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I recently acquired Adobe Photoshop 5 from my school, (they give a discount to students, so I didn't empty my pockets) anyway, I'd like to learn how to design Star Trek ships with Photoshop, kind of like RW's, but not as good, because he's incredibly awesome. (too bad he hates Trek now.)
If anyone has any tips, tutorials, etc, would you be so kind as to tell me how to do it?
------------------ "I've never seen anything this beautiful in the entire galaxy. Alright, give me the bomb" -Ultra Magnus, Fight or Flee
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Ultra Magnus: I am glad to see you have stepped away from the dark side (i.e., kitbashing). I don't know about using Photoshop for ship design; I've never used any pixel-based programs. Instead, I recommend you to get a good vector-based drawing program. With drawing programs the resolution is almost infinitely high, allowing much more detail and precision. Also, with the program I use (Freehand 7 for Mac) drawing curves is quite easy.
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Starbuck "Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"
Member # 153
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The term "pixel" is techno-ese for "picture element", ie the dots that compose a picture. A TV picture consists of pixels, which you can see if you look close enough... and your monitor resolution (mine is 800x600) is expressed in pixels too.
Full marks for humour though
------------------ "Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"
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All the artwork you see in the Encyclopedias, the DS9 Tech Man, and ST: The Magazine is done in Adobe Illustrator or Freehand. The limitations to these programs is that you can only work with with graphic shapes and gradations.
I would suggest drawing the outlines in Illustrator and then bringing it into Photoshop 5 for coloring. Keep your colors on layers!!!!!!!!!!!
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In January I will finally get Photoshop and Illustrator and hopefully step from the stone age to a new era of starship design. :-) You will probably remind me of my premature premature pretentiousness. ;-)
------------------ "Naomi Wildman, sub-unit of Ensign Samantha Wildman, state your intentions." (VOY: "Infinite Regress")
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Ultra: Once you have your outlines drawn (make sure the lines completely enclose the shape) use your magic wand tool to select the area inside. Once the selection is made, create a new layer and hit Ctrl+H to hide the dancing ants. As long as you don't deselect this area you'll be able to fill it with solid colors, gradations, airbrushed shadows, whatever without effecting the lines or the other areas. You can use this proceedure for all shapes in the ship design. As long as you remember to put the coloring on a separate layer from the lines, you can just toss the layer and try again if you screw up.
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