Post by Angie on Jun 17, 2007 15:45:46 GMT -5
Okay, so this isn't your typical tutorial, but I've noticed that I often have trouble finding the right border for sigs and avatars when I decide they need them, so it usually takes a lot of experimentation and frustration to get a good idea. To make that easier for us all, here are some examples of borders you might find useful. They don't all fit the chosen avatar, so you'll have to trust me that you might want to try them anyway on something else.
*Tip: Most good borders at least start out with the pencil tool and the standard 1x1 pixel brush.
*Tip: One way to get a 1 pixel or 2 pixel border is to do a Select > All, Select > Shrink, Select > Invert, and Fill. I often layer these types of borders, as you may see later on.
*Tip: I almost always start out by making my borders only from black and white. If I want them to match the graphic's color scheme, I often change the layer mode, lower the layer opacity, fill one or two layers with colors I picked with the eyedropper tool, or a combination of all of these. Note that you may have to do an Alpha to Selection on one border layer and cut the shape of it out of another border layer if you do this because nesting avatars and messing with layer modes/opacities often causes problems (two layers might cancel each other out or something). Although, you sometimes accidentally create a cool effect when you forget to prevent overlapping.
*Tip: If you want to make a GIF with partially transparent borders, make sure you have the eraser set to "hard edge," and you make sure it saved properly (sometimes transparency can get screwed up in GIFs if you don't have 100% or 0% opacity).
*Tip: If you have a colorful image or uniformly colored image, I suggest doing a 1 pixel white border, set to grain merge. Then duplicate the layer, gaussian blur it 5-10, and lower the opacity. Then duplicate that layer and set it to value at 100% opacity.
Borders you can make easily from the preceding tips:
And I'm getting tired of making borders; I'll finish this in a little while. I'll get to the good borders later.
*Tip: Most good borders at least start out with the pencil tool and the standard 1x1 pixel brush.
*Tip: One way to get a 1 pixel or 2 pixel border is to do a Select > All, Select > Shrink, Select > Invert, and Fill. I often layer these types of borders, as you may see later on.
*Tip: I almost always start out by making my borders only from black and white. If I want them to match the graphic's color scheme, I often change the layer mode, lower the layer opacity, fill one or two layers with colors I picked with the eyedropper tool, or a combination of all of these. Note that you may have to do an Alpha to Selection on one border layer and cut the shape of it out of another border layer if you do this because nesting avatars and messing with layer modes/opacities often causes problems (two layers might cancel each other out or something). Although, you sometimes accidentally create a cool effect when you forget to prevent overlapping.
*Tip: If you want to make a GIF with partially transparent borders, make sure you have the eraser set to "hard edge," and you make sure it saved properly (sometimes transparency can get screwed up in GIFs if you don't have 100% or 0% opacity).
*Tip: If you have a colorful image or uniformly colored image, I suggest doing a 1 pixel white border, set to grain merge. Then duplicate the layer, gaussian blur it 5-10, and lower the opacity. Then duplicate that layer and set it to value at 100% opacity.
Borders you can make easily from the preceding tips:
And I'm getting tired of making borders; I'll finish this in a little while. I'll get to the good borders later.