From post: 149655, Topic: tid=10017, author=EN4CER wrote:Hey Viper. I learned to photoshop solely to create signatures and avatars. A year or two later now I'm starting to have fun with it. I've never really had the chance to talk to someone capable of creating professional grade graphics. Mind if I ask a few?
Gimp or Photoshop?
Do you make heavy use of layers?
If you do use layering a lot do you use opacity a lot?
We talked about custom brushes before. Do you have a lot of custom brushes or just a few specific sets?
If you do have a lot can you recommend a good diverse brush set (photoshop and gimp use the same brush files)?
I really like seeing your work and if you have some old stuff to post or link I would like to see that as well.
Of course you can ask any question you want, I'm glad to help where I can. I'm honored to read that you see my work as professional grade. For me doing graphics started out as a hobby quite some years ago, just like yourself, which it still is today. I see myself as an amateur who is still learning every day, especially compared to the work of some other people on the net. So I consider your words a huge compliment.
To answer your questions:
Gimp or Photoshop?
Both, actually. When I first started doing graphics, I started out with Gimp - can't recall why exactly to be honest. As the chances of a professional business grew, I also started to use Photoshop, mostly because the majority of professionals are used to it. For example, if you design a website and you send it over to the coding guy to have it programmed/coded, they are mostly used to working with a .psd with layer groups. It makes it easier for them to slice the design and add the appropriate code.
I only use Photoshop when I really need to though. I still prefer Gimp over PS any day. I feel it's more convenient to work with and offers at least as many features as PS does. Programs aren't necessarily the best on the market simply because they have a big company name attached to them. For the wallpapers above, for example, I used Gimp.
For designing print designs (mostly company logos that need to be stitched onto clothing or turned into advertising stickers or business cards for example) I use Adobe Illustrator, because these designs need to be vector graphics so they can be resized without quality loss.
Do you make heavy use of layers?
Yes, I do as much as I can. I tend to try and create a designated layer for each effect. I also group these layers into layer groups according to their relevance to keep things organized. Depending on the design, the layer count can go well over 100 and you quickly lose oversight if you don't group them.
Using layers and layer groups makes sure it's easy to activate/deactivate certain effects or layers if need be, or undo any errors you might have made. It also keeps things organized and makes it much easier for you to see what the effects of applying different layer modes are on your design.
If you were to work on just one or a couple layers and add all the effects onto those, it would be hard to undo them if you wanted, and you would have to start over if you made a mistake.
If you do use layering a lot do you use opacity a lot?
Yes, quite often. It depends on what the effect on the eventual design is, but often (actually, most of the time) there are quite a few layers that don't have 100% opacity. Changing the opacity of layers is like playing with the layer modes - it can drastically change the appearance of your design. Sometimes a small change can make a huge difference in the final result.
We talked about custom brushes before. Do you have a lot of custom brushes or just a few specific sets?
I have quite a large collection of custom brushes, however I almost never create my own because you can get awesome brushes for free on sites like deviantart.com in all sorts and sizes, and on a lot of other sites if you google 'gimp brush' or 'photoshop brush'.
Only on extremely rare occasions I use a brush of my own design, but most of the time I have a look at sites like that and find one (or indeed a set) that I can use. Just saves me a lot of work.
If you do have a lot can you recommend a good diverse brush set (photoshop and gimp use the same brush files)?
That's a tough one, really. First it really depends on your work what sort of brushes you have a need for, and second they mostly come in sets of the same type, for example 'grunge brush set' or 'blood spatter brush set'. Best advice I could give you is to head over to deviantart.com and do a search for things like 'grunge brush', 'cracks brush', 'scratches brush', 'spatter brush', 'sparkle brush', 'fractal brush', 'rust brush', 'grid brush', 'blood brush', etc, or whatever type of brush you are looking for. There are a lot of great designers over there and the Gimp community is a great one when it comes to supplying additional material to your program. You will definitely find what you need there.
Photoshop brushes are compatible with Gimp, but Photoshop doesn't recognize Gimp brushes.
As general advice the best thing I could tell you is to never think you know it all - always keep learning and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Do a lot of tutorials, there are numerous on the net and they can be extremely helpful. Keep trying new stuff and don't get stuck into one single style. Certainly when it comes to graphics, there are so many techniques you can apply and combine in so many different ways, that the possibilities are in fact countless. New techniques are still invented every day.
To quote Chuck Green, professional designer with a couple of great tutorials:
"Though it is a challenge from all sides, there is nothing quite so exiting for a designer than discovering, developing and implementing an image that becomes the visual representation of an entire organisation."
And that's the truth.
Below are a few examples of older work (some really old lol) of several types. Seeing some of them again is a nice reminder of how you always keep learning.
Since you were asking about brushes, here's a good (but very old) example of a design that involved a heavy use of brushes of all sorts.
(the roughness on the red areas, the blood spatter, rust stains, grunge marks and the black smokye bit coming from the back is all brushes, each one applied with a specific layer mode to get a specific result) :
Signatures:
Websites etc:
Logos etc:
Wallpapers etc:
Hope that helped you in any way. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.
~ Viper.
Edit: Found a couple of other old ones.
[Edited on 11-26-2012 by Viper]
It could be an optical illusion. Really high-powered zoom lenses can do that. 
