cjmcguinness

I have noticed that the scale in the Polar Inversion effect has changed in 3.20a Previously the slider would go from -200 to +200 and you could use the arrows to increment by 1, at a time. The new scale goes from -2.00 to +2.00. When you use the up/down arrows this jumps 1.00 at a time, meaning you go straight from 1.00 to 2.00. You can, of course, manually type in middle increments, if you want 1.25 or 1.5 - but personally, I preferred being able to use the up/down arrows for fine tuning (I'd drag the slider to roughly where I wanted it, then use the arrows to fine tune; I can't do this any more). Edit The same change also applies to the Roughness setting in Render > Clouds. If you use the up/down arrow keys this can only change the value by a whole integer. The default value is 0.5, but if you use up/down this goes to 0.00 or 1.00, you cannot select anywhere in between. You can still enter values manually or use the slider. Were these changes intentional for 3.20a? Can they be changed back, or at least have the arrow keys adjust the effect by 0.01 per increment? -CJ

I posted a piece of work on deviantArt that used Polar Inversion and it has sparked a bit of discussion. I happened to mention that it was a possible theme for SOTW and there are a few people in favour. Previous discussion in this thread has also indicated a lot of interest: I know SOTW #10 hasn't been completed (still waiting on the voting to open), but in the mean-time I would like to add another vote for a Polar Inversion theme. We'll have to wait and see who wins the last one, as it'll be their choice.

Excellent work for a first tutorial. Just a quick tip, for the very start of the tutorial. If you want to draw a perfectly centred circle you can use the Polygon/Stars plugin (rather than the Circle tool). Just set the Vertices to MAX, drop the size down to about 95 and make sure the Anti-Alias is on. This will give you a prefectly centred circle. You can also do a quick Radial Blur if it's still a bit jaggy. I use this method quite often if I need to get a circle perfectly centred, as this can be a bit tricky with the Circle tool. Nice to see some fresh ideas. Keep it up. -CJ

This tutorial (I'm proud to say) was Stickied for quite some time, probably because it was seen as a nice introduction for Newbies and it demonstrated some basic effects and use of plugins. As well as (IMHO) producing some nice results. I went on holiday back in August and when I came back it had been un-stickied (along with many others that had been stickies for a while). Not sure why it was taken down, but it still gets some attention every now and again.

Do you mean something like this? OK. Follow the tutorial right up to the point where you add the symbol (control) but before you add the drop shadow. Select the bottom layer (Background) and duplicate this layer (call it 'Duplicate'). Select the 'Control' layer and, using the magic wand tool (with tolerance set at about 50%), hold the SHIFT button and click on the white symbol - this shape will now be selected. Click on the new 'Duplicate' layer and press the 'Delete' key. You won't see any change at the moment, but if you untick the 'Control' and the bottom 'Background' layers you will see that the symbol shape has been cut out. Re-tick the bottom background layer (you can now delete the 'Control' layer as we no longer need it). Use one of the select tools (Rectangle or Ellipse) to select an area that is inside the bounds of the 'Duplicate' circle, but covers all the cut-out area (tip, draw a rectangle or ellipse selection then use the 'Move Selection' tool to resize and reposition). Select the 'Duplicate' layer and EFFECTS > Drop Shadow: Off X = -2, Off Y = -2, Blur = 2 and change the colour of the shadow to White (move the slider from the bottom to the top). Press CTRL+F to repeat. Go to EFFECTS > Drop Shadow and change the settings to Off X = 2, Off Y = 2. Blur = 2 and change the colour back to Black (move the slider back down to the bottom). Press CTRL+F to repeat. This will have created an internal drop shadow, or 'Inner Shadow'. You can now finish off by adding the drop shadow to the 'Background' layer as per the original tut. Hope this helps. -CJ

It's been nearly a week since the competition closed, are we going to open the voting soon? If CMD is too busy would one of the other mod's like to step in and temporarily take over the duties?

Do you mean something like this?

janettsue, I think this is stunning work. The colours, shading, composition and detail make this a very interesting and pleasing piece. Well done. Here's something I made today... ^^ Click and you can download the full 1600 x 1200 version from my deviantArt page ^^

Brett, Create your banner image so that it is 8 pixels shorter in height than you want the finished article. I've done this example so that it is 600px wide x 142px high, because I want it to end up 150px high. Set your secondary colour to be the colour you want the top/bottom border, I made mine black. (You can do this by right-clicking on the chosen colour in the colour window). Click on IMAGE at the top of the screen and go to Canvas Size (press CTRL+SHIFT+R) Untick 'Maintain Aspect Ratio', change the height of the canvas to 150px (or the total height you want it to be). Make sure the anchor is set to Middle. When you press OK, the canvas will be increased to your new chosen size, and the extra space will be filled with the colour you have chosen. Hope this helps. CJ.

My entry for SOTW #10 - Literature: I call it 'iBooks' It features an homage to my favourite author, Stephen King (somewhat apt for the time of year). Stock images: The Dark Half, The Green Mile, The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, Misery, 1408, Dreamcatcher, Stand By Me, Apt Pupil, The Stand, The Dead Zone, The Tommyknockers, Carrie, Book Icon, iTunes, I was planning on completely re-skinning iTunes, from scratch - but was running out of time...

^^^ Click if you would like to download the full 1600 x 1200 desktop version from my deviantArt pages ^^^

I'm guessing around seven-ish at night. GMT closing time would be 08:00 Sunday 28th October. (Don't forget BST ends at 02:00 that day, so you even have an extra hour to perfect your creation).

Very nice, verndewd; I like what you did with it.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, being new to the forum - but I suggest you edit the title and revise the text of your original post, or it'll very quickly be locked by a moderator. Members of this forum will be more than happy to help you out if you ask nicely. Vobie is correct, you must first select the area you want to crop to with the rectangle select tool, then the crop feature will be available in the edit menu. You might also take a look at this tutorial - Cropping Photographs - The Rule of Thirds - as well as showing you how to crop photo's to a specific size it also explains a theory regarding where to crop to make the resulting image more aesthetically pleasing.

I posted an animal fur tut (ages ago) for something somewhat similar; albeit by a different method. Perhaps some combinaton of the two methods might make this simpler (and faster).

Thanks. I've tried playing with some different types of frames. What I do is, on a new layer, select the internal area of the picture I want visible, then invert the selection. Fill it either white, or black - depending on the image I am framing. I then Add Noise and Gaussian Blur slightly - then turn down the opacity to between 50-100.

I haven't done a tut in ages, but I'll post one for this texture - maybe tomorrow. I've just posted a tutorial for how I created the Wasteland texture, you can find it here

This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it "Wasteland" Terrian Texture This tutorial will show you how to create a texture that can be used as terrain for planet scenes (and I'm sure it can be adapted for other uses). I used it in a piece called Wasteland which I recently posted in the Pictorium, following which there was a request for me to tutorialize it; so here goes. You'll be looking to create something like this: You will need the some of the following plugins to create this texture (some are optional for additional steps): Splinter & Surface Blur (part of the Ed Harvey Effects). Normal Map Sine Wave Distort Tube Oblique Reflection Water *EDIT Click any of the thumbnails to enlarge the illustrations. I started with a 1600 x 1200 canvas With Primary colour Black and Secondary colour white - EFFECTS > Clouds at the default settings. EFFECTS > Blurs > Splinter: Splinters 8, Rotation 25, Mode Darken, Distance 50-100 (depending on what scale you want). EFFECTS > Height Field to Normal Map: Bumpyness 10.00 EFFECTS > Blurs > Surface Blur: Radius 5, Threshold 15 - this will smooth out some of the pixellation. Now, the Normal Map plugin will give you a strange blue/purple colour, so at this stage I want to give it a terrain type of colour. ADJUSTMENTS > Sepia This is the basic texture that I used to create the terrain; the rest of these steps are optional; but will help you create the surface I used for the original. CTRL+SHIFT+N to create a new layer. Select the Gradient tool; set to Linear. Zoom out to about 33% (to give yourself some room) and, using the right-mouse button, drag a gradient from the bottom of the canvas to the top of the screen. Press F4 to access the Layer Properties of the top layer, and change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Then press CTRL+SHIFT+F to flatten the image. In the Layers Menu, open the Rotate Zoom feature (press CTRL+SHIFT+Z), and use the following settings. Angle: 0.00, Twist 90.00, Radius 70.00 - Zoom 1.45 Now, to add a bit of curvature to your texture use - EFFECTS > Distort > Sine Waves: Amplitude 10, Horizontal 1, Vertical 3. For more curvature EFFECTS > Distort > Tube Oblique: Horizontal 0, Vertical 15. Press CTRL+A to select the whole image and use the Move Selected Pixels tool to drag the entire texture down, so the to get the horizon where you want it. For the water effect at the bottom, you'll need to put some sort of green/blue background at the bottom, on a new layer. So, press CTRL+SHIFT+N to create a new layer, and select an area about 1/3 of the height of the canvas. Fill it with a green/blue colour. Then move it below the surface texture. Select the top layer again. EFFECTS > Distort > Water: Distance 80, Scale 20. That's about it, really. I'll leave it to everyone's imagination for adding the sky/clouds/moon, etc...

I haven't done a tut in ages, but I'll post one for this texture - maybe tomorrow.

Dictionary.com can·des·cent - adjective glowing; incandescent. - Related forms can·des·cence, noun can·des·cent·ly, adverb - The state of being white hot; incandescence.

I've been quite busy today, here's three from me... ^ Click to go to my deviantArt page and download the full 1600 x 1200 versions of each. ^

youre so good it makes me ill with envy. (joking) Those cards are unbelievable. If you're interested, here's one of the original cards and the Shape 3D .xml (just copy the .xml file to the Paint.NET User Files folder and load it with the Shape 3D plugin). CurvedCard.zip

For my 300th post, here's my new sig - based on a couple of wallpapers I made a while back. The text at the bottom of the sig is actually three separate links to some of my personal pages. You can see the original pieces here: All In and here: Snake Eyes

As a couple of my esteemed PdN peers have pointed out, the Clone Stamp tool is your best option. If you're patient, it can yield some great results. Original: Pencil removed: Portrait effect: ^Click each to view full size^

..and now for something completely different... ^Click for a closer view^