OK here is Augusts challenge everyone. There is no sign up deadline for this one and everyone is welcome to play.
This month the Challenge will be to Draw, Manip, paint, or however you want to make it: an original comic book cover. (The cover does not have to include original characters just do not copy an existing cover, original compositions only please)
The due date will be the end of the month.
The winner will recieve a custom avatar as a prize. The winner will be determined by a simple poll.
Have fun everyone.
On your mark, get set, go....

As long as the polls are still working, I will put up a poll on the ninth.

Quote:*Tsk!* You only show your Yokel-ocity when you make statements like that. She is actually a mermaid at The Coral Room, she's a sweet girl and appreciates it when a gentleman buys her a martini.

But then, being from DeepindaheartofYokelville, you've probably only seen martinis in pictures...
[img]http://members.shaw.ca/winterhawk5/Smiley/.gif[/img]

BB

Hi Everyone,

Yes, as Brick says on or before the 8th - so I'm sure we can all find time to post this weekend and have a vaguely coordinated release.
You could actually post late but that means you may miss out on votes - and that's what you get for being tardy.

Also (as Brick says) please include 'C2F' in the subject line and your team-mate's name.

Moderators, could we please have a poll starting on the 9th and finishing on the 21st;
"I think the best team-up manip is..."
(12 options)
Dark Knight / B
MatrixBlur / kev_incal
Furious Max / MilleniumBum
Flux / AnonmissX
Bill T / Mystic Morgan
Brick / dperceful
Aharmona / Shaylinn
Jedi Master Khalel / StatXero
Winterhawk / JuvenileMike
Tazman / Android
Bikerbot / Poison Ivy
Too close to call!

I'm looking forward to seeing the results, from my team-mate and everyone else!

Max - I never sleep on Christmas Eve either

I'm off the crossover challange and I've finally had an idea where I can utilize Troublebots stupid fish!

So is this still the July challange? I'm going for it regardless.

"never give up! never surrender!"

The rules are "on or before the 8th" the 8th being the deadline. Heromorph members post the work to Heromorp and c2f members post to c2f. I'm guessing, since most of us are done, we are waiting till the 8th for a mass reveal to mirror c2fs update schedual.

I'm not quite sure how it works on the C2F side.
Max and Mike are driving.

As an aside:
I think it would be nice on our part (HM'ers) to post a title something to the effect of "HM/C2F crossover by XXX and XXX" so your partners name will be directly attached to the pic. in the search fuction, as well as giving them an opertunity to post their art notes via "XXX writes: blah blah blah" in the description field, but then again if you have copious amounts of art notes you might just post it in the first comment.

Thanks BB.
By the way, I read through all the posts here and maybe I read past it, but anyways, when we post on the 8th where do we post it to? Is there a special gallery for this and what do we call it?

Wow, what a great choice for an Avatar, P!
I got it, BTW.

BB

Oh, and Brick, you don't know the half of it!

Ha ha ha funny. Now you'll really have to be careful opening up my e-mails. My half will be on it's way to you today.

dperceful and I are 99.9 percent done save for the official sticking in of the fork.

Seems to be a few leaks and rumors going around, so it looks as if we will have quite a few pics kicking butt as a result of this contest (wear some old pants on the 8th, ours will leave two, size 34 bootprints).

It looks like Mike and I are finished, we have a couple of finishing touches (logo's etc) and Then we are done.

How is everyone else doing?

Just a bump back to the top.
How is everyone doing on this one so far?

'cos I'm a monkey. We are all monkeys. But I'm better that all U other monkeys, hence the "divine" part.
That, and the fact that I love the character "the Monkey King" from chinese lore. And he aspired to become a god (then buddha dropped a montain on him, and left him there for a few hundred years).
Or maybe it's because we all decend from monkeys, but a lot of people seem to think that we are better then animals. So I took this name to tease them.
Hell, I don't know. It sounds good.

I've finished my half, and Poison Ivy has finished hers. (At least, it _seems_ that she has, but that male mind controlling mist she used on Batman makes any assumption questionable...)

Now for a background...

BB

The polls seem to be working again. I can not promise they will stay that way or that I can get them to appear on the front page, but I thought I would let you know. If you want I can make the poll up for voting, when we are all finished.

And one more:

Extracting objects from their background (Photoshop)

The Extract command provides a sophisticated way to isolate a foreground object and erase its background on a layer. Even objects with wispy, intricate, or undefinable edges may be clipped from their backgrounds with a minimum of manual work.

Note: For simpler cases, you can instead use the background eraser tool.

To extract an object, you use tools in the Extract dialog box. First you draw a highlight that marks the edges of the object, and define the object's interior. Then you can preview the extraction and redo it or touch up the result as needed. When you extract the object, Photoshop erases its background to transparency. Pixels on the edge of the object lose their color components derived from the background, so they can blend with a new background without producing a color halo.

You can add back opacity to the background and create other effects by using the Edit > Fade command after an extraction. (See Blending filter effects (Photoshop).)

To extract an object from its background:

1 In the Layers palette, select the layer containing the object you want to extract. If you select abackground layer, it becomes a normal layer after the extraction. To avoid losing the original image information, duplicate the layer or make a snapshot of the original image state.

Note: If the layer contains a selection, the extraction erases the background only in the selected area.

2 Choose Image > Extract.

You use tools in the Extract dialog box to specify which part of the image to extract. You can resize the dialog box by dragging its lower right corner.

3 Specify options for tools in the dialog box (you can change these settings at any time):

For Brush Size, enter a value, or drag the slider to specify the width of the edge highlighter, eraser, cleanup, and edge touchup tools.
For Highlight, choose a preset color option, or choose Other to specify a custom color for the highlight.
For Fill, choose a preset color option, or choose Other to specify a custom color for the area covered by the fill tool.
If you are highlighting a well-defined edge, select Smart Highlighting. This option helps you keep the highlight on the edge, and applies a highlight that is just wide enough to cover the edge, regardless of the current brush size. Smart Highlighting can greatly improve the extraction when the object and background have similar colors or have textures.

4 Adjust the view as needed:

To magnify an area, select the zoom tool () in the dialog box, and click in the preview image. To zoom out, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you click.
To view a different area, select the hand tool in the dialog box, and drag in the preview image.

5 Define the edge of the object you want to extract:

To draw a highlight that marks the edge, select the edge highlighter tool () in the dialog box, and drag so that the highlight slightly overlaps both the foreground object and its background. Use Smart Highlighting to trace sharper edges. Use a large brush to cover wispy, intricate edges where the foreground blends into the background, such as hair or trees.

If you use Smart Highlighting to mark an object edge that is near another edge, decrease the brush size if conflicting edges pull the highlight off the object edge. If the object edge has a uniform color on one side and high-contrast edges on the other side, keep the object edge within the brush area but center the brush on the uniform color.

If the object has a well-defined interior, make sure that the highlight forms a complete enclosure. You do not need to highlight areas where the object touches the image boundaries. If the object lacks a clear interior, highlight the entire object.
To base the highlight on a selection saved in an alpha channel, choose the alpha channel from the Channel menu. The alpha channel should be based on a selection of the edge boundary. If you modify a highlight based on a channel, the channel name in the menu changes to Custom.
To erase the highlight, select the eraser tool () in the dialog box, and drag over the highlight. To erase the entire highlight, press Alt+Backspace (Windows) or Option+Delete (Mac OS).

6 Define the foreground area:

If the object has a well-defined interior, select the fill tool () in the dialog box. Click inside the object to fill its interior. (Clicking a filled area with the fill tool removes the fill.)
If the object is especially intricate or lacks a clear interior, make sure that the highlight covers the entire object, and then select Force Foreground. Select the eyedropper tool () in the dialog box, and click inside the object to sample the foreground color, or click in the Color text box and use a color picker to select the foreground color. This technique works best with objects that contain tones of a single color.

7 Click Preview to preview the extracted object, or skip to step 10 to extract the object without a preview

Selected area highlighted and filled, and extracted object

Zoom in as needed, and set any preview options:

Use Show menu options to switch between previews of the original and extracted images.
Use Display menu options to preview the extracted object against a colored matte background or as a grayscale mask. To display a transparent background, choose None.
Select Show Highlight or Show Fill to display the object's highlight or fill.

8 If necessary, repeat the extraction to improve the results (when you are finished, you can perform final
touch-ups as described in step 9):

To perform another extraction after adjusting the highlight and fill, repeat steps 5, 6, and 7.
To perform another extraction with new extraction settings, change the Smooth, Force Foreground, or Color settings, and repeat step 7.

Note: To specify the amount of smoothing of the extracted object, drag the Smooth slider or enter a value.
It is usually best to begin with a zero or small value to avoid unwanted blurring of details. If there are sharp artifacts in the extraction result, you can increase the Smooth value to help remove them in the next extraction.

9 Touch up the extraction results as needed:

To erase background traces in the extracted area, use the cleanup tool (). The tool subtracts opacity and has a cumulative effect. You can also use the cleanup tool to fill gaps in the extracted object. Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while dragging to add back opacity.
To edit the edge of the extracted object, use the edge touchup tool (). The tool sharpens edges and has a cumulative effect. If there is no clear edge, the edge touchup tool adds opacity to the object or subtracts opacity from the background.

10 Click OK to apply the final extraction. On the layer, all pixels outside the extracted object are erased to transparency.

Note: For best results in cleaning up stray edges, use the cleanup and edge touchup tools in the Extract dialog box. You can also clean up after an extraction by using the background eraser and history brush tools in the toolbox.

BikerBot

The Lords and Ladies of Heromorph have requested that I post some of my tips for proper Selection and Reduction in Photoshop. Enjoy:

Clean up selections using the Smooth command in Photoshop

If you use the Magic Wand tool for making selections or have to
expand or contract a selection, you'll find that the selection
is a bit messy. To clean it up choose Select > Modify > Smooth
and enter a radius value equal to the amount that that you expanded
or contracted your selection by or try a radius between 2 and 6.

Avoid jagged lines when making selections in Photoshop

Many times when making quick selections using the Magic Wand tool or
the Lasso tool the final outcome isn't as crisp as we'd like it to be.
To fix this, after making a selection enter into Quick Mask Mode by
pressing Q on the keyboard. Then, choose Filter > Noise > Median.
In the resulting dialog box, increase the Radius until your selection
is smooth. Then click OK. After smoothing out your selection, return
to Standard Mode by pressing Q again. That's all there is to it!

A quick fix for jagged line art in Photoshop

Cleaning up messy line art can be a breeze. More than likely, if
it's line art, then the image was saved as a bitmap. Open the image
in Photoshop and convert it to Grayscale by selecting Image > Mode >
Grayscale. Keep the Size Ratio as 1 and click OK. Then choose
Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a slight blur that removes
all the uneven edges. Usually this is a Radius between 1 and 5
pixels. Then click OK. Next, choose Image > Adjust > Threshold
and adjust the slider so your image is only black and white. Finally,
convert your image back into a bitmap, by selecting Image > Mode >
Bitmap. In the Bitmap dialog box, set the Resolution Output to
600 ppi and choose 50% Threshold as the Method.

Erasing the background of an image in Photoshop

Photoshop's Background Eraser tool is the perfect tool to use to
eliminate any unnecessary background scenery, while preserving
the foreground information. To test it out, open an image in Photoshop
and select the Background Eraser tool. Then click on an area that
you want to erase within your image. The trick when using this
tool is to make sure that the cross in the center of your brush
is only touching the pixels that make up the background of your
image. If you accidentally touch part of the foreground with this
cross, the Background Eraser tool then erases the foreground as
well.

Keeping reductions sharp in Photoshop

Have you've discovered images from your digital camera look muddy
after resizing them to make their size more manageable for the
Web. The most probable reason for the image's appearance is the
manner in which you're reducing the images. Most of the time, when
you resize an image in Photoshop, you're using the bicubic algorithm,
and therein lies the problem. As it resizes the image, it averages
the color areas of the corresponding areas to determine the color
value for each pixel in the new image. While minimal reductions
don't do much, big changes in the size of an image can make the
resulting image appear a bit soft (or muddy, if you must). So much
so that the Unsharp Mask trick doesn't work. The solution isn't
to throw out the bicubic reduction, but rather to go about things
a little more slowly.

For example, if you're reducing a large digital image of 1536 by
2048 pixels to something like 154 by 205 pixels (a reduction to
10 percent), you should go about it in steps. First, reduce it
by 50 percent and then use the Unsharp Mask filter (with a 50-percent
Amount, a 1-pixel Radius and a 0 Threshold).

Now, reduce the image again by 50 percent and then reapply the
Unsharp Mask filter. Finally, reduce the image to the final size
and reapply the filter. By doing the reduction in steps, and by
correcting the image as you go along, the resulting images will
be much cleaner.

After reviewing how well this technique works, you might even consider
creating an action in Photoshop to do the reduction and correction
automatically. That way, you not only save time but get better
results as well.

Safe settings for Photoshop's Unsharp Mask filter

The Unsharp Mask filter, contrary to its name, sharpens and
adds contrast to images. Knowing what settings to plug in for
this filter can be a bit perplexing. So, rather than just
arbitrarily guessing what numbers to put in for the Amount,
Radius and Threshold try the following settings. For images
that are already sharp and hold a lot of detail, set the Amount
to 70%, the Radius to 4 pixels and Threshold to 3 pixels. For soft
or slightly blurred images set the Amount to 180%, the Radius to
2 pixels and the Threshold to 6 pixels. From there you can make
slight adjustments for maximum quality. And remember that it's good
practice to over sharpen the image a bit (just a bit) because it
will be softened when it's printed.

Avoid unwanted halos when sharpening images in Photoshop

When you apply the Unsharp Mask filter to a color image, the filter
automatically adjusts each color channel causing unwanted halos
around the edges of your image. To keep this from happening, convert
your image to Lab mode by choosing Image > Mode > Lab Color. Then
apply the Unsharp Mask to the Lightness layer only in the Channels
palette. This will bring out the detail without affecting the colors
of your image.


BikerBot

Well thanks Winterhawk, I'm flattered. Maybe I'm too hard on myself, I suppose that I could be a lot worse as far as posters go...Ha ha.

"But that's another story in its own" - Wayne's World

I'm glad to see that I'm moving up in the world -- at least from where I thought I was...

Till next time,
SVD

I really want to stress that these awards are going to be different then the annual Heromorph awards.
The Dodge and Burn awards are going to have completely different categories, completely different eligibility qualifications, and a different nomination process. I have been working on hammering out the details with someone else, for a while now. The big announcement is planned for the august 9th. You will find out all the rules and other details then.

as a newbie who wasn't around for the last HeroMorph awards thing, i'd like to ask who votes for the Morphy's? is it decided by administrators/moderators, or is it an open vote. i like the idea of the "other" awards being decided by public vote, especially if the main awards are decided by a set of specific judges.

that said, i think this is a great idea. also, i don't think it matters if a particular piece of work gets awards during both show. what's so bad about winning more than one award? if a manip wins multiple awards, it must deserve it. i see people walk away with multiple oscars every year....