ive done me a background, and done me the cahracters for the background, but i done em seperate and they are different sizes to what i want, so i resize one of the characters to the size i need him, n hes all blurred now cos ive halved the size of him, is there a better way to do this the minimize blurrage?

and also, theres one guy i need to resize AND rotate so hes lying properly, again the resizing causes blur, nothing major, but its the rotating that screws him up, all the lines move from the colours n stuff so there are white gaps between the lines and the colour, anyone know how to get round this??

any suggestions or anything like that, if what im asking isnt infact possbile n im stuck with dodgy looking characters, please slap me thnx

[ 14-02-2005: Message edited by: Si13Nt ]

[ 14-02-2005: Message edited by: Si13Nt ]

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Ezekiel 25:17

Normally, scaling down or rotating has minimal effect on images of high enough resolution, say 300 and above, but at something like 72 DPI, it practically runs a cheese grater across it when you try to scale or transform something... I find it odd that you had problems scaling down though... normally scaling down works fine regardless of resolution because you are dividing data rather than multiplying it (Unless you're going down to extreme levels). The reason though for the white gaps or the blurry lines though is most likely Photoshop trying to compensate on a low resolution piece with it's own anti-aliasing technology (Think of it as an auto blur effect that prevents things from looking too pixelated). Regarding older versions of Photoshop, the technology wasn't quite as it is now, so the side effect was more noticeable even at high resolutions... My guess though is that low resolution is the reason for the problem you are having now.

Unfortunately, if the problem is that you started on a low resolution, you might be stuck with it as it is... since trying to increase resolution on a low resolution piece is basically the same process as scaling it up, so an extreme alteration will degrade the quality... however... usually, when it comes to a colored illustration, (As opposed to a photograph), the colors don't really need to be at a high resolution as long as the black lines are, so you might be able to "Reinforce the Line"... Unfortunately, this would only work if you happened to have a cleaned digital line work of your piece, which not all artists do regularly, so it's really just a golf ball in the wind idea, so to speak. A lot of Japanese artists don't have the bling whales for a powerful computer, so they often do the coloring at a low resolution, then transfer it to high resolution lineart... this idea is pretty much the same, but I'm not sure it'll work because of the pre-existing lineart might conflict with it.

The white gaps between the colors bit interests me though... this usually happens if you color directly with a paint bucket inbetween black spaces or without expanding/contracting the selected areas and coloring them on a different layer. What happens is that PS's anti-aliasing technology magnifies or rounds off these tiny one or two pixel gaps of white space when you rotate so that they become clearly visible... This is much more likely to happen if you didn't refine the original line art digitally to get rid of extra white, but it still crops up here and there if precautions aren't taken. Usually, doing you coloring and line art on two different layers with an expanded/contracted area of coloring (So it bites a pixel or two into the line on another layer) does the trick... but that's if you did it to begin with... no real solution if it's after the fact.

Anyhow... I hope that I was somewhere in the ball park with my diagnosis... Best of luck with the problem, and I hope that my information might have been of help.

PS: As a side note.. there might be a more creative than technical solution... like scaling or transforming the background to fit the characters instead of the other way around, since usually, people care less about the background than the subject... but eh, that's just the barrel over the waterfall, so to speak.

[ 15-02-2005: Message edited by: Zephos ]

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www.xynthica.com

quote:

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Originally posted by Zephos:
Hey Si13Nt, the problem you are facing is most likely the one that's been dogging raster graphic applications since their invention. You probably already know that when you scale up or transform an image, it sometimes gets blurred or pixelated. In the last few recent years, such problems have been mimimalized due to advances in antialiasing technology and higher resolutions along to some degree with the introduction of layers. Generally, the problems that you mentioned are either because of a low resolution or an old version of Photoshop. This is my best theory at least.

Normally, scaling down or rotating has minimal effect on images of high enough resolution, say 300 and above, but at something like 72 DPI, it practically runs a cheese grater across it when you try to scale or transform something... I find it odd that you had problems scaling down though... normally scaling down works fine regardless of resolution because you are dividing data rather than multiplying it (Unless you're going down to extreme levels). The reason though for the white gaps or the blurry lines though is most likely Photoshop trying to compensate on a low resolution piece with it's own anti-aliasing technology (Think of it as an auto blur effect that prevents things from looking too pixelated). Regarding older versions of Photoshop, the technology wasn't quite as it is now, so the side effect was more noticeable even at high resolutions... My guess though is that low resolution is the reason for the problem you are having now.

Unfortunately, if the problem is that you started on a low resolution, you might be stuck with it as it is... since trying to increase resolution on a low resolution piece is basically the same process as scaling it up, so an extreme alteration will degrade the quality... however... usually, when it comes to a colored illustration, (As opposed to a photograph), the colors don't really need to be at a high resolution as long as the black lines are, so you might be able to "Reinforce the Line"... Unfortunately, this would only work if you happened to have a cleaned digital line work of your piece, which not all artists do regularly, so it's really just a golf ball in the wind idea, so to speak. A lot of Japanese artists don't have the bling whales for a powerful computer, so they often do the coloring at a low resolution, then transfer it to high resolution lineart... this idea is pretty much the same, but I'm not sure it'll work because of the pre-existing lineart might conflict with it.

The white gaps between the colors bit interests me though... this usually happens if you color directly with a paint bucket inbetween black spaces or without expanding/contracting the selected areas and coloring them on a different layer. What happens is that PS's anti-aliasing technology magnifies or rounds off these tiny one or two pixel gaps of white space when you rotate so that they become clearly visible... This is much more likely to happen if you didn't refine the original line art digitally to get rid of extra white, but it still crops up here and there if precautions aren't taken. Usually, doing you coloring and line art on two different layers with an expanded/contracted area of coloring (So it bites a pixel or two into the line on another layer) does the trick... but that's if you did it to begin with... no real solution if it's after the fact.

Anyhow... I hope that I was somewhere in the ball park with my diagnosis... Best of luck with the problem, and I hope that my information might have been of help.

PS: As a side note.. there might be a more creative than technical solution... like scaling or transforming the background to fit the characters instead of the other way around, since usually, people care less about the background than the subject... but eh, that's just the barrel over the waterfall, so to speak.

[ 15-02-2005: Message edited by: Zephos ]

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Cloud considering you have about 4 threads saying things like 'how do I draw?' 'how do I use photoshop' 'how do I shade' I would have thought you would respect the information that a proper artist has taken the time to write in a detailed and cogent way. In fact Zephos rarely posts anything but helpful advice, which is in stark contrast to 98% of your posts to date.

U got a point jats, its true zepho is possibly the most helpful person on the planet, and that cloud spams alot n asks n00b questions like i do

BUT i like cloud hes funny n doesnt take it all *too* seriously...like me, n he makes me laugh n if u cant laugh then wtf omg, thats just another example of clouds comments that makes u giggle, unless ur not in the right mood i spose, ya cant please everyone but u can at least try eh

I can see where u comin from tho jats lol but im tryin not to take sides here n upset anyone

Although, if you do scroll up and down on Zephos' post REALLY fast, THEN it kinda makes u dizzy

[ 15-02-2005: Message edited by: Si13Nt ]

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Ezekiel 25:17

It's okay with Cloud saying that though, since we kinda' have a running joke about me writing too much, but thanks for the compliments and concern, Jats1, I highly appreciate it

[ 15-02-2005: Message edited by: Zephos ]

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www.xynthica.com

i got round it lol i just took the guy out that looked all fuzzy cos he looked way outta place in the pic i hadnt really planned that very well, but it looks pretty cool now, once my art teachersaw it she was going OMG THATS AMAZING!!!!111eleventyone!!?!?!

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Ezekiel 25:17