Unusual glitters, St. Pat snags

[Susan C.]

Hi all-haven't been here in a while. Too much snow here lately--tired of shoveling! Found this unusual glitter site--love the camoflage ones. I've been working on shadowing images and inserting glitter into selected places according to Linda's tutes. Note my sig below; but not happy with the white lines on the right. I hope to put all the siggies I can make into one place on the Web and then make some for others when I get it down pat.
http://chaneytuts.topcities.com/myglitters.html

[Linda]

Hi all-haven't been here in a while. Too much snow here lately--tired of shoveling! Found this unusual glitter site--love the camoflage ones. I've been working on shadowing images and inserting glitter into selected places according to Linda's tutes. Note my sig below; but not happy with the white lines on the right. I hope to put all the siggies I can make into one place on the Web and then make some for others when I get it down pat.
http://chaneytuts.topcities.com/myglitters.html

Susan, you're doing an A+ job! :jig: And I'm glad to see you back! Thanks for the site. I have another glittering tutorial that will be posted soon and I think you will like it. :wink: As for the white lines, they look fine to me. But if you really want them off, you can try a few things. I like to airbrush them off. I open it up in AS and then export it to PSP. Then I airbrush around the image with "white". When I'm finished I update back to AS. Then choose to replace the "white" with a transparency and "poof" the white lines are gone. Then you can start working with your image on your shadowing, etc. There are a few others ways too. :wink: If you have the original bear - could you post it? I'd like to try something. :wink:

[motorlady]

Thank you Susan, I especially love the kitty :)

[Susan C.]

Susan, you're doing an A+ job! :jig: And I'm glad to see you back! Thanks for the site. I have another glittering tutorial that will be posted soon and I think you will like it. :wink: As for the white lines, they look fine to me. But if you really want them off, you can try a few things. I like to airbrush them off. I open it up in AS and then export it to PSP. Then I airbrush around the image with "white". When I'm finished I update back to AS. Then choose to replace the "white" with a transparency and "poof" the white lines are gone. Then you can start working with your image on your shadowing, etc. There are a few others ways too. :wink: If you have the original bear - could you post it? I'd like to try something. :wink:

Thanks Linda-making my bear sig was kind of hard. Had to crop bear out of alphabet, crop each letter out, put the letters together, put the teddy on top of them, etc. Then shadow the image and text at Image Magick Studio. Then crop out teddie's tam and put glitter onto it--okay you know. I thought maybe I didn't optimize teddy before I saved him in AS, why the white lines? I still don't have PSP, so all is done with AS and Image Magick. I think Picture It! Publishing has an airbrush feature, so I could try that. Also, I started by making background of bear transparent. I do it by making a new animation window, dragging in teddy, then flood filling background to the canvas color. Don't know if this is the best way. Here's original teddy after cropping from alpha. Then a letter from original alpha. P.S.- the white on edge of teddy showed up after putting him on top of the letters, I think.

[Susan C.]

Thank you Susan, I especially love the kitty :)
You're welcome--I have other St. Pat's Day images, but not any more good cat ones.

[Linda]

Thanks Linda-making my bear sig was kind of hard. Had to crop bear out of alphabet, crop each letter out, put the letters together, put the teddy on top of them, etc. Then shadow the image and text at Image Magick Studio. Then crop out teddie's tam and put glitter onto it--okay you know. I thought maybe I didn't optimize teddy before I saved him in AS, why the white lines? I still don't have PSP, so all is done with AS and Image Magick. I think Picture It! Publishing has an airbrush feature, so I could try that. Also, I started by making background of bear transparent. I do it by making a new animation window, dragging in teddy, then flood filling background to the canvas color. Don't know if this is the best way. Here's original teddy after cropping from alpha. Then a letter from original alpha. P.S.- the white on edge of teddy showed up after putting him on top of the letters, I think.

Gosh, if you'd get PSP - we could really play! :wink: Okay, the first thing I'd try is not putting it on a transparency to begin with. I would work the whole thing through and then put on the transparency. Or you could just leave it on a white background. If you want it on a colored background, start with a "new" image, but click to make it the color that you want. Try a white first and when you finish - then make it transparent if you want it to be transparent. Or you could start with a black if the other doesn't work well enough. Another thing to try is to put the image on a "weird" color that is not anywhere in your image. That way when you click to change the color of the background - "only" the weird color will go away leaving your image in tact. Also when you are saving the image - check out your different options when you click on "customize".

I'm going to play around with the image and show you some different things that I did to see which one you like best. But, gotta eat some lunch first! :jig:

[tidyup]

Great new glitters Susan!! I picked up a few I sure could use.
Thanks for finding and sharing :linda:

[Linda]

Susan, do you happen to have the image before you cropped him from the alpha? I checked in both the images and there are white lines around all of them. If you can post the image before you cropped, I might can tell a way to get around the white lines. :wink:

[Susan C.]

Linda, the second image was before I cropped--but I see I must have made it transparent. This one shouldn't be, I hope. If it is, then it came that way. I tried with a white background, but then wouldn't shadow correctly at Image Magick. Also, when the name is a white background and the teddy, can't put one over the other correctly--unless then make transparent? I'm confusing myself and probably you as well! P.S. Well, it looks the same to me. Oh, another thing--I had to make background transparent when I cropped out bear, to get rid of the leftovers on the right side. The eraser bit never seems to get rid of everything. Thank you--

[Linda]

Linda, the second image was before I cropped--but I see I must have made it transparent. This one shouldn't be, I hope. If it is, then it came that way. I tried with a white background, but then wouldn't shadow correctly at Image Magick. Also, when the name is a white background and the teddy, can't put one over the other correctly--unless then make transparent? I'm confusing myself and probably you as well! P.S. Well, it looks the same to me. Oh, another thing--I had to make background transparent when I cropped out bear, to get rid of the leftovers on the right side. The eraser bit never seems to get rid of everything. Thank you--

Yep, the white is still there. :hammer: If you are erasing, make sure that you get the eraser "big" - maybe like 24. Also sometimes when you save your image - you will see that some white streaks appear. Just erase it again and resave it and rename it. I've done that before about 3 times before I got everything off that I wanted. But, here's a better trick! I like to crop off as much of the stuff as I don't want - then "paint" the other stuff off. Again using the brush with a "big" number. For instance you could put the images on a white background - crop - then paint out with white what is in the picture that you don't want. Then you can use your images with the white background or transparify the background getting rid of the white.

Another neat trick is to put your image on a color that is not in your picture. Maybe like a lavender for the bear image. Then magnify it about 3 times. Now with the eraser set to about 4 - move around the image. Remember to let go of the mouse every few steps. That way if you accidentally take off too much, just click the back arrow and "only" the last step will disappear and you won't have to start from scratch. Also when you need to reclick the mouse, move your cursor away from the edge of your image or else it might go down too far. Then easily creep up on the edge. When you have it all off - go back to the regular size and then change the color. Then take off the lavender background and change to transparent. :jig:

And these are all things you can do using Animation Shop only! :wink:

[Linda]

Here's the bear using the method in the bottom paragraph up above. I did only the right side where you could see the difference. And when I finished and saved it with a transparent background - I reopened it and put it on a black background where you could "really" compare the right side to the left. Another thing, when you're erasing around the image - sometimes you'll think that you took off too much - but remember, your image is magnified 3 times. When you go back to the regular size, you'll be surprised how nice it looks then! You actually want to "shave" a little into your image colors to make sure you're getting off all the little white places! :jig:

Also remember if you run into some tight places, just change the eraser size to a 2 or something like that and when you get out of the tight place, go back to the 4. :wink:

[Susan C.]

Here's the bear using the method in the bottom paragraph up above. I did only the right side where you could see the difference. And when I finished and saved it with a transparent background - I reopened it and put it on a black background where you could "really" compare the right side to the left. Another thing, when you're erasing around the image - sometimes you'll think that you took off too much - but remember, your image is magnified 3 times. When you go back to the regular size, you'll be surprised how nice it looks then! You actually want to "shave" a little into your image colors to make sure you're getting off all the little white places! :jig:

Also remember if you run into some tight places, just change the eraser size to a 2 or something like that and when you get out of the tight place, go back to the 4. :wink:

Linda--my new sig below--eeks! Now there's white around the letters. I will get it right; I will I will I will. Thank you so much for your help.

[Linda]

Linda--my new sig below--eeks! Now there's white around the letters. I will get it right; I will I will I will. Thank you so much for your help.

LOL! Susan, I promise - I would have thought that you outlined the letters like that on purpose! :wink: You're doing great! Let me know if you need any help!

Another thing - you could always pull each image before you use it onto a dark background in AS, just to see if those white lines are there. If they are, just do like I did with the bear and "poof" the lines will disappear! Then they will be all cleaned to work with! :wink:

[Susan C.]

LOL! Susan, I promise - I would have thought that you outlined the letters like that on purpose! :wink: You're doing great! Let me know if you need any help!

Another thing - you could always pull each image before you use it onto a dark background in AS, just to see if those white lines are there. If they are, just do like I did with the bear and "poof" the lines will disappear! Then they will be all cleaned to work with! :wink:

Thanks, Linda. My computer freaked out on me this morning; thought I killed the hard drive. Checked power sources, surge protector, etc. Hah, I've burned out two surge protectors so far--never a good idea to plug your hair dryer into them. Turns out it was the switch on back of computer. Now how did that happen?