#also photoshop crashed a few times

[marcelskittels]

‹ La Vuelta 2023 - Stage 1 (TTT) ›

[colleendoran]

Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

 Go me!  

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because  right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt. 

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back. 

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news. 

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work. 

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing. 

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful  eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work. 

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way. 

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry. 

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was  hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings,  enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year. 

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks. 

[natequarter]

some random (mostly modern) headcanons about the ghosts:

julian is mildly allergic to dogs

robin is an astrophysicist with a background interesting in linguistics. due to adhd he tends to start learning languages on a whim. his current project is icelandic

julian and margot divorced because they both discovered the other person cheating on them at the same time

much like julian, thomas cannot be in the same room as a dog for long. it's not allergies, though, dogs just hate him. or they love biting off his nose. it's not clear

humphrey's father died in a car crash when he was a teenager, leading him to inherit a lot of wealth at a young age. whenever anyone tries to offer their condolences, he casually tells them that he hated his father (the feeling was mutual)

thomas is a lit student doing his degree on nineteenth century romantics. nobody knows why he has beef with a poet who's been dead for more than two hundred years, and at this point they're too afraid to ask

fanny is outraged when she discovers her husband has been evading taxes behind her back because she knows she could've managed the numbers better (and he didn't think to tell her!)

she's also very good with photoshop. julian is terrified that a) someday she'll use photoshop against him or b) she'll use her connections to get in him in trouble. or c) she'll yell at him, which is even worse

kitty really likes fizzy sweets

and pink dresses

and gore

she wants to become a surgeon one day

the captain's wardrobe is just the same turtlenecks in a few different colours (read: grey, green, and black)

nobody actually knows shit about the captain or robin's pasts, they both just sort of turned up one day

humphrey once lived in france and spain for a few years. he picked up spanish, but not french, because he can learn any language just fine... except french, for some reason

alison keeps on trying to drag her mates into her insane schemes to win the war against her neighbour

They Do Not Work

everyone is slightly terrified of her. except julian, who's decided to mentor her

yikes

[allycat75]

Just a reminder of why I am here, lest you think I actually believe a certain Dumb Fuck from Boston is actually reading this blog.

In case it wasn't obvious, addressing specific posts to a particular person is but a literary device (such that it is on Tumblr). This blog is a way for me to scream into a void and if you don't like what I have to say, please respectfully leave and try to refrain from misrepresenting me on other blogs. I may not be your cup of tea, but I will not be minimized.

What I am screaming into the void about:

Mr. Dumb Fuck roped us all into this by trying to convince us he is stunningly happy in a relationship when it is obvious to almost anyone he is not (and if he is, he has to be the most toxic boyfriend/hubby ever). He even tried to help his cause by doing a bad job on purpose, but that act to save himself came crashing down on those who called out the Emperor who had no clothes, hard. Because when we pointed out the many obvious inconsistencies, we were branded as crazy, stupid and jealous. Then there is the gaslighting with changing timelines, photoshopped pictures, ghost sightings/weddings, poorly acted jump scares and general mindfuckery. He can't now un-invite us to the party because he doesn't like what we are saying. We will defend ourselves from lies and manipulation and not accept the negative labels thrust upon us. Too often, women are dismissed for being irrational and this stunt highlights the incredibly antiquated and misogynist trope.

The little wifey is an awful person and by tying himself to her like this he tacitly provides his approval to her racism, antisemitism, fatshaming, arrogance, immaturity, clout-chasing and entitlement, forever. That hypocrisy cannot go unnoticed considering his former stance on these subjects and his role as the face of the insipid ASP. I am a member of a few of the groups the wifey and her crew target so no one gets to tell me I am taking this too seriously or I am being too sensitive. As Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona discussed during a recent talk on an unimportant, ego stroking website, passiveness normalizes destructive behaviors and beliefs toward marginalized communities, at a time when we in those communities feel unseen or unprotected.

The fact that he looks absolutely miserable, with no light in his eyes, and discusses his life as if it is not his own is more than a little unnerving. This is in no way to shame him, but rather out of a genuine concern for his wellbeing. If I were to encounter someone on the street acting like he did as described in the near career ending GQ article, I would be compelled to call someone to assist this man in distress. And I don't buy the excuse of "he's just tired" or "he is working hard".  He is running from who he has become and doesn't know where to go.  These posts are a way for me to work out frustration of not being able to help someone who is in clear need of it.  And yeah, maybe it is none of my business, but just as if I ran into the GQ version of him on the street, I couldn't just stand by and do nothing. 

This circus also shows how his behavior parallels the issues of the world at large and how we accept things we shouldn't. We have kept quiet about unchecked privlege, intent vs. impact, performative activism, being child-like vs. childish, ageism, greed and corruption, mental illness and wellness, self awareness, the power and weaponry of sexuality, toxic masculinity and misogyny, generational wealth, integrity, alternative facts and emotional truths, misinformation and disinformation, imbalance of power, value placed on hard work, attributes of healthy relationships, preciousness of time, and the effects we have on our fellow mortals, all of which has got us to now, on the brink of societal destruction. And we see this epitomized in the microcosm of this shitshow. I use this blog and the unlikely, fucked up muse that inspired it to think about how we all cultivate our points of view and perhaps pressure test what they really mean to us and how we express them in our daily lives. Others who find my blog may feel lost and alone, as we all do at times, in need of some comfort or inspiration. While the quotes, infographics and articles may be very pointed, they are there for everyone to enjoy and interpret. The Song of the Day, however, is purely about me and what I woke up singing or feeling. Nothing to do with BDF, but still for everyone to appreciate.

So that's about it. I hope you have more clarity about what I am trying to accomplish and again, if you wish to be negative, you can see yourself out. Thank you! 👋

[andmaybegayer]

Hello it's me with another very naive computer question!

One of the really common complaints you see about modern software (from Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) is the move from the single-purchase model to a subscription-based model. While I understand that people are upset about paying more money over time, this also feels like the only viable option for shipping products that work with modern OSes, especially Windows (I don't have any experience with MacOS). Windows pretty regularly updates, and if you want your product to continue to work, you have to continue paying your engineers to maintain compatibility through time.

Obviously I understand that there are lots of FOSS options out there, but for the companies that are built on making money from these sorts of software products, I don't see another way. Am I way off the mark here?

This is a really good question. I don't have a great answer, but the model I have in my head is that "traditional software distribution" is partially an artifact of an era where companies were starting to use computers but internet use was still spotty so providing support for software was just a very different ballgame. A lot of what I'm saying here is not like. Fact as much as it is my understanding of The Software Business from the side of someone who is a little involved in that but mostly not in that.

(This is mostly about "business software", that is to say, accounting packages, creative suites, design packages, modelling tools, etc. This model does not explain like. Spotify. But that's much easier to explain.)

You're not wrong that the subscription model really make sense given modern software development, where patches come out continuously and you get upgraded to the latest version every time something changes, but there has been a significant change in how software is developed and sold that makes it noticeably different. I think that the cause of this is mostly because it's finally practical to do contract-style deals with hundreds of thousands of customers instead of doing one-off sales like we used to do.

In the Traditional model you charge a pretty sizeable upfront cost for a specific version of the software, you buy Windows XP or Jasc Paint Shop 7 or whatever and then you get That Version until we release The Next Version, plus a couple years of security and support. When the next version hits, we stop adding any new features to your version, and when that hits end of life, you maybe get offered a discount to buy licensing for the latest version, or you drop out of support.

Traditional software with robust support typically costs an awful lot, Photoshop CS2 was $600 new in 2005, or $150 to upgrade from CS, because you're paying for support and engineering time in advance. A current subscription for just Photoshop is $20/mo, and that's after twenty years of inflation. Photoshop is also cheap, a seat for something like SolidWorks 2003 could probably have run you $3000-4000 easy. I can't even give you a better guess there because SolidWorks still doesn't sell single commercial licenses online, you have to talk to their salespeople.

The interesting thing to me about Traditional pricing was that I think it was typically offered to medium to small businesses or individuals, because it's an easy way to sell to smaller customers, especially if it's the 90's and you're maybe selling your software through an intermediary reseller who works with local businesses or just a store shelf.

Independent software resellers were a big business back in the day, they served as a go-between for the software company and smaller businesses, they sold prepared packages in a few sizes and handled the personal relationship of phoning you up and saying "Hey there's a patch for your accounting software so that it doesn't crash when someone's surname is Zero, we'll send you a floppy disk in the mail with some instructions on how to install it." Versioned standard releases are a thing you can put in a box and give to resellers along with a spec sheet and sales talking points. This business still exists but it's much smaller than it once was, it's largely gone upmarket.

If you were bigger, say, if you were a publishing house that needed fifty seats of editing software you'd probably call the sales department of Jasc or whoever and get a volume deal along with a support contract.

Nowadays why would you bother going through resellers and making this whole complicated pricing model when you could just sell subscriptions with well-established e-commerce tools. You can make contract support deals with individuals at scale, all online, without hiring thousands of salespeople. You can even provide varying support levels at multiple cost brackets directly, so you don't need to cultivate a direct business relationship with all your customers in order to meet their needs. Your salespeople handle the really big megacorp and government deals and you let everyone else administer themselves.

It also makes development easier. You can also deploy patches over the net, you just do it in software. You can obsolete older versions faster, since you can make sure most people are using the latest version, and significantly cut down on engineering time spent backporting fixes to older versions. I think a lot of this is straightforwardly desirable on most software.

Now, there are still packages sold by the version, and there are even companies selling eternal licenses.

Fruity Loops Studio is still a "Buy once forever" type deal.

MatLab can be purchased as a subscription or as a perpetual one-version license.

Windows is still sold like this, but also direct to customer sales of Windows are minimal, Windows is primarily sold to OEM's who preinstall it on everything.

But it's a dying breed, your bigger customers are going to want current support and while there are industries where people want to hang around on older versions, for a lot of software your customer wants the latest thing with all the features and patches, and they'd rather hold on to their money until later using a subscription rather than spend it all upfront. Businesses love subscriptions, they make accounts books balance well, they're the opposite of debt.

Personal/private users who might just want the features of Photoshop CS2 and that's fine forever don't matter to you. They're not your major customers. This kind of person is not a person who your business cares to service, so you don't really care if you annoy them.

Even in the Open Source business world, subscriptions are how the money is made, just on support rather than for the software itself. You can jump through relatively few hoops to run Ubuntu Enterprise or SUSE Enterprise Linux on your own systems for free, but really there's not much benefit to that unless you pay for the dedicated support subscription.

In many ways I think a lot of things have changed in this way, I have a whole thing about the way medium-scale industrial manufacturing has changed in the past thirty years somewhere around here.

While there are valid reasons you might want to buy a single snapshot of some software and run that forever, the reality is that that's a pretty rare desire, or at least that desire is rarely backed by money. If you want to do that you either need access to the source code so that you can maintain it yourself, or you need to strike a deal with someone who will, or it needs to be software so limited that it (and the system it runs on!) never need updates. Very few useful programs are this simple. As a result subscription models make sense, but until recently you couldn't really sell a subscription to small businesses and individuals. Changes in e-commerce and banking have enabled such contracts to be made, and hey presto, it's subscription world.

[nova-streya]

Not a perfect illustration, I'm still figuring this program out, but I tried out cel shading and inking in Clip Studio Paint for the first time yesterday and I love it so far. Reason and short story as to why I'm switching to this program under the cut.

I... was using Photoshop for the longest time, but it would always crash my laptop. Always. I tried to figure out why, and I figured it out. Turns out that it's the ONLY thing that can be running on my laptop for it not to crash. On top of me working on multiple creative projects, this is also why it's taken me so long to make art posts.

I was getting sick of the hassle of working around this, so I decided to boot up my old version of CSP Pro I got for free a few years ago, which led me to making this test.

I'm very quickly getting used to this program and having more fun drawing digitally than I have in a long time. So, thank you to my friends on discord who suggested I switch to CSP.

[astarionposting]

Hi! Is it hard to learn how to make gifs of bg3 and post on Tumblr? I wanna try so bad :(( do you know a great tutorial?

Hello! It isn’t hard necessarily, but is very VERY time consuming depending on what you want to create. For reference, my last few posts of Durge x Tav and Orin x Tav, took me about 3 days of playing for 9+ hours and a lot of time editing gifs in photoshop (and a lot of photoshop crashing bc my "scratch disks are FULL"... AGAIN!!).

I have some tutorials here that you can check out! It includes some on how I take screenshots, edit them and also how I make gifs with photoshop!

[omegaplus]

# FINAL POST.

Ask me if there was one moment in my life that changed everything for the better. I’ll tell you: it was discovering both Cold Cave’s “Confetti” and Prurient’s Cocaine Death. It’s the Summer of ‘11 when the worst decision of my life was still being played out. I was suffering in a place I never imagined I would be; the product of the late Oughts’ economic crash when I went broke and bounced from job to job. I had no choice but to wave the white flag and take the first thing offered to me. I lost everything a few years prior that made me: a radio show, music shopping, graphics design, writing, and more. When I heard the opening notes to “Confetti”, I felt magic. It gave me a vibe and showed me a beauty I was going to look for in the years to come. Cocaine Death was created by Brooklyn noise artist Dominick Fernow who had a vision and aesthetic that intrigued me so much that I was curious to see what other things surrounded his origins. He was the reason why I discovered Cold Cave. Months passed and despite living through a personal hell at work, “Confetti” and Cocaine Death signified a new beginning for me. I got back into the habit of burning music, resumed Photoshop, and started writing again. I had enough momentum that I decided the time was right to get back into radio. I had a show during my stay at Stony Brook University, which ended when my tenure did. I had just enough music to give it another shot. Finds from Geneva Jacuzzi, Washed Out, Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Glass Candy and Italians Do It Better made me feel something. I got in touch with the current general manager and on December 12, 2012 (12/12/12) Omega WUSB was born.

Around that time, I made friends with some of the other co-workers who were more on my side and knew a thing or two about respect, privacy, and personal space. I helped my ex- moved into a new residence, I caught up with co-workers from previous jobs who gave birth to their first-borns with their deadbeat dads nowhere in sight, and re-united with old classmates from the Brentwood era whom I haven’t seen since. If that wasn’t enough, an all-too-special interest during the Stony Brook era decided to reach out to me - by total surprise - wanting to pick up where we left off. I was finally back into it. The following Summer, that potential and I were getting closer, and I finally got myself a second job to leave the consequences of the first. It’s not even halfway into my first year back that I was going crazy with Omega WUSB, and I was already enjoying it; being back in my element of playing music over the airwaves from a tattered control room with broken antiquated equipment which none have been replaced since the late Sixties. It felt great to be back. For the next ten years, Omega WUSB took me places, taught me things about myself I never knew, and showed me what it took to keep ongoing projects running. Since I’d be constantly finding music to keep my show fresh, why not start a blog and tell my listeners how enthusiastic I was about it? On December 2013, I started Ω+. What really made Ω+? It was a literal reflection of myself; a personal music diary of radio shows I played, releases in my library, purchases, mixtapes, live experiences, random things I listened to, listening habits and more. This was the place where I had no shame telling everyone what I was into, and I did it to prove a point. I aimed to make this blog stand out over everything else here. To do that, I posted about every genre I got my ears on because I truly enjoyed everything I listened to. It’s why you saw everything from indie, hip-hop / rap, post-punk, d.i.y, noise, industrial, shoegaze, d-beat, reggae, jazz / fusion, jungle, and much more to list.

There were also other ideas I had that no other music blog had: numbered posts, seasonal mixtapes, extensive year-end lists and best-of posts, personal insights, and tons of candor - much more to my benefit. Our favorite months were our ‘second issue series’ and ‘clearance sales’ where we posted heavily about alternate covers, colored vinyl and cassettes and other rarities which drew our largest amounts of followers. Plus, plenty of receipts of years past and many from two ‘record store victory tours’ (‘18 and ‘22) covered here. Wanted to know what was on a mix cassette or CD-r my friends gave me, or what played off of my iPhone or iPod during a train ride or walk through Central Park? The song that played on the overhead as a potential, and I sat over ice cream? What I listened to during a specific point in time, or what band tees people wore at a certain show I attended? It was all here. It got off to an inconsistent start (one which I’ll never get over when you see the archives), but eventually it got rolling when I made it a point to post consistently and have a presence because that’s how you got likes and followers. And Christ did I hammer at it. But without Omega WUSB, Ω+ wouldn’t have existed, and you wouldn’t be reading this now. For 10 years it gave you something not many or no other music blog gave you. Now, after lots of consideration, I’m making the decision to finally end Ω+ once and for all. This is our final post. ********************** It started during the pandemic summer when someone I met here left a poisonous impression on me. My anxiety and depression came back and totally threw me off. I couldn’t think straight as I was too busy figuring out the hurt and pain she just created for me. I wasn’t focused and wasn’t posting as much in as I used to. The pushback was enough that I started feeling different about lots of things and seriously wondered what I was still doing here. That was when Ω+ started to suffer.

Up until this point I’ve been falling behind and that’s not good. Once you fall behind on a music blog like this, it’s almost impossible and time-consuming to come back. And to come back, you have to short-change yourself. Cheat, cut corners, and be inconsistent with what’s being posted. After posting at least (on average) 38+ times a month, coming up with new ways of saying the same things over and over and over and over and over again, and writing in a way that keeps readers attention, then after all is said and done, what was I / Ω+ getting back in return? It used to get 250 followers a year, and I had to pull teeth in order to get them. When you put in so much work to show your followers how awesome and crazy an album or single is, only to get an average of 10 likes on each post (barring some of Omega WUSB’s playlists), and see others post the same exact thing for ten times the amount, it does get rather discouraging. I always felt, with millions of readers on here and with music being a universal thing, how and why was it so hard to get more out of what I do?

Some say you don’t do it for the numbers, you do it for personal satisfaction. Getting that personal satisfaction was never an issue by simply running this page because I always loved staying in touch and finding things in common with my followers. Only then I wanted all the numbers coming to me. Not getting that consistency that I wanted, even after 10 years of Ω+, feels like a letdown. I was hoping to have exactly 22 entries per month this year. Then, this happens: instead of privately posting entries on the spot before the month was over, I ended up queuing them at the last minute and miscalculated. Only 11 entries for August were posted, with the others after the fact in September, so there’s zero chance of getting the others back. I fucked up. The final straw was when I have seen my perfect format slightly altered as the header images now became smaller and wasn’t fitting the text column width entirely. It’s bad enough having to spend hours trying to find a working theme, only to see it messed around with no rhyme or reason. I reached a point to where I felt I was throwing my time away for less-than-desired gain, and what was once one of my favorite things to do became tiring and heavy-headed. In short: I’m massively overwhelmed with no end in sight. I’m too exhausted and don’t have it in me anymore in this capacity to keep this going. ********************** I’m in a much better place than I was ten years ago, financially and ambitiously. I still have everything I took back and more. I still have the radio show, and still do graphic design, sound editing, and photography. But there are still things left on the backburner. I haven’t written or created anything in months but want to again. There’s a backlog of music I’ve yet to listen to from last year’s massive island- and city-wide record-store shopping spree that left me 560+ vinyl records, tapes, and CDs richer and $3,000 poorer - and also from another shopping spree on top of that.

There are plenty of books I bought that I need to read up on, and tons of cassettes and VHS tapes I need to digitally transfer. I just started learning Italian thanks to one of the best people ever. I purchased a coding book six months ago that I’ve yet to even open. I’m still recovering from the retail-hell climate that took a daily toll on my mental and emotional health so heavy that it was depleting me. Now, I work at home and managed to stay with the company; essentially keeping my 401K, medical, and my time-off. Total game-changer. Since my dad left, I’ve been practicing self-care in ways I wasn’t allowed to. I took the time to step back, re-assess myself, and be the person I always wanted to be, with no constant surveillance of people keeping tabs on me. I’ve enjoyed many moments - arcades, travels to New York City, holidays with my family, live industrial-music shows in New York City, and meeting specific people - when I have them. My company has changed. Though I parted ways from some of the best co-workers I had, I also did the same from separating myself from the daily cast of the undesirable public.

My vision and state of mind have changed due to anti-depressants, focusing on some specific valuable people, and not having to think about the worst as much. Different things made by different people have happened. I’m welcoming and embracing the changes I’ve made for myself, and there’s plenty more I need to do. Right now, I’m still simplifying my life and focus on what I want to do from now until the day I cash it all in for good. ********************** What Ω+ leaves behind is ten years in the life and diary of one person’s lifetime listening habits and acquisitions of music. Decades of personal mixtapes, gifts from friends, giveaways, and the evolution of listening habits. Plenty of quarterly personal seasonal playlists, playlists of the day, and past WUSB shows when they happened. A roadmap of two record store victory tours, various receipts, and almost all live experiences ever attended. How about those ‘second issue’ series focusing on rare, out of print, and mispressed releases plus alternate covers, color vinyl and cassette editions? A multitude of year-end and even end-of-the-decade best-of lists. Documents of Omega WUSB’s anniversaries and all-out Summer broadcasting seasons. Locales, venues, and what t-shirt everyone was wearing. An enthusiasm of hip-hop’s golden age, post-punk / d.i.y., hardcore / metalcore, industrial, sampling culture, and vinyl treasures. Practically almost every genre, decade, and format Ω+ got it hands on.

Every song, album, purchase, listen, experience, interaction, broadcast, mixtape, playlist, purchase, and venture has all been documented here - and with all the utmost honestly and openness. All of that stops here. We (at Ω+) say this right now to save you the uncertainty: we’re not like those other blogs who abruptly stop posting without a heads-up and leave you hanging for months (or even years) waiting for another entry or at least announcing a hiatus, then decide to pop up once more and swear that things get rolling again. Guess what? You never heard from them again after that. What a surprise. Like unreliables, most promise but don’t deliver. Not us. When we say we’re done, we mean it. We’re done. We’re not posting again after this. There’s no coming back. No false hope or waiting for a day that will never come. (I’m sure you wouldn’t like being lied to or short-changed by anyone, either.) But, I’ll still be filling in the blanks from last year for completeness, as lives up to its name with this final post - in its current form. But, here’s a catch… There’s one follower of Ω+ who happens to be as obsessed and crazy about music as I am. Imagine that. She doesn’t have a dedicated music blog like this, but instead, has loads of Spotify playlists, plenty of audio and video posts all across many different accounts and social media. Between us, we’ve given each other CDs, records, and cassettes for holiday gifts and birthdays. We’ve traded MP3’s, and mailed out entire boxes of tapes from personal collections. We’ve been turned on to other’s recommendations. Our enthusiasm with finding and sharing music is unimaginable; perhaps more than what any normal human being is capable of. We have lots of artists, bands, genres, and even specifics in common that it was almost improbable to have found each other, but we did. She started following us not too long ago, so she’s going to be disappointed to learn that this music blog has come to a full stop. But, I’m not the one to disappoint. That is a total non-negotiable. So, I decided to re-invent it. Ω+ is now dead. Long live ΩRMX.

ΩRMX is a revision of the original with all the seasonal mixtapes, Omega WUSB playlists, personal posts, record-store receipts, live experiences, and other important stuff that made it. Instead of reviews, they’ll be replaced with now- or currently-listening. Tagging will be minimal and not specific, and some other details like numbered posts have been left behind. Everyone passing through will know what I’ve been listening to in real time. It’ll be simpler and faster for me to post without having to spend too much time and be constantly under the gun to do so. Problem solved. As much as I’d love to, I can’t continue with this specific music -blr with how it’s currently done. I really don’t want to completely give up on it altogether. I’ll be doing things a little differently. I’m still curious to see who’s paying attention to what I’m listening now or did XX years ago, or if anyone had experienced what I have. I’d also like to know if what I’m doing still separates myself from the others - if those types of -blrs still even exist. ********************** At this point, Ω+ stays here for posterity’s sake and becomes a curiosity for anyone who accidentally discovers it. I only hope future visitors get what I’ve done and how I’ve done it differently than the other music -blrs found here, or anywhere. To everyone who have followed us back, liked our entries, reblogged, supported, or even messaged us to see what happened to us, I appreciate it all. As we always say, we hope you took something with you.

-

Ω+: December 2013-December 2023.

[cherrypikkins]

hello! I found you through one of your art tutorials and absolutely loved it, it's really inspired me to try it. I was just wondering, not being familiar with digital art, what set up/ app/ tools do you use (or recommend)? do I need a fancy tablet? thank you :)

I'm so glad to hear it! I hope wherever your drawing journey takes you, that you will keep having fun along the way :)

I am always glad to show my setup!

Let's start with the hardware!

Nowadays, I use a Wacom Cintiq 16, which I purchased this year for around $800 CAD.

This device very much on the fancy side but as someone who has done digital art for 20+ years, it has helped me complete my works in a much shorter amount of time. The Cintiq surface allows me to draw directly on the screen.

Before that, I used a tablet - the Wacom Intuos v4 S, which I received as a gift from my Dad. It held up for 10+ years and was still working excellently when I gave it away for my Mom to use. :) In 2009 I believe it was priced around $250 CAD.

The surface was a lot more matte when I purchased it and has since gotten shinier from all the abrasion and usage and skin contact. I remember it had a protective transparent sheet which I tore off on the first day of use. LOL

My desktop PC is i7 processor @ 3.20 GHz with Windows 10 64bit, 16gb, with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 video card. Monitor is 24". Notably I use my PC for other activities such as gaming.

Now let's talk about drawing programs!

My software of choice is PaintToolSai v2! It is very lightweight and has a smaller toolset compared to Photoshop or Clip Studio.

I favor it because I feel that it has a better response to pen input, which helps create higher quality lines. It is very stable and performs very well - I don't think I've ever had any crashes while using v2, which is still in development. The smaller price point helps. The current price is 5500JPY, which should be around $50 CAD these days? The price was lower when I purchased it years and years back, and I was able to upgrade to v2 without any additional cost.

As for what I recommend for a beginner? I admit, it's a little hard for me to say - the landscape of digital painting has changed so much over the past ten years that so many new tools and software have come out while I was still using Sai and my Intuos!

But if you start shopping around, there are some things that may factor into your decision. Please note that I will be speaking as someone who uses mainly desktop systems and tablets for digital art.

Price: The price of a good-quality drawing tablet can range from the $100s to the $1000s. If you are a beginner, you may not experience the benefits of a professional-standard tablet right away, so it's ok to start small! For software, there are quite a few free options to get you started, such as Medibang or Krita. If you have an iPad, Procreate is available on the store for $9.99, though you may need to invest in a stylus.

System Specs: If you have a laptop or a PC, be sure to double check your specs to make sure it can support the hardware and software of your choice! The requirements are less stringent than gaming, so at least i3 with 8gb RAM will work! You will also need to make sure you have enough storage space to hold large files. I've read that the sweet spot for storage is 128GB. If you are a beginner, you probably won't hit the limit in a short amount of time - just be aware that file sizes for digital art can reach 100s of MB depending on size and complexity.

Pressure Sensitivity: This is a measure of how sensitive your tablet is to pressure changes so that you can vary between solid/translucent and thin/thick lines as you are drawing. The recommendation for newcomers is 1,024 levels. Any less, and the experience may be lacking and the results less than satisfying.

Display Size: Tablet size can vary! Wacom Tablets in particular come in Small, Medium and Large. Make sure it can fit on your working space! I've had no problems creating art work using the smallest size, though it has caused a bit of wrist strain.

A monitor/display screen of at least HD quality with a resolution of at least 300dp is recommended! Screen size will also affect your experience. So, similar with gaming, consider what might be most comfortable for you!

Learning Curve: If you are drawing on a screenless tablet for the first time, then it may take some time to get used to the feeling of drawing the tablet surface while keeping your eyes on the monitor. Don't be discouraged if you're not getting the same results as you would using pen and paper! It will definitely feel different, but with time and practice you will gradually get accustomed to it.

Each software comes with its own toolset - some larger than others! For complex programs like Clip Studio and Photoshop, the number of features and the level of customization available can be overwhelming! That said, most software programs for digital art come with a standard set of basic tools, such as Brush, Select, Straight Line, Erase, Zoom, Copy + Paste, Undo etc. So it is perfectly feasible to get started using a complex program, familiarize yourself with the basics, and try some of the more advanced features once you get confident.

(Meanwhile, I am terrified of Clip Studio's seemingly endless features whenever I open it and usually find myself running back to Sai for safety lolol)

Public Opinion: Take caution when watching Youtube reviews, as artists (especially popular ones) are known to accept company sponsorships. Ask around if you can, take a look at the best, worst, and average customer reviews, and check out a public discussion like Reddit where opinions may differ! Take note of the good and bad experiences. And, where invited, ask artists like or not-like me. :)

I should note this far that I'm not sponsored by anyone or anything. ;;;; I swear on my Mom I'm not a Wacom plant. (That said I will gladly continue to sing my praises of PaintToolSai for free. It is an excellent program and please consider supporting the smaller devs!)

That's it! ...I think? I'm almost certain that there are at least one or two things that I've neglected to mention, but so far, those are the points I can think of, so I hope you find it useful. :)

Each digital art journey is different, and so your mileage may vary with the factors above! I do hope that as you get started with creating stuff digitally, that you have a fun and enjoyable experience.

I also invite other people to share their opinions, agreements, and disagreements to the points above! Especially if there is anything important that I may have missed. I hope this is helpful and thank you again everyone for your positive comments on my tutorials. :')

[heybaetae]

maybe 5, 6 and 21?

5. What do you dislike most about making graphics / gifs?

not knowing when/if my photoshop OR laptop will crash in the middle of making something before i’ve made any saves to it. i got a new laptop last christmas but there’s something that makes it crash suddenly at least once a day and it has happened plenty of times while ps is running. luckily, the program manages to recover the unsaved file when i reopen it but it’s very annoying when i’m concentrated lol. other than that, i hate when i’m trying my best to color something and i simply have to give up. or the quality of something is so bad that i can’t make it look good. after you’ve gone through screencapping and waiting for the files to load and convert to frames, some decent time has gone by and it suuuucks to just be like…nevermind. it happens often.

6. Your favourite graphic and or gif creators

my current fave thing on this whole site is this comp @kimtaegis made me for my bday a few weeks ago 😭 annie is in my list of fave gif makers obviously. i also have a huuuge soft spot for @jiniekook’s work!!! @bladesrunner makes some of my favorite tv/film gifs and i recognize her coloring every single time. @userjiminie is incredibly talented and makes some of the coolest conceptual sets i’ve ever seen! @userjungkook97 pours so much love into her gifsets and i get really excited whenever she posts something new. @userarmyhope literally never disappoints with crisp, clean gifs and perfect coloring. of course @jung-koook for her dedication to churning out massive sets almost daily. this is not even close to everyone whose work i adore, but it’s off the top of my head at the moment. <3

21. How much time do you spend on a single graphic / gif?

depends on what it is! a more elaborate comp can take me up to a couple days or more, especially if i have to search for and download a lot of footage. for example, my recent jungkook bday set took me about four days to finish, but i started it early enough that i was just taking my time and i used easily accessible content from youtube. if i need something from a dvd or a concert, that can take me a while to locate. i’ve spent ages reverse image searching very questionable screencaps just to find the origin of something for a tiny gif in a compilation set lol. but a basic gifset can take me a half hour to an hour or longer depending on how many gifs i’m including and how big they are, since bigger gifs take longer for my actions to process.

Ask a graphic / gif maker

[slowestlap]

i have to shoot my shot and ask - HOW on earth do you make your gifs so crisp. they're so clean its literally out of this world!!!!!! when your gifs are on my dash i almost always know its you just by the QUALITY of the gif. help a girl out!!!

Hii! Thank you!! <3 I'm happy with the way my giffing process now goes but it's taken years and a few different fandoms and stumbling upon good tutorials which is why i decided to make one of my own too.

I still love figuring out new things to try and hopefully you can get some new tips to your process from me too. Under the cut is a long af post about gif making, focusing on some basic stuff and sharpening/coloring tips.

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WAY TOO LONG INTRO

Before i get to the photoshop part, the base stuff is super important: You can't turn a very bad video into great gifs since there's only so much photoshop can do BUT you can turn a good video into great gifs. So, obviously the original video quality matters a lot.

I religiously stand by the correct tumblr size dimensions (see example, the numbers mean the width. Height doesn't really matter). However in 3 column sets i’ll sacrifice that one pixel and would make them all 177px. The empty space between gifs in 2 column sets is 4px, in 3 column sets it's 4px + 4px.

Since tumblr can only properly handle 540 gif pixels in the same row, sets with two wide gifs side by side can be laggy to scroll by. So for example, 268px gif will not be as sharp as 540px gif (if you click on it to see it bigger), since it legit has only half of the pixels, but if you plan to post 2 gifs in the same row, the 268px will look better on the dash in the gif set since it’s correctly sized for the best dash result.

I download videos when i can (dl is always better than screen recording), so that's youtube, instagram/twitter etc. Streaming sites/broadcasts i have to screen record and i use OBS to do it. It's the best i've tried for hq recording. I record with 60fps and use display capture. OBS is a heavy program, as is photoshop, so a good enough computer is also super important imo. I used to make gifs with a laptop of 4gb ram/128gb emmc and lost my mind after all the crashing and spent 1k€ on a new one. Basically, have as much performance as you can afford, and editing experience will be much much more pleasant. Of course gifs can be done with an average computer too, it'll just likely be slower and clumsier and you need more patience 😫

Also, i've gotten rid of the urge to be the first to post a gif set when new content drops. I'm not the fastest, i always do every coloring from the scratch. I save to drafts to see how it looks like on mobile, i go back to ps to correct the things that don't look right (too dark/bright, too green/yellow/red, too slow/fast), i make the changes, then save to drafts again and then post. I'd rather post a set i'm happy with than to post quickly knowing i could've made it look better with just a bit more time. (It'd bother me and i'd go back and re-color for my own peace of mind 😅) And i just wanna say it's totally fine when people make gifs of the same stuff!! The more the merrier, no need to think only the first to gif something somehow now has the rights to that moment. I just never get the best result if i try to hurry, so i’ve stopped trying to get my sets out asap. I’ll post when i’ll post.

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SHARPENING

All these words and i haven't even gotten to the point yet 🫣 But fine tuning the details won't work if they don't have a proper base at first. Which!!! Finally brings us to your question:

I'm not sure if the order really matters but the main steps i do in this order: once the layers have been converted to video timeline and video timeline is converted into a smart object -> smart sharpen -> crop -> resize -> coloring

I like to sharpen things first, to me it makes sense to do it before resizing because after resizing you've already lost some pixels, so feels better to sharpen when you still have all the original pixels.

All the above steps (sharpening, cropping, resizing) will affect how the gif looks, so i do the coloring as the very last thing so i can better see how the end result will look.

To me sharpening and coloring go hand in hand, and you use both of them to get the best result. Sharpening obviously does what it says but good coloring will help to make the gif look cleaner and smoother too.

Finally, examples!! The key to a sharp result in my process is 2 sharpening layers. The main layer and the second layer.

Enjoy looking at judgy max f i giffed last year and chose to use as an example here. The source video quality was 1080px and i screen recorded with OBS.

I use photoshop CC2019 so cannot guarantee that these will work the same way in other ps versions. As always, it's about fuckin around and findin out 🙏🏻

__________________

1. Example with resizing done, but no sharpening or coloring (blurry and ungood)

2. Example with resizing and main sharpening layer (already much better)

3. Example with second sharpening layer included (more depth, dark spots are darker, almost too strong of an effect but coloring will fix that)

4. Example with all of the above + coloring (the final result)

5. The final result as a gif

And how did we get that result?

Main sharpening layer settings (yes, it’s in finnish but i think the options are in the same place in every language):

Because the sharpening is quite heavy, I double click on this thingy (red circle) in the layers panel to lower the opacity to 50-70%

The middle layer is gaussian blur, which i’ve set to 0,2.

So basically i intentionally oversharpen the gif and use the opacity function and blur to soften the effect. Dumb or smart, who knows not me, but it’s working for me so i’m rolling with it.

The top layer is the second sharpening layer. A godsend trick i’ve learned along the way: (the difference between the example photos 2 and 3 above)

(I've created an action, so i just gotta push one button and it'll run thru these sharpening settings, ie. i don't have to manually click thru these every time, saves crazy amount of time)

Wasn't sure at which point i'll mention this so i'm just putting it here: when saving the gif for web, i almost always use adaptive and diffusion.

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COLORING

I’m not gonna go thru every coloring thing in my process since this is already so long hsdkfjdkjgkd but i’ll give some info on what i usually do and some tips i've found helpful.

My style is quite natural and i prefer colder tones. I hateeeee overly green/yellow/red skintones that are caused by bad lighting so I always try to correct that. The below stuff is more or less what i did to color that example gif too. (Everything is down to preference, these are just the way i like to color)

My most commonly used coloring layers:

Curves. Utilize the eye dropper tools, pick white eye dropper and click on a white spot on the gif (not pure white tho since it won’t do anything) and it will turn that spot to 100% white and correct the other colors at the same time. Black eye dropper will turn a dark spot you picked to 100% black. It can be super effective, just try a spot, undo, try another spot, undo, until you find what looks good. If you like the result but it’s too strong, lower the layer opacity. And of course you can just simply drag the curve up and get brightness that way. There are times when the eye droppers won't work nicely but it's always worth a try.

Levels. Works similarly to curves, they are basically the more efficient brightness/contrast combo.

Color balance. No gif of mine has been made in the last 3 years without dragging the blue in the midtones to the right. I also often drag the green to magnetas side. 

B&W gradient map. I set the blending mode to soft light and lower the layer opacity. Gives the gif a bit more depth and pop to the dark/light parts.

If the dark parts in your gif are too dark, for example details around eyes look messy but you don't want to lower the contrast, then try adding light colored gradient map (light yellow-white or light blue-white etc) and set it to soft light and play with opacity. It will give light and brightness to the gif without making things blinding and not losing much contrast.

Photo filter. I’m almost always going for cold blue and 10-20 setting. (Orange filters can give a nice effect too, if you want to bring some warmness to the gif.)

Vibrance. Always adding at least a little bit, helps colors to pop and makes skintones look nicer.

Selective coloring. Just drag them sliders to left and right to see what works, that’s really the best advice i can give. If you want reds to pop, go to red and play around. If you think the white spots are a bit blinding, go to white and then slide the bottom one (black) to the right. If you want some more contrast, go to neutral and slide the bottom one (black) to the right. Same with black (black).

Also, i don't like to do too much with one layer. I tend to do different colors with different selective coloring layers, so if needed i can lower the opacity and it will only affect that one color. Also it's handy to duplicate layers if you really want a certain color to pop, one layer often isn't enough in that case so duplicate it and if it's too strong then play around with opacity.

(Left image below). If you want to correct overly yellow/green skintones, go to yellow and you can try these settings. Then lower the layer opacity to see what looks good. 

(Right image). If you struggle getting rid of very red tones, you can use hue/saturation layer, go to red and just drag the middle slider to the left. (This is also a good tip with POC, when you think their skintone is overly orange/red but you are afraid of white washing. This setting will usually correct the orange and red tone without taking the dark/black color away.)

______________________

THE END

Wheew this is what happens when you give me an opprtunity to talk about giffing 😅 I hope it was easy to follow, feel free to ask if i was unclear about something!! And hopefully you got to learn something new. 

Also these are obviously just my way of doing things, not the Only Correct way, do whatever you like and enjoy and don’t worry too much if other people do things differently. Most important thing is to have fun creating 🫡

[novagalaxy24]

Spidersona! God I'm so happy with how this came out, it took so long and it was so worth it. Best piece I've ever made so far, I think!

And it only crashed Photoshop a few dozen times and somehow also Google Maps. (Genuinely, I crashed Google maps it wasn't loading it was just black)

Unmasked version under cut :D

[radwolf76]

2022 Tumblr Top 10

1). 270 notes - Jul 27 2022

Orb

(See also the followup posts.)

2). 177 notes - May 15 2022

Color Theory in the Shower

3). 167 notes - Sep 5 2022

Nyan Cat at the DragonCon 2022 Masquerade Contest

4). 108 notes - Mar 12 2022

The House Panthers Are Confused With A Sudden Lack Of Couch

(See also the followup posts.)

5). 95 notes - Aug 15 2022

Remember The Absurdly Large Ball Of Yarn From A Few Days Ago?

(Note: this is a full grown, 12 pound adult cat, not a kitten. that yarn’s just that absurdly large.)

6). 70 notes - Apr 12 2022

Prepare yourselves, it's almost time again.

(I can’t go a single year without at least one Homestuck-related post in my Top 10. This one was from 4/12, Homestuck Eve)

7). 53 notes - Aug 12 2022

You ever look at a scene in a movie, and say to yourself, “THIS. This is exactly why they were cast in their later iconic role.”?

(See also this reply post.)

8). 47 notes - Aug 28 2022

Smudge Needed A Day Off, So Lucky Is Filling In

(My first Blazed post, in celebration of hitting 1,000 Followers.)

9). 47 notes - Apr 7 2022

(Weird Al, working Quality Control at the Schcukman Pharmaceutical Company’s Nasal Decongestant Factory)

10). 40 notes - Jun 4 2022

I know I've told the story here before, but I actually found the Netflix promotional shirt I wore to work an after-hours Blockbuster store inventory back in 2000

Honorable Mentions:

My 1,152 Followers (Up 33% from last year).

[tumblr]’s own Year in Review generator , which only lists half the posts of @jetblackcode​‘s TumblrTop10 but does offer up a bunch of other stats.

My Miette Halloween Costume post from 2021, which last year at this time was at 428 Notes, but blew up this year and is at 6186 Notes, becoming my most popular post ever.

My reply to a video of Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova stabbing a potato with a knife and hammer, consisting of an image of Bill Nye captioned “Inertia is a property of Matter”. None of the [tumblr] stats tools that I’ve found tell you what your most popular reblogs are, but I was seeing likes and reblogs on that reblog several times a day every day for a few months.

Similarly, my replies to posts by both spitblaze and chansaw. If I had a nickel for every time someone posted advice to new [tumblr] users that was just the text of “This is not a place of honor ...” long term nuclear waste burial site warning, and I replied with a photoshop of the DashCon Ball Pit in front of the proposed “Field of Spikes” warning monument ... I’d have two nickles, but it’s weird that it happened twice. But one of those posts inspired @th3b33skn33s​ to draw some wonderful art of a genetically engineered Ray Cat hissing angrily at the [tumblr] t in the ball pit as its bio-luminescence genes are triggered by the elevated radiation.

Some impromptu crafting the other day to make more storage for my ever expanding dice collection inspired others to go do the same.

The couch was not the only new furniture that the housepanthers had to adjust to.

Like everyone else, I had a post queued for the April First Crash.

I mess around with Hero Forge a lot, and post my stuff here and on the /r/heroforgeminis/ subreddit. The CEO of the company saw a .gif I had made, and decided that .gif making needed to be an official feature.

The Netflix shirt from 2000 mentioned above, that I found while emptying out my storage unit, wasn’t the only treasure unearthed. This Big Mac styrofoam clamshell did better numbers on reddit than here, but my most popular reddit post is still only a third the size of my most popular [tumblr] post.

And if you hadn’t noticed from two fifths of the top ten list, the household has new cats this year. We still miss the old boys especially around the holidays, but the Voids bring us much love and laughter.

Previous Year’s Top Tens: 2021, 2020, 2019

Created by TumblrTop10

[leviiackrman]

Do you have any advice on figuring out photoshop and templates? I’m new to all of this and I’m really struggling :(((((

Oh gosh I’m so sorry anon, life’s been so chaotic that I completely forgot about your ask! But I am here now to help :)

I will say off the bat that I’m v much a trial and error kinda gal/look things up on YouTube lmao so I’m self taught in pretty much everything I know with photoshop (aside from a few helpful tips while at uni) so I’ll try and list some things that I find quick and easy to use when editing:

Templates in general tend to come pretty organised with layers names etc so it’s easier to navigate, but I also always recommend NAMING YOUR LAYERS!!! It saves SO much time and even grouping them into relevant sections (groups) can really help navigate the layers panel (especially when you get to 200+ layers like me lmao)

I always edit the resolution of my documents when creating them to be at least 100px (pixels) because then the final design is higher quality! That being said; that’ll depend on your computers RAM capacity and how much of it is used by photoshop - my desktop has A LOT of RAM cus it was custom built, but laptops etc have a lot less (otherwise it’ll make the app glitch and crash essentially)

I use the magic wand tool religiously lmao - it may not be the most perfect outline but if I’m gonna edit the image more afterwards, just getting the background out the way first helps a lot! (Using the layer effect drop down will also give you options of ‘multiply’, ‘screen’ and ‘overlay’ plus a bunch more to add effects to your layers, but a quick way of removing a white bg from a layer is to use ‘screen’ and it’ll auto remove it! Careful tho cus sometimes it removes TOO MUCH of the image aha)

If that tool doesn’t work for you then the ‘colour select’ option in one of the drop downs will do the same thing but will select every bit of colour on the document that you select - ie if you click on the white background, it’ll also pick up every other bit of white on the document so keep that in mind (I apologise that I’m not more specific, I’m writing this on my phone and haven’t got photoshop open)

For text layers, I ALWAYS turn off the ‘hyphenate’ tick box in the text box settings! Hyphenate is more for professional documentation/printed work, so for template edits and personal use I always turn it off cus it makes it look weird imo (the text box settings will open up on the right when you click on your text, so just scroll down a little until you get to the paragraph settings and there’ll be a little ‘…’ to show more options and it’ll be in there!)

CLIPPING MASKS ARE A LIFE SAVER!! On your layers panel, if you have a shape drawn out (ie a square for example) and you add an image/colour layer/literally any kind of layer on top and move the mouse to the line between the 2 layers and click ALT, it’ll add the clipping mask so the layer on top is only visible within the shape underneath! Works for filter layers as well as images in general etc PLUS they stack!

For templates specifically it’s a lot of fiddling until things sit nicely with one another for me, but one thing I use often is PSD filter packs that you can download! Lots are on tumblr and deviantart etc but you should always credit who you use, unless you make them yourself! They help tie a design together so all the colours match!

I also like using the ‘blending mode’ options on the layers panel. So when you right click a layer - it’ll give you the ‘blending mode’ option at the top and that allows you to add shadows/gradients/texture and a bunch of other stuff to that specific layer!! Including ‘stroke’ outlines around the edge of your layer!

I ALWAYS save my PSD files separate to the final product in case I wanna edit them, and I will export any final designs as an image!! For highest quality in your exports use PNGs!! JPEGs reduce the quality SO much so always go with PNGs but if you don’t want a transparent background, make sure you untick ‘transparent’ in the export window!

There’s plenty more tools to use on photoshop, but I recommend just creating a blank document, adding a bit of text and an image and just playing around with it!! You’ll discover so many new ways of doing things and ways that suit you!

If you ever want more specific advice for something then pls ask! I have 8+ years of experience and a graphic design degree so I like to think I know some things haha!

I hope that helps🤍

[karottenpalme]

TW for weightloss/gain, body dysmorphia, EDs

I let myself go.

I was depressed, I was injured, I was looking for excuses, I blamed others, and worst of all, I forgot who I was trying to become and why.

I was a mess both mentally and physically and in some way I still am.

I‘m over 100 kilograms now and I am nothing but angry at myself. This is by far the worst condition I have ever been in. It is not that much of an exaggeration when I say that I despise every single inch of my body. Only a few nice ones are left thanks to the people who tattoed me.

Everyday I said „Ah yeah I‘ll go to the gym after this and that“ but that‘s all I did. I said it. I didn‘t go, I just said that I would.

A few years ago I developed an unhealthy relationship to food and I feel like I am on the brink of doing it again. Crash diets that did not work, demonizing food as if it was my worst enemy.

For months I felt like I am going in circles. People told me I look slimmer, fitter, like I had bigger muscles, but I did not see it.

I have data, statistics, experience and analysis to back up progress and regress, but it only rarely felt like progress and when it did it felt like it was too slow. The numbers did not feel like what I wanted them to be.

This time it is gonna be different. I will build my confidence, discipline, my health both mentally and physically up again. All this self loathing and this pity, just crying about everything but not acting to change it has to stop now.

I will try to make this a weekly thing for updates.

If nothing changes, please show me this post and hold me accountable.

Also, most gym pics are only good because the people in them pose, have great lighting, pump, and photoshop. This is reality. No filter, no posing, just a second of relaxation within years of self-hatred.

You could say that this is my very own little motivational monday.

See ya soon, stay comfy and hydrated.

[anythinkonprotanki]

Day 3

Tomorrow I'm probably going to post something on YT. (but the same thing I was thinking yesterday lol)

I was thinking about TextureChanger and its future and I need a way to... I asked chat GPT how I could say that and he responded: "I'm trying to get around the obstacle that is preventing our progress." And that's the truth. In those files, we may even find map textures. That would allow us to change the entire map to old! THAT WOULD BE GREAT. But maybe let's go from the start...

Time for some prattle of nerd

I figured out where the hidden textures containing shot effects are. Cause in %appdata%\StandaloneLoader\Local Store I could not find them. But in this folder, some files can't be opened as .jpg so I tried to "repair" them. I downloaded an app to restore broken files and yes. They are shot effects. But why they can't be opened as images? Well... in 1 file there are 2 textures. And this is not the reason why file can't be opened as image. The reason is strange. When I opened file in hex editor before FF D8 (SOI - start of image) there are also 00 00 00 02 00 01 69 00 0B 49 EA 00 01 61 00 01 8F 80 (this is in the firebird file)

And that's the reason why file can't be opened. Cause before of SOI there are strange data. When I delete them file can be opened but it will show you only one image. I said only one image cause in this file you can find FF D8 twice. As well as FF D9 (EOI - end of image). I said about why file can't be opened by the way cause ProTanki can't load and is crashing without this strange data before SOI. Chat GPT generated code for me (hehe) to extract this file to 2 images. And it WORKED. But then I asked him to add also everything before SOI to the third file (I mean this strange data which is needed). And he also generated code that merge data with both images. And ProTanki isn't crashing anymore but it can't load. I mean it can load when I'm merging files from the original but when I save it in photoshop, gimp, ms paint etc before merging and then merge and put into files then it isn't loading. I have idea what caused that but I have no solution right now :D Btw there are no way (for most turrets) to change colors like it was in tanki 2019 (I said 2019 cause then there were a lot of them. I mean shot effects). I will probably make new ones by myself. And that's also cause I can't find shot effects anywhere on the internet xd

So that was a few weeks ago and then I took a break.

Two-week break xD Today I figured out that when shot effect is white/black for rail it isn't changed depending on upgrade level. Btw I wanted to let you in about everything that I'm doing here but right now I'm copying comments from yt and nothing changed.

Let's go once more from the beginning.

I was changing textures in ProTanki right from the start of my journey in PTO. Back then I was doing it by hand, you can see here how to change it by hand: https://youtu.be/P-Klp4X5jXQ I was trying to change skins into XT but I was kind of stupid. btw my every success on TextureChanger comes only from observation and analysis. I'm doing everything by trial and error. Later when I released the first video about changing textures (look up for link) someone asked about the cache for XT. I have these files so I send him it (I have these files from TankViewer app, maybe I'll write about it next time). Then I wondered once more if there a way to change skins into XT. If I remember correctly I thought that colors (gold from XT) can't be applied to normal skin. Proof: https://youtu.be/-A4_V-IfLnk?si=zIDo_WnoDZQ4zMjI&t=473 But I was wrong. I applied skins correctly: lightmap into lightmap, details into details, and details_alpha into details_alpha. It worked. This is the screen that I sent to this guy when I realize that there's a way to change skins: https://imgur.com/a/oEIMXfd But I knew that I couldn't release it like this cause it was too hard to change, and if someone wants to change more skins it would take too much time. I knew what I had to do.

That's how my journey on creating TextureChanger started.

Next time I'll write a further part. Thanks everyone for your attention.

edit: I'm waiting for your questions :D

BTW

That's my best battle from yesterday, but yesterday I forgot to post it xD

This is the best battle today.

So, that's it for today.

28 days left...