Wallpaper Tips/advice

[kadaan]

Do any veteran walllpaper makers have some tips/advice on someone new to making wallpapers? Things to avoid, things to keep in mind, where to get source images, what your favorite programs are to use, etc.

I played around for several hours in photoshop and came up with this wallpaper of Hinata from Naruto: http://uhh.kadaan.com/images/Hinata.jpg

I feel like there's a lot missing, or too much in the image... constructive criticism appreciated, flames ignored.

[Omni]

I'm not a veteran wallpaper maker, but I do make wallpapers and I can give you some tips.
1. Always leave some space for the icons. But don't leave too much space for this, cause the wallpaper will look empty. Unless you want it to be empty ofcourse.
2. Don't put too many pics in a wallpaper. 1-3. More pics would make it look ugly.
3. Try to make simple wallpapers. They're usually better
4. If you're going to use text, spend alot of time on it. Nice looking text always makes the wallpaper better. It's very important.
5. If there's alot of empty space and you can't fill it with anything, draw lines, shapes and things like that. But not on -any- wallpaper. These will look good on some wallpapers, but they will look really ugly on some others.

I hope these help you

[MistressPookyChan]

Welcome to the wonderful world of wallpapering! Omni hit many of the things I was going to mention. Art is in the eye of the beholder, so if you like something, keep it like that! not everyone is going to like the same style of art.

Your wallpaper as it is right now is quite busy, but there are ways to get around that. First, you could decrease the number of pics or pick one to be the main pic. For example, by blurring the background or making it monotone (one color) and keeping one pic "normal", you automatically popped out one of the images and made it look less busy. Another suggestion is that I would take off the text. Text should really be used as an added feature and not the main subject. The text you have seems too flashy and large for this wallpaper. When in doubt, don't use text.

I hope that helped! if you have any other questions, please dont hesitate to ask. Cant wait to see what other wallpapers you can make!

[Miko]

Well, there are two types of wallpapers: Nice wallpapers, and practical wallpapers. It really depends if you're trying to make art, or make something that people will want to use. I prefer the former; but many don't.

At any rate; usually it's not a good idea to have an unchanged image in the background....(that is, of a characters face; you want something background-ish; like a landscape, an abstract-artwork, or something like that...).
Also, don't overglow; it gets tacky.

And work on extraction (cutting out the characters from their original image) !!!! No matter how tedious, odious, and abhorrable it may be (oh god, how I loathe doing it...), it's part of making wallpapers!

[kadaan]

I find extraction to be rather hard, and haven't been able to do it very well yet (which is why I used the outer glow on those images, to hide the rough edges ). I used the magnetic lasso tool in photoshop for the outline then the regular lasso tool for fine-tuning, but it still leaves the edges jagged. What technique do other people use?

[_hades the wicked]

For cutting out, most people prefer using the eraser tool... That if you want good results of course... Zoom in at around 500%, pick up your eraser at around 5 pixels, put some music on, get a good cup of coffee, and go ahead... I know, it's tedious and it's really really boring to do that, but it's the way that shows better results...

One tip, learn with your mistakes. Make wallpapers and more wallpapers, and when you get farther, try looking at your old wallpapers to see what you did wrong, what you liked, what you think you could change on your style, and all those things.

Kepp a small note about something you did that you like, for example: you make a cool filter combination for an abstract background on your wallpaper, put the filters you used to a small piece of paper or a notepad document, so that you can apply it later and do other ones from that one.

Always valorize your own work, even if it sucks, cuz after all, it is your work, and even if there are bad things about it, there will also be good aspects that you may try and pass on to the next wallpapers you may want to make.

That's about it, hope it helped.

::edits after looking at the wall:: also, try to take out the artifacts, or get pictures with no artifacts (the tiny squares that degrade the picture's quality) and try playing around with the pics until you find something you like (hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, levels, etc).

[kadaan]

Hinata try 2...

Second try...

Found a different source image to work with, made it much simpler, I liked her name in japanese so I kept it in a much smaller version, and tried to extract the image better so I could get rid of the glowing edges (still need some practice with that...).

Comments and more tips please .

[Miko]

Almost completely different.... but almost 100% better. :P Great work.

[MistressPookyChan]

The new wallpaper is nice and simple. I would add a shadow under her feet to look like she's standing (unless she's supposed to look like she was floating). I would also add something more to the background. like... dark grey lines or flames, similar to those under her name.

[_hades the wicked]

The second one is much better. More of a wallpaper than the first one.
You could maybe place the picture a bit more to the left so that it doesn't stay so much in the corner like that. Other than that, much better.