korteck

I'm sold on the alphamask plugin for cutting out the background. It does an awesome job.

Here's a festive one

Ok, got it! Thanks again.

:oops: I'm kind of embarrassed to ask this, but now that I have this grid, what do I do with it? It's only for aesthetic purposes right? Because I was thinking it would be a substitute for the built-in pixel grid, but now I'm thinking it's just for things like the background of Hellfire's sig. If that's the case, then that's cool too because I've been wanting something like that as well. Are there any other uses for it besides art. I know that in theory you can use it to draw something to scale, but I don't think that's what it was intended for. I have a specific question though: What exactly does the alpha-only option do and in what case would you use it?

Look in "profile" at the top of the page. You'll find a place to put your sig there. You'll have to upload your image to an online website like photobucket.com or imageshack.com. Then use the image tags from there to upload the image here.

That worked BoltBait. Thank you guys.

Thanks Bob. I can't find the dll in the effects folder. There are eight gridmaker files in there, but none of them are a dll. There's one file that's zipped, but I can't open it. Something about the archive being invalid. This is the only plugin I've had any trouble with, so I'm just going to leave this one alone for now.

I downloaded 6 new plugins today with no problems. I've had no problem downloading or finding them later, however I can't download this grid maker. Does it go into the effects folder like most plugins do? I've tried all three links. The first one, Download DLL v2.0: GridMaker.dll cannot open because windows doesn't know who created it. The second and third one, Download Source v1.1: GridSRC.zip and Download Source v2.0: GridSRC_2_0.zip can't be opened by winzip because of this error message: "Message WZ50 An error occurred opening, writing to, closing, or deleting the specified file. Possible causes include a misspelled filename, a full disk, a read-only or locked disk, a read-only or locked file, or exceeding system limits. The operation in progress will be cancelled. Another dialog box with more specific information may be displayed. This message may also be displayed because of an invalid archive. For example, if an archive is damaged (possibly due to line noise while downloading from an online service) it may contain invalid data." What do I need to do to get this plugin? Thanks for your help.

Nope, I only have four things under distort: Bulge, polar inversion, tile reflection, and twist.

Is that a plugin? I don't have a sphere with 3.0 :?

:oops: Yeah, you're right. I had obviously resized a couple of pics for some reason and forgot about it. I retested the mask last night and it fit just fine. Sorry for the trouble and thanks again.

Well duh Hellfire! That worked like a charm. I never thought about selecting an image before I embossed it. I've been doing that for blurs, but it never occurred to me to do that with any other effect. I bet it works for the other effects like noise and clouds too. Thanks a bunch!

Can a plugin be made to alter the emboss effect? I know nothing about creating plugins so please forgive me if this is a stupid question. I'd like to be able to emboss only active pixels on a layer instead of embossing the entire layer. Think of it in the same way that the feather plugin seeks out areas of transparency. Could the emboss effect do the same thing? Emboss only areas where there is no transparency? This would be very helpful for creating texture on specific parts of an image only. I would have asked this in the pluging forum, but I think that's reserved for plugin publishing only. Thank you.

Thanks for responding so quickly Illnab1024. Let me just tell you what I'm trying to do. I want to reuse an old mask on the same picture so that I don't have to apply the mask again from scratch. I've tried every conceivable way to get a saved mask to fit over the original picture, but I always get the tiled mask with several smaller images on it. Those images also don't contain the color I used for the mask. Anyway, I've tried using the mask file to pull up an old mask, and then pulling up the original picture on a second layer. That doesn't work. I've also tried to do it visa versa with no luck either. Maybe I'm not saving the mask correctly. When I save a mask, I first cut out the background. I'm then left with an image of the masked area alone. I simply highlight the layer with the used mask and save it to a folder I have set aside for that purpose. Perhaps none of this is possible and you just have to mask from scratch every time. Thanks again.

I finally downloaded the alphamask the other day and I don't know how I ever got along without it. The mask and the feather plugin are my two favorite plugins. I have one question about the mask though. What's the "mask file" feature used for? I've been saving my used masks into a folder I named "mask," and I had assumed that the mask file would be used for pulling up those previously used masks. I was going to reuse an old mask for a second time when I finally used the mask file yesterday. What I got was this strange tiled thing with four smaller copies of the original cutout area. What's up with that? Exactly how is the mask file meant to be used? Thanks in advance.

Well thank you. I'm studying hard.

sorry, I hit the quote button by mistake. I meant to use the edit.

Yes, this will be a lot of fun. Here's is a pretty simple one to get started. Just remember that I'm a newbe of less than a month, and I have no prior experience with paint programs. This will be great practice! barkbark00, I'd like to change my submission to this second version please. The first one is so close to it that it doesn't need to be considered. ( not that either of these would ever be seriously considered ) Here's the new version with dripping paint drops and a more rounded text. I also prefer the lowercase "p." Thanks.

Also, be sure you're using the correct layer. For instance, if you've just put a blank layer on top of the stack and it's highlighted, that layer will completely fill with color. That used to happen to me a lot.

Illnab1024, thanks for taking the time to help me figure this out, but I think you're assuming that I measured both sides of the image while it was only in one direction. I did not do it that way. I only measured the left side of the image while it was fully extended left, and I measured the right side only when it was turned and fully extended right. Of course the measurements would be different if both sides of the image where measured while in only one direction. The center of the logo remains stationary, but the outer edges increase in size. That's why I measured both sides at their fully extended points, and cropped off the excess. After the crop, I would expect the edges of the images to go no further than they did before. At the point where I cut off the excess. Take a look at my sig. Imagine that you draw two red lines at the furthest points that the word extends. Imagine that you cut off the excess of the black border at those lines. Now, after you've done this, why would the letters of the word extend out past those red lines? It makes no sense to me. I think the image is resizing a little during the cropping process, because of the rotation factor. That's the only explanation I can think of. If anyone's interested, here's what you should do. Rotate a word until it's fully extended to the left side. Count over exactly ten pixels (only the left side) and write the precise measurement down. Now do the same with the other side of the word, in the opposite direction. Now straighten out the word and crop it to the exact measurements you just took. Now with the new cropped image, rotate it the same amount as before, until it's fully extended again, and your ten pixels won't be there. They should be there, but they wont be. Those ten pixels would be there if you hadn't first rotated the image to get you measurements. It has something specifically to do with rotation.

But still, wouldn't you expect the precise measurements to be the same before and after the crop, provided the perspective is equal in both instances?

Thanks Rick. OK, when I first tried to rotate my name, (KORTECK, see my current sig) the two "K's" overextended the borders like in examples 1 & 2. example 1 example 2 So I increased the size of the canvas, but now the canvas was too big. I now had to crop the canvas a bit smaller. I zoomed to 1200 and rotated the word Korteck again in both directions, first left and then right. I took notice of the exact pixels on both ends of the canvas that I wanted to crop. I did this with the word fully rotated and extended, one side at a time. I kept about ten pixels on each end, as in example 3. example 3 Of course, I had to undo the rotate/zoom feature and straighten out the image before I could crop it. After I cropped the image, the ten pixels on each end that I thought I had kept, were gone, and the letters K still overextended the border when rotated. I thought I had just made some stupid mistake, so the next time I repeated my initial steps. I zoomed in close and decided exactly where I wanted to crop the image. First fully extended left, then fully extended right. Then to make sure, I gave myself a few more pixels on each end of the word (while the word is rotated and fully extended) and drew two red guide lines. I wanted to see if my red guide lines would disappear or not. I actually cut outside of my red guide lines just to be safe See example 4. example 4 After I cropped and rotated the image this time, I couldn't believe it, but there were my two red lines with the letters K going right past them, as in example 5. example 5 I finally just measured the image flat (not rotated) and gave an equal amount of distance on each end as in example 6. I got pretty lucky. example 6 Something happened to the image between the time it was rotated and cropped. I was hoping you would have an simple explanation. The grid works perfectly for flat images, but I don't trust measurements taken while an image is twisted. I hope this makes a little sense.

I used the rotate feature to twist the text of my sig below. (the gold name Korteck) I noticed that the two end letters "K" extended outside the canvas borders as the word pivoted. I thought, no problem, I'll just pivot the word, take notice of the distance, and then I'll extend the canvas. Believe it or not, that didn't work. I started over and gave myself a bigger canvas this time. I pivoted the word again, extending the letters K to their farthest distance. Then I took notice of the actual pixels that I wanted cropped, and cropped it. To my great surprise, the new cropped canvass was still short by about ten pixels on each side. Out of frustration, I started all over yet again. This time I pivoted the word and drew red guide lines exactly where I wanted to crop it. I gave myself twenty pixels on each side of the word. After I cropped it, I saw that my red lines were in place where they should be, but the letters K still over extended the borders. They went right past my red guide lines! :shock: I finally realized that the grid was working perfectly fine and the intended pixels had been cut precisely. It has something to do with the rotation feature. Trust me. Perform your own test. You can't trust an exact measurement when using the rotation feature. Somehow the image gets distorted between taking your measurement and cropping the image. I finally seceded by giving myself plenty of room on each side and hoping for the best. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Trust me, it was not error on my part. Thanks for reading. In case I change my sig latter on, I'll leave an extra copy of it here for future reference.

Great! I'll download it today.

Somewhere I saw a plugin for a mask at PDN. I haven't tried it yet, but that might help you a little. I'm not sure if it's a true mask or not. Does anyone know if the plugin allows you to do this: Left click to apply the transparency and right click to restore pixels in the image? That would be helpful. I read that you must first save the masked image as a PNG because you can't directly use it, and then import the PNG in another step. What do those of you who have used that plugin think about it?