#darrye

Star Wars: The Bad Batch || Return to Kamino

Oh my gosh! Thank you so much.

+ I’ll try but before I start, I’m sorry in advance because I suck at giving tips. I don’t think I’m the best one to answer this tbh. 😭 

- KNOW your tools. You gotta familiarize yourself with the editing program you make edits with. Learn what you can, search for tutorials if you have a specific task you want to perform or result you want to achieve. Do not be intimidated by the interface at all. It’s usually way easier than you think. In high school, I used to open PS and literally weep because “IT’S SO DAMN HARD” and close it again. Until I eventually deleted it at the time lmao. I was too impatient to achieve the perfect results I had in mind in no time, and that was wrong. Don’t be hard on yourself. If you’re brand new to the program, take time to become familiar with it. Know that every thing you make is automatically better than the last one, so you’re already always improving. Just keep practicing and spending time on the program.

- Do not limit your learning to tutorials. Literally try everything out, just click all the different buttons lmao, see all the options, because more often than not, the program has far more capabilities than what you already know. It’s all trial and error until you can achieve the result you want. play with the graphic colors, filter, brightness, add or subtract elements…etc. Expand your horizon on what you can do. You can literally create something from scratch, and you can change a photo so drastically that it’s almost unrecognizable.

- OBSERVE OBSERVE OBSERVE. This is the most important tip I can give you. You gotta train your eyes. Colors, textures, patterns, fonts, brushes, vectors, techniques, styles. The more you expose your eyes to, the better you are at this. Sometimes inspiration hits from looking at a certain photo, a texture or a font even. See the graphics you like and ask yourself: How did they make this? What tools did they use? And don’t be too frustrated if you don’t know yet. The goal is NOT to recreate the graphic, on the contrary, doing that will hinder your progress and limit your inspiration. You’re only trying to decipher the process of making a graphic. Tutorials are very helpful to learn a certain technique and use it on your own accord. Do not try to copy others’ work but rather develop your own preferences according to your own standards.

- Download resources to help you. PSDs, textures and fonts. You can find them here on tumblr, deviantart, or simply google. You don’t have to use them in everything but they can greatly aid you.

- Have an idea/concept before starting. “What do I want to make and what message am I trying to send? The vibe, the atmosphere? do I want this graphic/art to make the observer feel a certain feeling?”

- You don’t always have to have a clear precise vision of your end result before starting but if you do, it will save you a LOT of time. Most of the time for me, making a graphic takes about 60% time idea developing and 40% actual creation/execution. Other times, I literally open a blank canvas on PS and go from there, so it’s not a constant rule.

- LESS IS MORE! Don’t overdo it.

- There’s ALWAYS more room for improving. Always.