Want to leave a comment on an awesome grab bag that was posted in the Dumping Cauldron? Have some love to give for a recent Artist Spotlight? Do you need to ask a question about something posted in the Sewing Tutorials thread? Well this is the place!

As always, all SS rules apply, so please make sure to follow them!

Now chat away, you connoisseurs of fine graphics!

Sincerely,
The Madame Malkin's Team

*rolls around in the newness*

& ~~~~~~ congratulations Jenn and thank you for that texture! <33

I LOVE all the changes going on here you Malkins mods. AWESOME WORK and I can't wait for the next spotlight

Shiny new threads.

Jenn laiks.

Thank you Kaaattth ♥ hope y'all love the texture as much as I do 'cause I love it. so much. a lot. like. a lot a lot.

*sits here and waits for October's spotlight* :3

Congratulations on the spotlight, Jenn! It was an awesome interview to read & your graphics are great, too! ^______^

I'm a regular Jenn customer... just look at my awesome siggy So i'm definitely happy to see JENN on the spot light!! JennJjang

Wow I love the changes.

*touches the new threads and Jenn's face* Congrats, Jenn!!!! <333

You Malkin folk are great. I love all the hard work you guys are putting into this forum! Good job, and congrats to Jenn. I want your skills.

Also that new Colins Corner Banner is BEAUTIFUL Kelvin I love the light texture

Oooh I didn't even know this thread was here/Jenn's interview was there til... just now! Great interview! I love reading these. And I love how they're all geared toward graphics.



P.S. Thanks for sharing that texture, Jenn! I used to have a similar one and then I went crazy and deleted all my textures like two years ago.

1. Hai guys. you guys are lovely. thanks for all the congrats and stuff.

2. Taylor. I love YOUR graphics. So much. like. I love them like crazy. *_____* *pets all the sets that I have made by you*

3. Sarah~ Why would you want my skills when you have AMAZING skills yourself? :3

4. No problem, Ro~ Why'd you delete your textures though? they need LUUURVEEEE.

5. I still love the newness of this thread. it's so wonderful.

Haha thanks! It's actually THREE light textures. I felt inspired by Jenn and decided to take a page out of her book. TEXTURE LOVE.

OMG I LOVE LIGHT TEXTURES

Loved the interview!
I know this is probably going to sound stupid, but how does one use textures? As a background? Where do you get them from?

Not stupid at all! When I was first starting out in Photoshop, this baffled me quite a bit.

I'm glad you asked this, because I've been meaning to put together a thread of PS/graphic-making basics for a while and this could be a good start.

Anyway, back to your question. I'll start with where to find them:

1. You can find textures ANYWHERE. If you just look up "photoshop textures" in google, you will find SO many results. Many people will upload textures they've made to DeviantART and other online art communities. You can get them from livejournal, private blogs, etc. Since tumblr has sort of recently exploded in popularity in the past few years, there's an enormous amount of resources people have posted there. There are also a ton of tutorials and FAQs and such.

2. How do you use textures? There are a ton of different ways. You can absolutely use them as a background, but you can also use them to create different effects on your graphic. Generally, I categorize my textures into ones that are really colorful (these tend to be gradients or tie-dyes or any other sort of colorful image), grungy (generally these are black and white, and are used to make my graphics look dirty or scratched), light textures (generally bright colors that look like light flares on a black background - used to create lighting effects on graphics), and ones that I would use as backgrounds.....like....if I would use it as a desktop background, then I would use it as a graphic background. That probably didn't make sense.

Anyway, if I want to change the coloring of a graphic, then I'll put one of the colorful ones or a light texture on top and change the setting to soft light or overlay or screen or something. It all depends on how much of the color you want to show through and such. If I want to make my graphic look grainy or scratchy or dirty or something, then I'll use one of the grungy graphics and set it to either screen (if it's mostly black with white/light grey stuff I want to show up) or multiply (if it's mostly white/light grey with black stuff I want to show up).

This is definitely a very poor explanation, and I'm sure Jenn or another graphic maker would be able to explain it better (it's also 1 AM here....haha), but please feel free to ask more questions if this doesn't make sense! I explained it in a manner that sort of assumes you have a little bit of knowledge regarding photoshop (which I'm not sure whether you do, so I apologize if you don't).......so apologies if this just sounds like gibberish to you. haha.

Thanks! I got that! I am familiar with photoshop, yet the computer with my photoshop on is currently having trouble with internet connection so I use my Corel Paint Shop Pro now for SS things. Yet I did understand!
Another questions that I posted in the tutorial thread. How does one do a neat manipulation. e.g I want to put my model into a princess gown or into her Gryffindor robes. How does one go about that? Cloning? Selection? Pen tool? background eraser?
Thanks guys. I do graphics for my community center, yet this is another ball game

I was being dumb and trying to quit SS and clean up my computer so they had to go ;__________; it was sad. Lol.

Those are great questions! You know who's a really good manip maker? Roselyn and also, sweetpinkpixie. I would use the selection tool and eraser for that though.

And adding on to Kelvin's explanation of textures: You know Instagram? Textures kind of work like Instragram filters. I almost never use mine to replace the background of the image; I almost always use it as a layer on top of the image to enhance it somehow.

ROSE IS THE MANIP GODDESS *worships the fingers she uses to make all the pretties*

BUT! To do manips I actually use a layer mask when deleting/editing the head of a character onto the body of someone else. I find that I can make cleaner edges and it makes for editing things MUCH MUCH MUUUUUUUCH easier than using the eraser tool. With the layer mask you can go back and fine tune things at any point in your editing process I also tend to put a texture on soft light or screen or some other light setting once I am done to help make a consistent color all around....and to sort of hide any mistakes I made in the manip process

I'm super old fashioned and just try and find two pictures that look like they'll manip well together, paste one over the other, and ERASE haha. I like getting in real close to erase things, like 400% zoom. You can get super close with a 1 px brush and it makes it easier to keep it clean looking in the end

Heyyyyyy wanna see how colorblind or color-savvy you are?

Take this quiz.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any/all eye weeping/bleeding/dizzying. You're welcome.

I took that test one time! I got a perfect score! *pats self on the back*

It takes SO LONG though.

I get that close too with my layer mask I just like it because if I need to go BACK, for example, I don't need to do undo over and over again and can just edit the mask. Also can apply the layer mask to textures and lighting easier that way (apply & preserve)
people like you make me staaaaaaaaaare I'm proud of my 8 thank you very much

I do the same

Hey guys! momentai's tutorial is up and running in her spotlight post!! Go check it out - it's AWESOME!

EEEEEEE that sample she gave you for the movie poster! hahaha that was for me and Ro! AWWW *~~**~~*MEMORIESSSSS*~~**~~*

Hi guys! I just wanted to give you guys a quick update on the Spotlight Thread, since you may have noticed we haven't had a spotlight for November or December. Kelvin and I have been SUPER busy with real life things and since we don't want ANYONE to have to rush to get their interviews/tutorials in, we'll resume in the New Year with January. Thanks for understanding, guys!