Well, I was thinking that maybe a thread on 2D graphics will
be a good thing to have here too. It can be on any graphic program.
Commercial or free. Tip, you can show your image and discuss
the tricks. The images can be static or animated.

So, people can share their tips & ideas just like we are
doing with Bryce. They can simply post for advise also.
If for instance, you are working on a sig and are not
sure if the colours are right or if the background
should be modify and so on...Well, this will be the right place to ask.

Learning is long process, but we can make it shorter only by helping each other.

Great idea. :)

Thanx!

...Sure, we can talk of tutorials we made and that went well.

Oh and... we can also post graphics we made in the real world.
i.e. ink, pencils, pastels drawings, watercolors or paintings.

I tried this tutorial while I was thinking of my friends...

Faded Tag Tutorial

Two Types of 2D Graphics
It's almost impossible to discuss graphics software without first establishing an understanding of the differences between the two major 2D graphic types: bitmap and vector images. This is an important lesson and often a tough one to grasp. If you work with graphics at all, it's bound to come up, so it's an important concept to understand.

Key Points About Bitmap Images:
• pixels in a grid
• resolution dependent
• resizing reduces quality
• easily converted
• restricted to rectangle
• minimal support for transparency

Common bitmap formats include:
• BMP
• GIF
• JPEG, JPG
• PNG
• PICT (Macintosh)
• PCX
• TIFF
• PSD (Adobe Photoshop)

Popular bitmap editing programs are:
• Microsoft Paint
• Adobe Photoshop
• Corel Photo-Paint
• Jasc Paint Shop Pro
• Ulead PhotoImpact

All scanned images are bitmaps, and all images from digital cameras are bitmaps.
Converting between bitmap formats is generally as simple as opening the image to be converted and using your software's Save As... command to save it in any other bitmap format supported by your software.

Key Points About Vector Images:
• scalable
• resolution independent
• no background
• cartoon-like
• inappropriate for photo-realistic images
• metafiles contain both raster and vector data

Common vector formats include:
• AI (Adobe Illustrator)
• CDR (CorelDRAW)
• CMX (Corel Exchange)
• CGM Computer Graphics Metafile
• DXF AutoCAD
• WMF Windows Metafile

Popular vector drawing programs are:
• Adobe Illustrator
• CorelDRAW
• Macromedia Freehand
• Xara X

Due to the nature of vector images, they are best converted to GIF or PNG format for use on the Web.

What About Metafiles?
Metafiles are graphics that contain both raster and vector data. For example, a vector image that contains an object which has a bitmap pattern applied as a fill, would be a metafile. The object is still a vector, but the fill attribute consists of bitmap data.

Source: About: Graphics Software

Very nice work Uguel - beautiful!

Can our groovy graphics gurus list the freeware 2D programs that you know and like?

The ones I know best and like are Paint Shop, Photoshop, Painter, Photofiltre (free) Art Rage (free).
I have also Macromedia Flash and Illustrator but I haven't used it for a while for I did not have time
enough. Well....that's the thing, I mean, it is not too good to have too many programs for you just scatter your
energy among all of them. I like the free ones, Art Rage and Photofiltre, I got for they are perfect for simple
operations and do not take too much computer resources.


Before I had Corel Painter, I used to do my drawings and paintings with Art Rage and Art
Weaver (free) and I was also happy with them. Although you can do great graphics with it,
I find Painter a bit resource consuming and slow. But both Art Rage and Corel Painter
give you the feeling of a true sense of painting.

I like Paint Shop and Photoshop for their great diversities and possibilities and also because
there are a lot of tutorials that are written for them on the web. I try to find the tutorials that have
many screenshots and that are well-explained. Not all tutorials are very well
explained, some skip critical points in the process, and I think it is a shame for those
who start with these programs for he or she might think he is not very good at graphics
if he/she doesn't end up with the same results as in the tutorial.

I have also a big mess of pencils, pastels and oil painting tubes at home and I have scarcely
used them recently. Well, not as much as I used to do in the past. I decided to have
a l'il practice. Nothing to write home about, just some drawings.....

,,,the orginal is about 4 times bigger.

I like big gnarled trees...
this one is made with colour pencils on Strathmore sketch paper.
I also made the previous drawing in the same sketch pad.

Can someone tell me if Photoshop Beta version is free to use indefinitely?
I just ask in case someone ask me. thanx.

I had a quick look around, this might not be correct, it's from a forum.









Your drawings look super.


:)

Uguel, you surely are talented naturally - those are beautiuful - I like the trees too.

That Xara is still available - just redownloaded it....

@Ugel and odidio

I am proud to have you both aboard. Giving you both our Graphics Forum to take care of, was more than wise only.

And you both wanna make me thinking you aren't pro's ;)

Thanks a lot for your work mates

Greetz
B. Udo

Dont know much about that CS3 beta. I guess it must be free for a while. Ill go have a look on their site.

. Only useable by those who have CS2. It has a 2 day grace period though but after that you must enter the lisence key from your adobe product.

Thanx Chachazz & Udo for your kind words!


@ Nebon,

I thought that they gave a longer trial period.
2 days! not worth downloading it. If that can be of any consolation,
many Photoshop users claimed that the best Photoshop program
ever made for its functionalities and speed was version 5.
For my part, I started using PSP since version 7 and I can tell you that version 7
was much faster than PSP CS2 that I have now. I do not think upgrading anymore
after that version. They add too many useless components each time they release a new version
all of which make the computer sluggish.