song, and then read through whatever text you added.

Locate File

If you're ever listening to a song, and want to find the audio file on your computer, for whatever reason, it is as simple as pressing Ctrl + R. This will immediately open up the folder containing the song, which is a faster method than looking for file manually, or even resorting to trial and error.

Preferences

Known in most programs as "options", preferences are something to check out for sure. To access preferences, press Ctrl + , (comma). Through preferences you can edit playback options, such as cross fade and shuffle, and simple preferences such as parental control and syncing.

Diagnostics

Diagnostics is a feature that checks important things such as your CD/DVD drive, network, connection, and iPod/iPhone connections. To access this feature, go to Help - Run Diagnostics. This feature takes literally less than a minute, and lets you know if all your drivers, etc., are working. This is good for anyone who is experiencing problems, as it can solve it fast and efficiently.

And there you have it, 10 iTunes features that you may have not been aware of. I hope this article has helped to improve your iTunes experience.

Design:

Before even starting to make something, you need to know what you're making. I have noticed that a lot of people who have showed me graphics they have made for Legacy are great at shading and drawing, but they lack good design. Design is very important.

You need to find your own “style” that you like to draw with. I have this sort of final fantasy/anime-ish style. When I first started out and didn't have my own “style” of graphics, what I often did before making something was search around the internet for pictures of stuff similar to what I was making to get ideas. http://www.deviantart.com is a great site I use a lot. I would take these ideas, merge them together with my own ideas, and sketch something on paper. I would then use my sketch to make graphics. I used to do this a lot. Now that I've better established my own style of graphics, I can sketch stuff on paper straight out of my head and come up with some really crazy stuff. Though I still check out artwork on the internet from time to time to find even more ideas that I've never thought of.

When I'm designing something that I want to use for higher levels, I use a lot of detail. Simple things can look really good, but generally more detail = cooler. To get more detail, I don't just draw in random lines everywhere. I add in extra things like belts, buttons, pockets, spikes, chains, cuffs, shoulder pads, bandages, etc. Just watch out, because too much detail on something too small doesn't work out too well (I've noticed I kinda overdid it on some of the avatar stuff).

Ok, so onto the tutorial:

I will be running through the process of making a piece of clothing for Legacy. I'm assuming you know the basics of Paint and Paint Shop Pro. I start in paint, because it is easier to work with for pixel art.

So I have my basic template opened up in Paint, all ready to go. Notice how the background is an extremely bright lime green. I need to use a background color that won't be used in my clothing, because later I'll make that color transparent. I don't want stuff in my clothing becoming transparent. Purple is another good choice.

I start by outlining the shape of what I'm making. I use mostly the straight line tool, and I stay zoomed in all the way. If something is symmetrical, I'll draw only one side, then select it, cut it, and flip it to save time.

I then fill it in, and add more details. I use solid, 1 pixel-thick black outlines on everything.

Then I color it in. Finding a good color scheme is very, very important. I can't stress this enough. The colors you choose can be the difference between something really cool and something really ugly. Avoid using only the default colors in paint. They are too bright and will make stuff look tacky. Use colors that “blend” together. Even though it's a very basic example, look at what I have above. The white and the blue look nice together. Nothing clashes. Don't try to use a different color for each detail on your clothing, or your character will be a walking rainbow.

Notice the shade of blue I use. I like to tone the color down a bit, so it's not such a bright blue. Instead it's a nice, faded blue. It looks much better than the bright ugly blue in the picture below, don't you think?

Ok, so now that I've done all that I can in paint, I copy and paste my image into Paint Shop Pro.

I use the magic wand tool to select the first coloured area I want to shade. I use the dropper and right click the color, then left click it. I then have that color in both of my colour slots. I make one slot slightly darker, and one slightly lighter, as shown above.

Then I scribble on it with the two shades. The picture above shows the shading pattern I use most on clothing. The zigzagging done on the shirt gives it the effect of wrinkles. You basically just wing it and try to make it look right. Think of where light will hit the object (with g2 graphics, we assume the light comes from the left side), and just make sure you cover the whole area with shading. Even if your shading is a bit off, it's better than having your clothing looking flat.

So next I want to smudge the colors. I select the finger tool, and make sure my settings look something like this. Size and Opacity can be adjusted to what you want. Then I begin to smudge.

Smudging is done in sweeping motion. I wave the mouse back and forth in strokes and blend the colors in slowly and carefully. I don't want to blend too much or it'll have a really “soft” texture, I want to blend it just enough so it looks just right.

I then repeat this for the other parts that are different colors. The picture above shows the final product of a 5-second shading job (yay!). When I'm done, I erase the body so I have the shirt by itself. I save Legacy graphics as transparent .gifs. So I have to go to colors>decrease color depth>256colors, and press ok.

Then I make sure my secondary color is the same as my background, color as shown in picture above. I then go to colors>set palette transparency>Set palette transparency to current background color, and push ok.

I save as a .gif and I'm done.

For hair:

Everyone seems to have trouble with shading hair. I was actually really bad at it before too, until I got more practice. When I make hair, I make each strand of hair one by one, and keep them all outlined with black. I then color them in. When I start to shade them, I run a darker color down along the edges of the strands, and a lighter color running down the middle. Then I blend those colors a bit with smudge. After that, if I want to make it really shiny like the hair above, I'll run a white line across the hair horizontally, near the top. I then blend this line in just a bit.

The picture above shows the steps to shade one strand of hair. Just use this pattern on every strand.

How to make weapons:

Making a weapon is pretty much the same thing as making clothing, except you don't need to make the background transparent and stuff. You will have to worry about making it 3d, though. You'll need to draw in the top, sides, bottom; whatever is showing. The only other piece of advice I'd add for weapons is that you try to keep it pointed at a vertical, horizontal, or 45 degree angle. If you have some crazy 24.5 degree angle, it's hard to keep everything lined up straight with that angle, and your 3d perspective will get all screwed up.

For clothes with a negative layer:

Some clothing will have certain parts that go behind the character. For example, Sephiroth's hair shown above goes behind his back. This means I have to save a graphic of what will go in front of the body, and another graphic of what goes behind.

Now for some extra random tips:

-In PSP, while using tools like paintbrush or fill-bucket, you can hold down ctrl to switch to the dropper quickly, click something, then let go to revert back to the tool you had before. Handy. =)

-Patience is important. You won't draw every shape correctly on the first try. You'll probably end up doing this: zoom in, draw the shape, zoom out to see how it looks, see that it doesn't look right, zoom in, fix it, zoom out to see how it looks, see that it still doesn't look right, and fix it again. Get used to doing this over and over until everything is perfect.

-Shading requires balance. You can't shade too heavily or it looks odd, but if you shade too little it'll look flat. Everything needs to be shaded. Even something tiny like a bracelet should have shading. Just make the shading heavier so it shows.

Wow, this ended up being really long. I hope this helps you in some way, though. I can't really think of much else to say except: “Practice makes perfect”. And good luck with the arting. 

-dk16

People often cut pictures and put them on banners to make the banner look more detailed and more professional. The Spiderman banner that you see above is made by a program called photoshop. Usually people make the background first then put the picture on the banner and last but not least they put the text on the banner. That is how a good designer makes a banner.