Found this old thing waaay back on the last page. Can still be helpful so here it is.
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In this manual, there will be quick basic tutorials on how to do things in Graphics. These can really help you out in designing and graphics.. Whether you don't know where to search for stock (pics) or you don't know how to add fonts.
These tutorials are written by people from NarutoTalk, MyFavoriteGames and other places. Thanks to them and to me for writing some of the tutorials and posting them.
This manual is contributed by the Designers who like to help noobs and others that may have problems using programs and the like.
So, before actually making a thread, try looking in here to see if there's a tutorial avaliable.
Here is an index for quick reference. If u still have problems of resolving your problem, feel free to ask for help.
INDEX
Tutorial :: Title Of Tutorial - Tutorial writer
-----Basics-----
#1a :: Adobe Photoshop 6/7/CS Background/Other Tutorial Sites
#1b :: Host Your Images At These Sites - by Teecee, DarkKenshinX, and Bojack
#1c :: Basic Graphics Definitions
#1d :: Good Fonts and Locating the Font Folder - by TheMonkeyKing
#2 :: How to create borders - by Weapon-X
#3 :: Learn to clone - by septin
#4 :: Creating brushes the easiest way - by septin
#5 :: Particles/fairy dust with brushing - by septin
#6 :: Color Balance Layer - by Serenade
#7 :: A nice stock blending effect - by Rick James
#8 :: To open the render in photoshop.. the "right" way - by Tommygun
#9 :: How to capture screen of desktop and in animes - by Weapon-X
#10 :: Blending 2 images - by KillerShinobi
#11 :: Signature-Making Tutorial - by Good-Tutorials Website
1a - Adobe Photoshop 6/7/CS Background/Other Tutorial Sites
Search Google or type in your address bar these exact names
- Good-Tutorials
- PSWorkshop
- 1b - Host Your Images At These Sites - by Teecee, DarkKenshinX, and Bojack
- Photobucket
- Imageshack
- uploadit
- 1asphost
- Photo-Rate
- 250Free
- imagestash.com
- iownjoo
- domaindlx
- Lycos.co.uk
- Lycos.nl
- Lycos.fr
- UploadYourImage
- pics.xs.to
- sigs.xs.to
- Picrack
- wolfness.com/upload
- steven-s.us/upload
- webpost.net
- villagephotos.com
- walagata.com
- 1c - Basic Graphics Terms & Definitions
Well, since people seem to ask the same questions, here are the terms & definitions of graphics.
Stock- It is an image of a character(s), photograph, painting, or of the sort in a signature pic, splash image, wallpaper, etc.
Splash- A 'splash' image is an image that is larger then a sig, but smaller then a wallpaper (smaller then 800x600 px).
These types of images are usually used on the main page as an 'entry page' to a website.
1d - Good Fonts and Locating the Font Folder - by TheMonkeyKing
Here it is, how to get good fonts for those who dont know how.
Im presumeing that your using windows for this.
First download some good fonts. A great site for this are dafont.com and 1001fonts.com
Find some fonts you like and open the files.
They are usually in zip form so use winzip to unzip them.
Go to Start> Control Panel> Fonts
OR
Go to C:WINDOWSFonts
Take the fonts in the downloaded folder (usually in true type form), and drag them in to the fonts folder. You can also cut and paste for this.
They install themselves.
Now you can select the fonts with whatever program your using.
You now have no reason to have times new roman or some other crappy font in your sigs.
2 - How to create borders - by Weapon-X
In photoshop...
You can...
1. create new layer
2. hit ctrl+a (or select the whole canvas using rectangle marquee tool/Select All)
3. right-click-> stroke
4. select/check :: colour, inside , px: 1
OR you can...
1. create new layer
2. hit ctrl+a (or select the whole canvas using rectangle marquee tool/Select All)
3. Select->Modify->1 Pixel/Px
4. Right Click and go to fill, then pick your settings
and you're done... 
3 - Learn to clone - by septin
Basically pretty straight forward to clone a part of the image to another part of the canvas.
- Select the clone tool
- Make sure your on the right layer and click on the area you with to be cloned while holding the Alt key
- Once slected just continue to brush over the new area you will to clone to
- Constantly reselect the area to be cloned from since as you clone it may go out of range
4 - Creating brushes the easiest way - by septin
Well simple brushes making.
- new canvas, and choose the appropriate size for the brush, also choose the contents to be transparent
- use releated tools to create the brush or to extract from another source and paste onto the brush canvas
- goto edit define brush
- choose name for the brush and press ok
5 - Particles/fairy dust with brushing - by septin
Just pretty simple effect which adds complexity to any art
- choose the soft round 5 pixel brush
- make sure the flow setting is at 100% and click on brushes tab, next to file browser
- click on brush tip shape, and change the spacing to 150
- click on shape dynamics, and change the size jitter to 100%, angle jitter to 100%, roundness jitter to 100%
- click on scattering, change scatter to 700%, count to 2, count jitter to 75%
- brush over the wanted spots and you should get nice dots
You can also try with different brushes to have more variations.
6 - Color Balance Layer - by Serenade
Most GFX artists use the Color Balance Layer to make good glows and lighting.
Step 1:
Have a render out. put it on a new document.
Step 2:
Goto Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Color Balance
Step 3:
Change all three settings on each, Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights until you get good shades and such.
Step 4:
Try Brushing with white on top of the render now. Use Soft Brush.
You should get a default glow around the brushing.
Thats it.
7 - A nice stock blending effect - by Rick James
A nice stock blending effect
1. Duplicate your stock layer
2. Set the mode to soft light
3. Gaussian blur it by 1-3 somewhere along that
4. Now if it's too much set the opacity to around 80
OR
1. Duplicate your stock layer
2. Gaussian blur the duplicated layer by 1-4 or somewhere along that.
3. Apply Hard Light or overlay to the duplicated layer.
4. Now if it's too much set the opacity to around 80 or down more.
8 - To open the render in photoshop.. the "right" way - by Tommygun
In cinema when you are done with the material and ready to render you go to render settings ther you click on antialising(or something like that) then click on BEST
THEN click on the save button there and select the path to where you want to save your render.. the you click on ALPHA channel and THEN Seperate alpha (or something like that) BE sure to save it as a TIFF file...
then you click on the x... start rendering
When you render it it will save as 2 files.. ONE alpha file and one tiff file with the render and a black bg...
the open photoshop and open BOTH files... then selct the tiff file window then go: select ---> load selsction then click ok... there you should have selected only the render in stead of the render WITH the black bg... then copy it make a new layer and paste the render.. then delete the black bg layer! THERE!
hope it helps!
9 - How to capture screen of desktop and in animes - by Weapon-X
For desktop captures
Press the "print screen" button on your keyboard
then press ctrl+V in any graphic editing programs eg. MSpaint, Photoshop
For anime captures
- for windows media player.. (using winXp) press ctrl+I
- for powerDVD press c
10 - Blending 2 images - by KillerShinobi
here i will use sakura and some cloudes....and blend them together...
^^thisand this belowVV
-take the sakura image (or w/e image you are using) and put it over the other...
-go to layer, ad layer mask, and reveal all
-then take the gradient tool and put it to the defaul (black to white) and set mode to disolve
-and bring it form the right bottom corner to the left top corner and you should get something like this below
11 - Signature-Making Tutorial - by Good-Tutorials Website
© Good-Tutorials
Signature with Border Tutorial: Photoshop 7.0 [Intermediate]
1. Create a new document 400px by 100px with a transparent background.
2. Go to Filter >> Render >> Clouds.
3. Then go to Filter >> Render >> Difference Clouds.
4. Invert the layer by pressing ctrl-I (or go to Image >> Adjustments >> Invert).
5. Press ctrl-L or go to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels... and set the middle input number to 0.2.
6. Press ctrl-U or go to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue/Saturation and check the colorize box and use these settings for your color. (You can use any color, these are just the ones I used)
7. Duplicate the layer by going to Layer >> Duplicate Layer...
8. Go to Filter >> Sketch >> Chrome. Use the default settings.
9. Set the blending options to 'Overlay' by going to Layer >> Layer Style >> Blending Options...
10. Duplicate the layer again.
11. Go to Filter >> Blur >> Radial Blur and use these settings.
12. Go to Filter >> Pixelate >> Mosaic... and use 12 as the cell size.
13. Go to Filter >> Brush Strokes >> Accented Edges and use these settings.
- It should look something like this so far.
14. Now create a new document. 400px by 100px with a transparent background.
15. Use the 'Rectangular Marquee' tool to make a small rectangle across the layer and color it white using the 'Paint Bucket'. It should look something like this.
16. Go to Select >> All and copy the layer by pressing ctrl-C and paste the layer onto the original document.
17. Now go to Layer >> Layer Style and check the 'Drop Shadow' and 'Stroke' boxes. Change the stroke color to black and the size to 1 pixel.
18. Set the opacity to 50%. This is what it should look like now.
19. Okay, create another new document with the same settings.
20. Now here comes the tricky part, take the 'Polygonal Lasso' tool and draw your border.
21. Paint it white and then duplicate the layer.
Note:
if somthing is not working try this, right click on your border selection and select "reverse selection" or somthing similar depending on your ps version.
Fix by: Zelda_Series
22. Now go to Edit >> Transform >> Rotate 180º and move it down so it fits with the document.
23. To merge the layers press ctrl-shift-E or go to Layer >> Merge Visible.
24. Go to Select >> All and copy/paste onto the original document.
25. Now go to Layer >> Layer Style and check the 'Gradient Overlay', 'Bevel and Emboss', 'Inner Shadow', and 'Drop Shadow' boxes.
26. Go back to the 'Bevel and Emboss' tab and set the style to 'Pillow Emboss' and the size to 2 pixels.
- It should look like this.
27. Now for the text. Pick a font and type whatever you want in black.
28. Move the text over the white strip but make sure its not too big, we want to keep it on the white strip.
29. I used 'FFF Freedom Trial'. You can donwload it in the 'Freebies' section at http://www.fontsforflash.com.
30. Now save it and voila.
