cweber54

Thanks a million welshblue, this is exactly what I needed. I'll get it done for sure. This is great, Thanks! I tried it and everything worked just great. I didn't get the adding of the white blur so if you can walk me through that step I would appreciate it. Everything else came back to me so great. Really appreciate your help. I'm getting the hang of it https://photos.app.goo.gl/KHyemg1sbJtKDM3v5

Thanks for the info. I'm having trouble with Photobucket right now, not able to upload pictures for some reason. I used a link from Google Photos and added it to my post. That seems to work fine so I'll stick with that. Still hope someone offers a few ideas regarding making a clean invert with the crystal ball. I have most figured out but I want to clean up the edges of the ball. Hoping for a little tutorial help. Thanks again for your reply!

Hello, I'm just returning to PDN. Glad to be back! I need some help finding a good way to invert the ball in my crystal ball photos. This was one attempt but I;m sure there is a better way. If anyone can recommend a tutorial that will help that would be just great! As you know with crystal ball photos the image is upside down. It looks OK that way and you can invert the whole photo but sometimes it works better to just invert the ball. Again, thanks for all and any advice. I'm looking forward to it! I didn't realize we can now attach a file to these posts! Hooray, this is awesome! The photobucket didn't seem to work anyway? The picture I was working on is attached. Looking forward to a great tutorial or plugin advice to get me reacquainted with PDN and to make my crystal ball pictures look much better! Can't wait, thanks so much! Update: I seem to be having trouble with Photobucket. I can't upload the crystal ball photo. I was advised to use photobucket so I took photo off this post. Sorry I can't seem to be able to show it but I still would appreciate help with a clean way to invert the crystal ball in photos. Thanks!! Try this Google Photo link and I think you'll be able to see the picture. https://photos.app.goo.gl/kz5bAxKs9gkMTzYw6

Thanks so much! Great to be back! Looking forward to trying some new things soon!

Great to be back and thanks!!! Great to be back and thanks so much!!

Hi Red ochre! Yes, I'm still playing jazz, doing close-up magic and juggling as well. Been playing my Didgeridoo too! Hahahaha, lots of fun in retirement from teaching. Lately I've been playing in two local musical productions, "Guys and Dolls" and "Wonderful Town" bot fun and a real challenge! Tomorrow I'll be going to New York City to see a former student of mine who is playing drums and leading the band on a new Broadway show called "Tappin' Thru Life" staring Maurice Hines. I'm really looking forward to it. As soon as the shows I'm playing are over I'm heading into some of the local elementary schools to demonstrate the Didgeridoo for several music classes then later in the spring I head all over NY state to judge All-State Jazz auditions. Keeping busy and enjoying it. Practicing my trumpet, my close-up card and coin magic and a little juggling everyday. Hope you're doing well and thanks so much for your help and inspiration here on pdn. I don't know how you do it but keep on doing it!! I appreciate all that you do, great to hear from you!

After a long time away I'm happy to be back on PDN. I have to do lots of relearning but I have at least started! Hooray! Yesterday I did some juggling practice and really was using my head! Whoops, dropped one, I should have stuck with just three! Any comments, advice is always appreciated. Thanks!

Having trouble installing Custom Brushes. Do I use the Custom Brushes Plugin by Brown? If so where and how do I install it? I tried pasting the dll file into the smudge brushes and the effects folder but it didn't seem to work. If anyone could give me a little help I would appreciate it. Thanks!

I really like this tutorial! Here I used a picture I took last summer of mushrooms in an outdoor market in Chinatown, New York City. It turned out to be perfect for this tutorial! I like the big chunks. Thanks again for this tutorial, it's a winner.

Great job Daniels! I like the shading and the stars are awesome. How do you get those great stars in your background. Check out my attempts (post #9) if you would and I'm always open to suggestions. Thanks, cweber54

Thanks MikeRobe. I'll have another go at it tomorrow. Looking forward to trying your ideas. I want to add colors for sure and I'll get the hang of the cloud thing. I'm sure it will be awesome and thanks again for the reply. Here's another take with some added colors and glow. I'm getting the idea and I'll keep at it. Thanks! Another take on your tutorial I tried today. I like to think I'm improving. Looks better every time! This time I went a little easier on all the colors and went without the object outline on the land and added some smudge when I first colored in the land. I was after a kind of sand bar/beaches effect. It's looking way less cartoon-like and lots more realistic then my first attempts. Next time I want to do more with the ocean and try to get some aqua blue lagoon effects going. It's been a fun learning process.

This is an excellent tutorial and I enjoyed learning from it. I had a little trouble with the clouds when I first made them. When I used dents the clouds extended beyond the planet and didn't curve around the planet. I also didn't go to overlay on the land and ocean variation layers because for some reason when I did it took the shading away? I was wondering if you could tell me what I might have done wrong. I want to keep at this tutorial and improve on what I've learned and get it better. Next time I want to add some tan (beach) outline to some of the land mass. I think that would make it look even better. Thanks for any input and suggestions and thanks for sharing this great tutorial.

I really learned a great deal from this tutorial. Enjoyed it very much. Here's something I had some fun making. I call it Planet Oatmeal because I used a picture I took of boiling oatmeal to make the planet template. Added some color and the rest was learning your method of adding the glows and the gradient. Awesome tutorial, I'll keep working on it. Thanks!

Thanks for the recommendation EER! I thought the 100% PDN Planet tut you suggested was excellent and it really helped me get a grip on the whole inner/outer glow idea as well as the gradient use. I've looked at a couple other tuts as well that are similar and helpful too. Thanks again and here is what I came up with today as I was working on the glow/gradients. Always appreciate your input.

Yes, Thanks, I kind of liked the crater rim effect as well. I was happy with that. Next I would like to try an Earthlike Planet with land mass and water etc. Any suggestions on a basic tut for hat? I looked at "Advancedish Planet" and it was super but I thought something a little more basic might be better for me right now to get the idea. I saw a youtube tut called something like "Professional Looking Planet" but it was so fast and so small I couldn't follow it very well. I'll keep looking and of course any suggestions are welcome!

I came up with this for my first try. Enjoyed your tut very much. It was a challenge for me but I did learn to use several plugins that I haven't experimented with very much before. The lens idea for the final shape was new to me but I liked it! I think I missed a little at the top of the moon but I'll get it next time. I had some bright spots in the shadow and I did get rid of some of them. I used the color dropper and it seemed to work OK. I left some bright spots just because I thought it looked cool? Thanks for the tut and if you have any suggestions for me I would appreciate it very much. This forum has been very welcoming and helpful to me. Thanks!

This is something I just did based on your ideas from this tutorial. I used a photo of part of a frozen stream in my backyard. I guess it's kind of a frozen planet thing? It was fun to make. Thanks for the inspiration! I'm still getting things figured out and having loads of fun with PDN along the way.

Thanks barbieq25! I appreciate your input and thanks for the encouragement and the welcome. This is a great forum and pdn has been fun and something different for me to enjoy. Most of my time is spent with music and related activities. It's always nice to do other things and meet new people. Your Gallery is awesome!

Thanks RedOchre! I appreciate your help and suggestions! Your suggestions make a lot of sense and I'll give them a try on my next effort. I'm looking forward to that. Next I want to look into making planets. I see loads of tuts regarding planets so I thought I would give it a try. I started a moon project today, not ready to post yet for sure but the good thing is I'm learning a great deal about how to in PDN and most importantly having a great time with it. Again, you're an inspiration!! PS Plugins like Gradients Galore are amazing! How do you guys think this stuff up! I thought Jazz was hard! Hahahahaha! Wow

Thanks for your help! I am starting to get the idea. Still a little confused about exactly what to include when I use the rectangle select especially the second time but somehow I got it squared away in a round about way. Do I just include the cloud layer? It seems like I'm still missing something, not sure what. I'll keep at it and again thanks! This was a challenge for me but if I want to get better at PDN this is what I have to do. Thanks again for the inspiration!

I'm enjoying working with this tut very much. I'm a little confused at step #20 for some reason. Rectangle selecting opaque area then moving it down half way. I tried selecting the whole thing and then moving it but something seems to be going wrong. Everything before and after I get very well but this step has thrown me off. I do get the idea and I know I can get it but if you could give me a little help at this step I'll get it from there. Nice for me as basically a beginner trying some advanced tuts. It's the best way for me to improve. Thanks for your help and I'm loving your plugins! I'm looking forward to posting what I come up with but I want to get it right.

I'm very new to PDN and to photo editing in general. A few weeks ago I went looking for a photo editing program that I could download and use to edit pictures and have some fun with. I found about ten different programs and I went with PDN since in several reviews it was mentioned that it had a fairly easy learning curve. I'm really happy that I went with PDN. For one thing this forum has been both fun and helpful to me. I've learned a great deal in just a couple of weeks. For instance, I had no idea what layers were and now I'm working with them all the time. I'm still into the basics but I try to stretch out a little each time I work on a project and experiment with plugins from the plugin paks I downloaded. I probably went overboard with plugins and now I resigned myself to learn and use more of what I already have and not to get anything else. I bought the Kindle book "Mastering Paint.Net" which is a great reference along with tutorials on this forum and youtube. I have done some fun and interesting projects one of which I posted in the Pictorium called "A Tribute To Louis Armstrong". Several people were very helpful with suggestions to improve it so I took their advice and learned how to do several things like cleaning up boarders and making a more interesting background. Another project was my forum picture (upper left) which is a photo I took of my little dog Eddie and played with it to get what I think is an interesting picture. Just today I was experimenting and learning to use a plugin by TR called Displacement Map 3D. Very cool. I combined it with what I learned about removing images, layers, and several other effects. My next project is to design a signature that I see most people have here on the forum. I have to give that some thought and hopefully come up with something unique. All in all I really love PDN and again I'm so glad I found it. Things have a way of working out as we all know. Good luck with your projects and I hope my input has helped.

Thanks again everyone for the comments, suggestions and encouragement! I really appreciate it and you all helped me a great deal. I'm finally learning how to get around a little better on PDN and what all the fantastic functions and plugins can do. Love it!! I hope I can keep at it. The next couple of months have me pretty busy. I direct a pit orchestra for a local theater group and this year we're presenting Phantom of the Opera. I'll be pretty busy with that one for sure! I'm playing trumpet in several productions in the area as well. Good to be busy especially doing things you love.