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Magic Wand (not the tool) :)


SPWA

SPWA

Power User
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I wanted to play around with Light effects, and having never used them before, I'm unsure if it works. The wand I made myself, but I thought I'd try with some existing brushes for the effects, before attempting my own stuff.
Wand-01.png​

A couple of questions came up in the process:

How do you change the shape of a radial gradient. I'm used to Ai, where you just click on the tool & move the point, but I see it's not the same in Ps.

How do I save as .png as a smaller ppi. I changed the print resolution but this didn't have any effect, so guessing it's the wrong option.
 
Instead of having the rays of light or any of the effects mostly behind wand why don't you create it as if it were coming out of wand?
 
That is fairly simple, just put your layers on top and manipulate from there.
 
Thx iDad, it looks better already :)

wand.png​

I don't suppose you can answer the image size question? Because I'm used to Ai, the lower ppi you save, the smaller dimensions the image is. This image is quite large, is there a way to save is so it comes out smaller, or do I just have to reduce image size​ within ps before saving.
 
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SPWA said:
Thx iDad, it looks better already :)


I don't suppose you can answer the image size question? Because I'm used to Ai, the lower ppi you save, the smaller dimensions the image is. This image is quite large, is there a way to save is so it comes out smaller, or do I just have to reduce image size​ within ps before saving.
Click to expand...

To answer your question about size. I am going to assume your talking about size on the screen for the web. First, the only thing that matters for screen display are the pixel dimensions. To reduce your size for screen viewing (by the way, I think the maximum pixel width for this site is 3500) simply go to Image/Size and check Resample. Then change your pixel dimensions to what size you want.
 
Well, this works for my needs, Thankyou.

Having used Ai for the last 3yrs, where you can change the size of the exported png as part of the saving procedure without having to change the dimensions of your image at all. I was worried about losing quality of the image if I shrunk it too much.

So, I need to change my thinking a little bit with Ps, and maybe open a new canvas to the correct size before I start.

Now to see what I can do as background for the Wand :)
 
Let me see if I have this right. Your creating your original artwork in AI, then your exporting it to PS. Right? I am not an AI user, I use Corel for vectors. You say as part of the "saving procedure", are you talking about when you export it? If AI doesn't present you with the option to state the size then it is going into PS format as the size you created it.
Your not going to degrade the quality of a vector based image regardless of what you do, go bigger or smaller, your choice. That does not hold true for a bitmap image. However, downsampling usually won't hurt you. Going larger is where problems begin.

The pixel dimensions that you end up with are relative to your resolution and print (physical size). For example. if you have an image that you create in AI at 300ppi and it is say 8" x 10" , then your pixel dimension is going to be 2400 x 3000. When you save from PS, be sure and Save for Web and use sRGB color space.

The other issue is the size of your file on disk. That will affect storage space, upload and download speeds. So if your creating for the web, your physical size can be quite small and your resolution still be high and have adequate pixels for your screen view. Hope this is helpful

SPWA said:
Well, this works for my needs, Thankyou.

Having used Ai for the last 3yrs, where you can change the size of the exported png as part of the saving procedure without having to change the dimensions of your image at all. I was worried about losing quality of the image if I shrunk it too much.

So, I need to change my thinking a little bit with Ps, and maybe open a new canvas to the correct size before I start.

Now to see what I can do as background for the Wand :)
Click to expand...
 
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ALB68 said:
Let me see if I have this right. Your creating your original artwork in AI, then your exporting it to PS.
Click to expand...
Yes I am. My Ai skill level is higher than Ps, so I find it easier to create any paths, shapes or Vector artwork in Ai, then copy & paste.

ALB68 said:
are you talking about when you export it?
Click to expand...
Also yes. When you export you can select 72, 150 or 300ppi, or a 4th option for any other value. I use this to alter the size of the output image, without having to scale the image every time. This was what I was hoping to do in Ps.

The explanation of sizing you gave is very clear though, so I will just need to be more aware of this in Ps.
 
You undoubtedly are laboring under some misconceptions. Read this and maybe it will help
http://www.scantips.com/lights/pixels.html
SPWA said:
Yes I am. My Ai skill level is higher than Ps, so I find it easier to create any paths, shapes or Vector artwork in Ai, then copy & paste.


Also yes. When you export you can select 72, 150 or 300ppi, or a 4th option for any other value. I use this to alter the size of the output image, without having to scale the image every time. This was what I was hoping to do in Ps.

The explanation of sizing you gave is very clear though, so I will just need to be more aware of this in Ps.
Click to expand...
 
I think it is something I will have to look into a bit more. The ppi thing confused me a bit. The link was mentioning ppi saying that 300ppi will print smaller than 200ppi, which I can fully understand in the context of those notes. Yet 200ppi is smaller than 300ppi on an exported image.

If I had an image with some blur on it. Using Ai to resize would not change the blur, as that was raster, therefore shrinking it would alter the picture. So some images had to be drawn at a certain size to get the desired blur detail. Exporting it at a lower ppi would keep the blur at a relative size to my image, but would have a smaller dimension, which suited me perfectly.

This made my creation process.. 1st - Start the picture at the size to achieve any raster effects, 2nd - Achieve final image size by lowering the ppi on the exported .png

Nothing a bit of experience & reading won't clear up :)
 
you should of entered this into the light competition it just closed , good work and looks much better with the light coming out of the wand
 
Close (not closed, lol) egosbar, but it actually closes in one hour and it has been entered in the challenge. Yeah! Another cool entry to boggle the voting minds . . .
 
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