Photoshop CS3 Question

[Solan]

Hey I was wondering how you make your characters look less jagged and rough while using Photoshop.

 

[Flag]

It comes with the territory when playing FFXI I'm afraid. There's only a way to reduce it (And it involves graphics card settings), but not completely remove it. FFXI isn't very capable of true anti-aliasing due to "PS2 limitations"

 

[RaidrX]

Fan works section?

And what do you mean? I'm assuming you mean around the edges when you cut out your character. If you are, you can use a feather on the tool you use usually or turn up/down the strength of the cut. But like flag said it also has to do with the shitty models of FFXI.

 

[Solan]

Yeah sorry I thought I was in Fan Works at the time lol.

What I meant is, is their any way I can use PS to smooth the edges using filters or what ever.

 

[Flag]

There really isn't, texture quality is part of the equation, but it mostly lies in game rendering tbh.

 

[RaidrX]

After you get your render, you can take a marquee tool (the lasso) and go around and cut it down with a feather applied (option at the top) and that will smooth it out, or use a soft brush and erase very little on the edges as well, should soften it up a bit.

 

[Solan]

Ah I see, what about that Gaussion blur using it as a back layer infront of the real one

 

[Seteyu]

If you're making sigs, and using either the model viewer, or AltanaView, one of the things that can help with this is taking a screen capture of the pose you want zoomed in as far as you can (how far zoomed in depends on your screen's res), taking it into Photoshop, and proportionally shrinking the image down to the size you want. Then apply any blurs, w/e. In fact, all I really needed to do to mine was to add an inner and outer glow to soften the edges/blend it into the background. How far you can take your final result depends wholly on the initial image.

If someone's got a better way, I'm all ears.

Cheers.

 

[Isollde]

There are alot of things you can do to make the character lines softer. Guassian Blur is what i use prodominantly because it softens the character. Can also use Overlay, Soft Light Settings ont eh second layer. I have some pretty good tutorial lying around about this lemme see if I can find em.

 

[Tristam Green]

Ah I see, what about that Gaussion blur using it as a back layer infront of the real one

on my desktops i've started making, i do this (thanks sabia for telling me!)

copy the character as a layer, twice.

make the lowest layer black and white by lowering its saturation to zero.

apply a gaussian blur of about 1.5% to this layer.

on the second layer, set it to "overlay" or "multiply" and play with the color settings. -- if you set to multiply I believe you have to fiddle with opacity also.

make the topmost layer invisible in case you mess up and have to start over again.

 

[Solan]

Ah I see, what do you mean by making the lowest layer black and white?

 

[Kelyon]

There are alot of things you can do to make the character lines softer. Guassian Blur is what i use prodominantly because it softens the character. Can also use Overlay, Soft Light Settings ont eh second layer. I have some pretty good tutorial lying around about this lemme see if I can find em.

Works wonders. Also, try and use a model viewer.

 

[iaredrew]

Soft brush, large diameter eraser around the edges. Don't go for a small diameter or you'll probably end up cutting too deep.

If coming out of a SS and separating the character from the background, learn to use the pen tool. Free-form an edge around your character, select, inverse, delete background, then clean up the dirt left behind.

Sharpen filter is your friend for ffxi graphics.

EDIT: I was having great success with blur tool on the edges today too, also took out some rough lines on the center of the image too. Blur the iffy spots, resharpen the whole image ftw.

 

[Misi]

There are many options, If your using a SS from the game and need to cut the character out its a lot more work. for that you can either use the magnetic tool option, but that usually results in either cutting off a limb or detail by accident unless your really careful and the natural lighting was good, if its too dark, there are alot of factors that might be too much trouble. sometimes its just easier to paste the photo in a blank document and have you back ground layer set to transparent and then cut it out with the eraser tool. time consuming, but it ends up being the way you want it if you cant do it from another method listed below.

You can also cut it out using the mask tool, and set the edges to feather a little. that can work well if your going to the feathery signatures. if your not good at precise editing its very helpful.

If you are using model viewer, ( easiest option for fast signature bases) set your background in the viewer to an obnoxious color (or a grey if your careful) as if you were blue screening for a movie. once you go into your editor, if it has the magic wand tool use that and have the tolerance option low (10 and below should be more then enough) once its all outlined go to select, then inverse, then go to file and hit copy and paste it into a new empty document. character should be cut out all nice and clean for you to use. If for some reason there are still jagged edges you could always use the heal tool and just blur it a bit without messing up the main image. newer versions of photoshop actually have a refine edge option, but I don't know how well it works probably only as good as the base image itself.

you can also do that magic wand tool trick then go to contract in one of the top menus (sorry don't have photoshop in front of me for exact location) and tell it to go in a pixel or 2 and then go to select, then inverse and then gaussian blur those edges too. making duplicate layers and using blending modes and screens work gewd too. Mess about with the options they have, its the best way to learn those programs. Just make sure to back up the images as you go, layers are your friend. if using photoshop always save the layers unflattened as a .psd ('-')d

 

[Solan]

Alright thanks for the tips I think I'll try them out tomorrow.

I'll post my progress as I go or if I need help ^^