Is there any particular way that you organize your PSDs? I have a lot so it can take me a while to find the exact one that I want. Thanks for your time!
I usually just group them in folders? It's not especially organized, but I might have one folder for Game of Thrones, and maybe another folder for generic PSDs, and another for heavily textured PSDs, because those are usually the different categories I'm looking for when I photoshop.Â
My mac gives a preview of the PSD file, which is also really helpful. However, my pc doesn't give me a preview of the PSD, so I usually also save a jpeg with the same file name to see what the PSD looks like. I've heard of a program called MysticThumbs if you're on a windows machine, but I've never purchased it. (Maybe someone out there knows a free version that does the same thing?)Â
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I keep getting asked how I manip. You need to have a basic understanding of photoshop. This is my long tutorial explaining my manip process, but here are some general tips:
1) Start with a good base image. The base image is usually my inspiration. The idea for my most recent Sansa Stark manip popped into my head after I saw this image.Â
2) Use high quality images. A lot of times I start with a canvas that's around 2000px wide, and I hold off as long as possible to reduce the image size to just 500px wide, the size of the tumblr dashboard. This is really important because any tiny mistakes or inaccuracies I made on the big canvas become almost invisible after I reduce the size of the image. My HQ images usually come from farfarawaysite, grande-caps, and celebrity image galleries.Â
3) Screencaps are usually very dark, while promotional images / photoshoots are usually very well lit. If this is the case, add a Brightness/Contrast layer and clip it to the well lit layer. To clip an adjustment layer, press thisÂ
 and the layer will now look like this:Â
Lower the brightness of the well lit layer to match it as best you can to the screencap layer. After you have finished the whole manip, brighten the whole image with a curves layer or apply a PSD.Â
4) Use selective color layers and clip them. Shows have different colorings. For example, Game of Thrones isn't tinted the same way The White Queen is, and this will be especially obvious with skin tones. Play with the sliders in your selective color layers, particularly the reds, yellows, and blacks, to make the colors match.
5) Use Groups and Layer Masks. Do not use the eraser. I use layer masks on each layer, and then I usually create a group, apply a layer mask to the group, and keep refining my layers. Sometimes I nest groups within other groups.Â
6) Zoom. You need to be very precise. I usually zoom in by 200% - 400% on the area I'm working on. You need to be attentive to detail in the manip process.Â
7) Copy and paste parts of the base image and move them around to cover things up.Â
8) Remember that a good manip takes time and patience.  If you have any questions, you're welcome to come ask me.Â
do you have any tips for making pre-series edits? (or maybe you could do a tutorial of some sort in the future? I love fancasting characters in my head but I'm scared of actually trying to make my own photo/gifsets due to a lack of photoshop skills.)
Well, the first thing I would say is that you have to try! You have to start off making things you really care about and not making things because you want notes, because you're not going to get notes right away. If you go back far enough in any graphic maker's tag, you can see that they initially sucked. No one is born knowing how to photoshop; it takes months or even years of practice. It's hard.Â
To get started, follow some photoshop blogs like yeahps and itsphotoshop and welovetemplates. These will have more resources than anything I could tell you about in one post. Here is a beginner's guide to make gifs.Â
In terms of what to do in photoshop, I don't know how much of a beginner you are, so I'll go through some basics.Â
Most beginners just google for images, but that's not what you should do. Go to screencap galleries or celebrity fansites with HQ images. If you're looking for pretty pictures, instead of googling "crown", you might google "crown tumblr". But really the best thing here is that you've watched a lot of tv and you know what shows have crowns (or whatever you're looking for) and you go to that screencap gallery.
RESIZE YOUR IMAGE PROPERLY
DON'T SQUISH YOUR PICTURE TO MAKE IT FIT!!!! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF TELEVISION, DON'T DO THIS IN YOUR PICSPAM, IT IS THE UGLIEST THING:
When you're resizing a picture, you need to hold down the shift key to keep the correct proportions. If you go to image > image size, photoshop will resize the image for you. If you go to image > canvas size, you can crop the image. If I'm doing a picspam, which is probably the easiest thing to do if you're a beginner, I usually adjust image size to get something around the right proportions, and then I adjust canvas size or use the crop tool to get the exact size I need.Â
The standard image size on a tumblr dash is 500px wide and tumblr will fuck up any image that's longer than, like, 720px? i forget the exact number, I don't ever do anything longer than 710px, or if I do, I break it into multiple shorter images.Â
LAYERS
You should be using layers. Photoshop is about layers. If you only use 1 layer, you're doing it wrong. Â Sometimes I've gotten up to 100 layers in photoshop if I'm doing something really complicated; YOU NEED TO BE LAYERING. Go down to the little black and white circle and look at all the different kinds of layers you can add to a picture:
Experiment with these to figure out what they do. The order of the layers matters. Like, putting a selective color layer on top of a vibrance layer is not the same as putting a vibrance layer on top of a selective color layer.
You can also change how the layers are added:
and you can change opacity/fill
For example, sometimes I want to make something darker, so I might set a texture on color burn at a very low opacity (5% - 15%). You have to experiment and practice.Â
BRIGHTEN YOUR IMAGE
Something that I see beginners do is they don't brighten their screencaps. Screencaps are usually a lot darker than the image that appeared on your TV, and most of the time, you need to fix that. There's lots of different ways to do it. You're probably thinking of adding a "Brightness/Contrast" layer to do that, but the funny thing is that a lot of graphic makers don't use "Brightness/Contrast" to fix the brightness. (I see "Brightness/Contrast" used more often to increase contrast, which is often a good thing to do.)Â
To make an image brighter, I usually add a Vibrance layer (you can up the vibrance level or leave it alone, but don't touch the saturation level) and set it to screen. If that's now too bright, I lower the opacity of the vibrance layer, or I add another vibrance layer and set it to multiply.
I also might brighten images by adding a black & white layer and setting it to screen. That makes the image look more washed out, which is the opposite effect of the steps in the previous paragraph.
Most people also use a curves layer or a levels layer, but I suck at those, so you would have to ask someone else about those.
DOWNLOAD SOME PSDs
I learned how things worked in photoshop by looking at how other people were combining layers. Â The photoshop blogs will reblog a lot of psds, but in the meantime, I recommend you download some psds to show you how to add textures and stuff. Here are some examples:
vintage
GOT
dracula
blue
the white queen
Open them up, play with them, see what they do, learn from them.
LAYER MASKS
Don't use the eraser!! DON'T DO IT!!! Use layer masks by clicking this button  on the layer you want to erase / hide something.Â
This means the layer is selected:
This means that the layer mask is selected:
Make sure that the layer mask is selected. Now, take your brush tool. Painting something black means hiding it. Painting something white means it will be visible. Shades of grey half erase things. Instead of using the eraser tool, paint the area black where you want to hide the thing. If you decide you need it to be visible later, you can just paint it white.
TYPOGRAPHY
The first rule of typography is, don't do it! No, really, I'm not kidding, if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing with typography, do not put text on your graphic.Â
Learn something about typography.
Cry. Look at the work of people who studied typography and graphic design at their university and cry harder. Complain on twitter and realize none of your graphic designer friends know what they're doing with typography either.
Continue crying while putting the text beneath your graphic instead and going into the html and making it small. Italics are cool too.
Compensate for your typography inadequacies by using small text.Â
Don't put large text on your graphic if you have absolutely no clue. I'm someone who hates small text. I hate it. I hate tumblr themes where the text is microscopic. I'm tumblr old and I don't want to go blind sooner than I have to. Having said that, do not make the text the point of your graphic if you don't know what you're doing with typography.Â
Also, get some fonts. That cursive font that came already installed on your computer is shit, please don't use it. Some fonts that I've found to be very versatile are the ones mmorrow recommends.Â
SPECIFICALLY PRE-SERIESÂ GRAPHICSÂ
As someone interested almost exclusively in pre-series things, I understand that feeling of wanting crisp clear unambiguous images of lyanna stark, the way others enjoy crisp clear unambiguous images of sansa or cersei. I get it. I want that pre-AGOT hbo miniseries too.
That's what gifs are for.
And yeah, to a lesser extent, manips, but I'm telling you right now, those are hard as fuck to do right and time consuming as fuck. Any pre-series manips you make better be a labor of love, because the "time spent vs notes gained" ratio ain't worth it. No matter how well you do it, everybody still knows it's a manip and there's always gonna be some asshole who points out how they look weird.Â
Graphics, on the other hand... The thing about graphics, the thing that was hard for me to come to terms with in the beginning, is that a clear unambiguous image is not the point, 80% of the time. A graphic with what tumblr considers "beautiful coloring" usually looks very different than what was on your TV screen. It's ~artsy.Â
You can't just create a "graphic" where someone could see the same thing googling. You might still have something crisp and clear but the graphic isn't about showing people a scene from that pre-series movie playing in your head, it's about impressions, feelings, colors, emotions.Â
Maybe I'm being a hypocrite here, hell, I taught myself really precise manips because I want to show people scenes from that per-series movie in my head, but you're better off attempting to make things that are representative and not exact.
I don't know if this helps because you asked such a broad question, if there's something more specific you need, come ask me on my personal blog and I'll try and help you!
just out of curiosity - HOW do you make those GORGEOUS lannister fairytale graphics? are they all your own illustrations, or? srsly, tho, they are my absolute favorite.
Thank you so much! I sooo appreciate it when people take the time to tell me they like my graphics/photosets because a lot of the time I get really frustrated and I feel like I wouldn't reblog it if someone else made it. So thank you!!
But nooo. I can't draw! These graphic sets of mine use that 6 panel style made popular on tumblr by mmorrow, particularly with her super fabulous Little Mermaid Project that she's making into a book!
For my "Lannister Fairy Tale" and like, this set for Shiera Seastar and others, I used the process mmorrow describes here and here, but essentially you go to archive.org and look through out of copyright old books for cool images. For example, I might search for "heraldry" and get all these cool books about knights, and some of them have neat illustrations that I grab.  It takes a reaaaally long time tho. :/ I also use pictures from google and cool pictures from my dashboard. Â
I don't usually use the images just as I find them. Usually I'm erasing things, adding adjustment layers, coloring them, all the normal stuff to make a nice graphic in photoshop. I hope that helps!
