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  • AmazingamphyAmazingamphy Posts: 1,733 Member
    Can I reserve coffee shop employee and England?
    HmypxT0.png
    Gone from this place and never coming back. P5 is good
  • ayedenayeden Posts: 73 Member
    Can I reserve teacher and Ireland?
  • BabyCarrotzBabyCarrotz Posts: 950 Member
    edited September 2015
    @MizoreYukii I'd like to reserve Dancer, more specifically, a Ballerina <3

    For the challenge, I'd like to reserve Korea. These assignment and challenge sound kinda complicated, I'm actually anxious if I'd be able to make it or not lol
    PEEt1Hh.gif?1
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    @BabyCarrotz Yessssssssss! <3 I love dancing! Super duper excited to see what you do!

    The challenge isn't required, just practice for future comps that may appear in the future. Your assignment should always come first in terms of work, and then you do the challenge. Though if you're more motivated to do the challenge you should just get it out of the way and then do your assignment. xD
    It's still going to take me a while to get the tutorials up because I am doing a lot of work for school (college sucks and work is neverending, lol), which is why I released the assignment and challenge early. I wanted to give everyone a chance to start researching, make poses, do shopping, etc. so that way all they had to do was fix the errors, shade, etc. once the tutorials go up. Think of it as an extra week without really being an extra week. As long as you spend this week doing your planning you should be able to get the assignment in on time, and possibly even the challenge. ^-^ The due date will be decided once I get updates from everyone and have the tutorials up, but it still might be two weeks after this week (unless I get the tutorials up this week? idk).

    @ayeden Ohh! Ireland! Reaaaaally excited!

    You guys have no idea how excited I am to see the entries for this challenge. xD
  • MinstrelMinstrel Posts: 126 Member
    Can I reserve Technical analyst? I know it's a bit abstract but I love watching odd episodes of criminal minds and I suppose Garcia has kind of inspired me :')

    I won't reserve for the challenge because I don't think I'll have time to complete it, sorry!
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    @Minstrel Awwww! Was looking forward to your work. :c If you get time feel free to enter though! We don't have a set date yet btw. xD
  • EliavahEliavah Posts: 2,270 Member
    these are great assignments mizzie :)
    also can actually reply to people since I'm at laptop and not phone
    i'm glad you guys are asking questions about your feedback and appreciate it. <3
    @ayeden ; When doing a candle light like that, go for something more like this ; 800e09591204b0b8902f05af567d4b54.jpg
    I think the glows overlapping eachother is what did it. Also maybe the opacity needed to be lowered a bit? Unfortunately I don't use gimp so I can't give you a step by step help. :c
    Also I see what you mean by the mirror . Though I guess the mirror didn't really have a visible way it could've stood up? So that is why I had assumed it was against wall :) It just looked a little flat towards the bottom to me personally to be a standing mirror. But all in all you still did a fantastic job dear ~
    @BabyCarrotz ; Haha shading is like when you shade your model to give it a more realistic skin appearance. :) You look like you did that, which is soo awesome. But I see, for color curve, I don't know how it is in gimp . . but the top part of that curve line, moving it left, makes the highlights of the photo brighter and moving it right, makes it darker. The bottom is the shadows of the photo. And the middle is midtones . . is how it works for me at least :)


    if you guys need anymore clarification or help don't be afraid to ask. no question is a stupid question <3
  • LilacErinLilacErin Posts: 3,884 Member
    Mizzie do you think it would be alright for me to join the next challenge? Makeup drawing is something I really need to practise. :)
    I'm a sad girl. I'm a mad girl. I'm a bad girl.
    <3
  • LeslieM25LeslieM25 Posts: 2,766 Member
    @ayeden I saw your explanation of the lower quality and I had to tell you, don't use the lighting effects in Gimp. I noticed that it lowered the quality like that too. It does it every time. The way I add lighting is a little more complicated than that. Do you know how to use the paths tool?
    Come check out my poses and more on my Simblr!
    http://lesliem25.tumblr.com/
    GqsONVc.gif
  • LilacErinLilacErin Posts: 3,884 Member
    Can I reserve Japan please? :)
    I'm a sad girl. I'm a mad girl. I'm a bad girl.
    <3
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    @ZapGirl Done! ^-^

    @ayeden @LeslieM25 It's not necessarily lowering the quality, it's just putting a very ugly filter over it with the light. xD I find the filter lighting to be silly since we can make our own lighting. I'm not sure if even Maggie uses the filter, but from her pictures I'd say no and that she does her lighting by hand.
    I may (or maybe Maggie) or may not go into detail next week on how to use it properly since we're covering how to do lighting by hand. But to avoid the icky filter: make a new layer and color it black with your paint bucket > do the lighting effect where it needs to go and adjust the settings (this may take a few tries) > set the layer mode to screen.

    You now have a lighting effect minus the icky filter. The same can be done in PS for it's lighting effects (mainly so you can manipulate the layer. It doesn't have icky filter). Btw Ayeden, I thought you were using PS as your main program?
  • CazzTregurthaCazzTregurtha Posts: 232 Member
    Can I reserve South Africa please :D
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    @CazzTregurtha Sure! :3 Not doing the assignment? :O

    @PeaceSign101 @BobSkellington @Gemmabubbles @PurpleKenzie19 Don't forget to choose your job before someone else does! And country if you want to do the assignment.
  • CazzTregurthaCazzTregurtha Posts: 232 Member
    Oooo oops! I forgot about that one, haven't had proper time to fully read everything just yet. I think I'll go with a chef :)
  • PeaceSign101PeaceSign101 Posts: 1,413 Member
    The assignment idea seems so creative I cannot wait to see what everyone does! <3
    dmlX3n8.jpg


  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    The assignment idea seems so creative I cannot wait to see what everyone does! <3
    @PeaceSign101 You still need to choose a job though. xD
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    @CazzTregurtha Yay!
    The assignment idea seems so creative I cannot wait to see what everyone does! <3
    @PeaceSign101 You still need to choose a job though. xD
  • PeaceSign101PeaceSign101 Posts: 1,413 Member
    The assignment idea seems so creative I cannot wait to see what everyone does! <3
    @PeaceSign101 You still need to choose a job though. xD

    I don't know if I'm going to do the assignment :/ It dawned on me that maybe it's not just that I seem to have a lack of time to complete my assignment, maybe it's just that I'm not good at photo editing. It's a little embarrassing how the more assignments I submit the worse I get. Maybe I should take a break from trying to do photo editing.
    dmlX3n8.jpg


  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    @PeaceSign101 We already talked in the message, just waiting for you to confirm whether you're staying or going. Hopefully staying. D:

    Releasing the new cutting method, a second one from Leslie, and a bonus tutorial from her. All of these relate to last week, so do not count for this week since they don't cover errors or skin shading. xD
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    edited September 2018
    Tutorial 12: Cutting with Layer Masks (Gimp)
    Level: Beginner
    If you are still having trouble with something in this tutorial, or need more help, please post here or contact me.
    Click here for more tutorials

    First, let us go over a few things before you continue reading.
    1. Everything is cut out perfectly. Your accessories, hair strands, etc., are all cut out with no leftover background. This means that if you have delicate earrings with tiny hoops, or a lot of wild hair, everything will be cut out and stay intact with no background.
    2. This is a clean cutting method with almost no issues. No jagged lines, no leftover background either. You may possibly never encounter an issue. If you do come across an issue, please contact me and I will try to find a way to correct it. So far, no issues have appeared that we couldn’t fix by just switching the layers.
    3. This method requires a black and white background. And no, you can’t cheat and just color the original background black or white. I’ve tested this method and just painting over the background doesn’t remove the original background from around the sim.
    4. This method can be used with black and white clothes, accessories, hair, etc., so no need to worry about avoiding those colors when dressing your sim.
    5. (Sims 4 only problem) I am saying this method can only be used in game, mainly because it’s almost impossible to get the exact same pose, angle, etc. when taking pictures in CAS. Also, because it requires a black and white background you will have to reload your game just to take a picture in CAS. If you are extremely careful, you may be able to pull it off. Good luck to those who want to try that method.
    6. If you are piecing together images to make your sim bigger, this method can still be used. Make sure to save your camera’s spot with the 5-9 buttons that we covered before, then when you are done with one color switch the background and use the buttons to return to your original position. When you begin editing you should cut out each piece individually first. Putting them together beforehand will make it really hard to align the images properly for the cutting to work.

    Now that you’ve read that, we can begin!

    First, you will need your pictures. Dress your sim as normal, decide on your pose, and then start with either the black or white background. Doesn’t matter which one you do first. Once you have the background color chosen (if it wasn’t already), you now need to take your pictures. Take however many pictures you need (nothing past the 5-9 buttons), but make sure you are saving your camera positions. It is extremely important that you do this, otherwise this will not work. Once you are done taking pictures with your first background, go into build mode and use the color tool to choose the second background color. Use your saved camera positions to take the pictures of your second background.
    You should get two images like this:


    m3tut0.png~original


    Now that you have your images, open them in your editing program. Doesn’t really matter which one goes first, just open them and make sure to place them into the same image. Make sure to align the images if they aren’t already, but they should be as long as you’re not touching the canvas.

    While taking your pictures you may notice some weird stuff that happened. If you took your pictures outside you may have shadows everywhere, or if you took it inside with colored lights you may get the color affecting the background. You may even get snippets of the area behind your background.


    M3tut1.png~original


    If you get things like this, don’t panic! These can be corrected or even ignored (I don’t suggest ignoring some of them), and they won’t affect cutting out your sim. In fact, your sim will still be cut out perfectly, and so will the weird areas. So the shadows, the color difference, etc. will all be cut out along with your sim.

    Here’s an example of what I mean. I cut out my sim with the new method and then filled in a layer behind her with a pattern. You can see that her shadows and the extra area were perfectly cut out as well. This basically means that you can create a set, place the in-game background behind it, and then take pictures of it to perfectly cut out the set so you can add a background behind it. No need to trace edges just to remove in the in-game sky, etc.


    m3tut2.png~original


    You can fix these errors in several ways:
    1. For the extra background, just crop the image, or do the second method listed below.
    2. For the shadows and weird color difference, either you select your sim, the background, or the color differences and color over them with the bucket or brush tool (make sure to inverse when needed so the sim isn’t colored as well). Don’t expand or contract the selection of your sim, just do a quick selection and paint around her so the errors are gone. To avoid getting jagged edges from the selection, you should use your "Feather" option (It finally has a use!). Make sure to use the color of the original background, so black fixes black and white fixes white. Also, color the whole background as a just in case. We don’t know if any other color differences in the background exist.
    3. Erase them after you cut out the sim.


    m3tut3.png~original


    Once you’ve corrected them (or ignored them), we will now begin cutting the sims.

    Duplicate your bottom layer by selecting the duplicate button or right clicking the image and selecting “Duplicate Layer”.


    m3tut4.png~original


    Once it has been duplicated you need to go to the first layer then change the layer mode to “Difference”.


    m3tut5.png~original


    Then right click on the first layer and select “Merge Down”. Or go up to your “Layer” tab and select “Merge Down”, or right click on the image and do the same.


    m3tut6.png~original


    Once the first layer and the second layer are merged, you need to select the whole image of the first layer. Go to “Select” and then hit “All”, or “Alt + Left Click” on the layer image icon to select the canvas. Hit “Ctrl + C” on your keyboard (Cmd if Mac), and this will copy your selection. Or go to the “Edit” tab and copy from there. You can deselect the selection now, or you can leave it. Next we want to hide the top layer, so click the eye button next to the first layer.


    m3tut7.png~original
    m3tut8.png~original


    The next step is to add a “layer mask” to the bottom layer. This is where I teach you something new and useful.

    A layer mask can show or hide whatever you want in an image, and keeps you from deleting stuff you may need later. It’s a bit hard to explain, but the concept is actually quite simple. When you open a layer mask, it will either be white or black depending on what you select in the popup. Black means off, meaning the content in black won’t show up in the image. White means on, meaning anything that is white will show up in your image. Layer masks allow you to keep your picture intact while you add special effects and hide certain parts of your image. Remember the background combining tutorial? You can use layer masks to “erase” (meaning hide) the parts of the backgrounds you don’t want to show up in place of an actual eraser. This means that instead of erasing the edges that don’t blend well you can instead add a white layer mask, take a fuzzy brush and select it to black paint, then paint over the areas you want gone. Then if you ever decide to change your mind you can go back with white paint and add the areas back to your image. It is extremely useful, so I suggest using this in place of the eraser next time you need to remove something.

    Now that we understand what a layer mask is, you can add a layer mask to your bottom layer by right clicking on the layer and selecting “Add layer mask” or going up to the “Layer” tab, then down to “Masks”. This window pops up asking what type of mask you want to add. We are not focusing on the other options at the moment, so for now hit the “White” option. The “Selection” option doesn’t work for those wondering.

    Your layer should now look like this, with a weird white box next to it.


    m3tut9.png~original
    m3tut10.png~original


    Now for an important step. You need to make sure you are on the layer mask before you do anything else. You can tell if you are on the layer when the layer mask has no black box around it. In the image before this you can see that I am not on the layer mask, so to fix this you need to click the white box, which is the layer mask, so we can make sure we are editing the layer mask only. Or you can right click on the layer and check the “Edit Layer Mask” option.


    m3tut11.png~original


    In this image you can tell I am now on the layer mask. For future use, you can edit with the layer mask turned “on” so you can see what you are doing. To do this, right click and check the “Show Layer Mask” option. To turn it off to see how the image now looks, make sure to uncheck it by clicking again.


    m3tut12.png~original
    m3tut13.png~original


    Next we need to paste our selection of the first layer into our second layer. Hit “Ctrl + V” or go to the Edit tab and hit “Paste”. The image should turn out strange afterwards, but don’t worry about it. You’ll notice that instead of immediately going into the layer mask it is now a floating layer. Right click on the floating layer and hit “Anchor Layer”. The pasted selection should now be in your layer mask, and the image should now be doing this weird cutout. If it didn’t go into your layer mask and is instead on the main image, it means you weren’t on the layer mask.


    m3tut14.png~original
    m3tut15.png~original


    To fix this strange cut out we need to inverse the layer mask. The odd thing about Gimp is that Gimp has two “Invert” options, one for normal selections and one specifically for color. To invert the layer, go up to the “Color” tab and then down to “Invert”.


    m3tut16.png~original


    This should now give you a perfectly cut out sim. You can see that I didn’t remove the side of the background yet, so we will do that now. There are three ways to do this.
    1. You can turn that part of the background invisible as well by taking your paintbrush, turning the color to black, and then running the brush over the leftover background. This only works if you’re still on the layer mask.
    2. Or you can uncheck the “Edit Layer Mask” option so you can erase the background with the actual eraser.
    3. The last option is to “Apply Layer Mask” so you can completely remove the layer mask. This option is basically merging the layer and the mask together, which means you can’t edit the mask anymore. Then you erase the extra background with the eraser.


    m3tut17.png~original


    Something that may happen is that the edges of the sim look transparent and seem like the sim wasn’t cut out properly. This is not the case, and I’ve already tested it with different backgrounds to be sure. The transparency does not transfer over to your background, regardless if it’s a pattern or solid color. This will probably happen when you start with the same color clothes + same color background first. And if you get jagged lines go back to the very beginning and switch the layers around. Most issues you encounter with this cutting method, which is minimal, can be fixed by just switching the layers around. It’s that simple!


    Now we’re done! Our sim is perfectly cut out, no jagged lines, no leftover background to remove either!


    m3tut18.png~original
    Post edited by MizoreYukii on
  • ayedenayeden Posts: 73 Member
    I tried to follow a video to add a fire light effect, but he had several pay plugins so I tried to imitate the effect best I could with what I found in the programs. The tutorials coming up will greatly help.
    I was using CS2 and photoshop elements 10, but this last assignment has me frustrated with CS2. Your guides are great Mizzy, a few things are different or need to be done differently, but so far they have been easy to adjust. I was getting very frustrated with guides I was finding online to do things that all used features from the new versions. By the time I had my final picture I had used something from photoshop CS2, Gimp, elements 10 and elements 13.
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    edited September 2018
    Tutorial 12: Cutting with Layer Masks (Photoshop)
    Level: Beginner
    If you are still having trouble with something in this tutorial, or need more help, please post here or contact me.
    Click here for more tutorials

    First, let us go over a few things before you continue reading.
    1. Everything is cut out perfectly. Your accessories, hair strands, etc., are all cut out with no leftover background. This means that if you have delicate earrings with tiny hoops, or a lot of wild hair, everything will be cut out and stay intact with no background.
    2. This is a clean cutting method with almost no issues. No jagged lines, no leftover background either. You may possibly never encounter an issue. If you do come across an issue, please contact me and I will try to find a way to correct it. So far, no issues have appeared that we couldn’t fix by just switching the layers.
    3. This method requires a black and white background. And no, you can’t cheat and just color the original background black or white. I’ve tested this method and just painting over the background doesn’t remove the original background from around the sim.
    4. This method can be used with black and white clothes, accessories, hair, etc., so no need to worry about avoiding those colors when dressing your sim.
    5. (Sims 4 only problem) I am saying this method can only be used in game, mainly because it’s almost impossible to get the exact same pose, angle, etc. when taking pictures in CAS. Also, because it requires a black and white background you will have to reload your game just to take a picture in CAS. If you are extremely careful, you may be able to pull it off. Good luck to those who want to try that method.
    6. If you are piecing together images to make your sim bigger, this method can still be used. Make sure to save your camera’s spot with the 5-9 buttons that we covered before, then when you are done with one color switch the background and use the buttons to return to your original position. When you begin editing you should cut out each piece individually first. Putting them together beforehand will make it really hard to align the images properly for the cutting to work.

    Now that you’ve read that, we can begin!

    First, you will need your pictures. Dress your sim as normal, decide on your pose, and then start with either the black or white background. Doesn’t matter which one you do first. Once you have the background color chosen (if it wasn’t already), you now need to take your pictures. Take however many pictures you need (nothing past the 5-9 buttons), but make sure you are saving your camera positions. It is extremely important that you do this, otherwise this will not work. Once you are done taking pictures with your first background, go into build mode and use the color tool to choose the second background color. Use your saved camera positions to take the pictures of your second background.
    You should get two images like this:


    m3tut0.png~original


    Now that you have your images, open them in your editing program. Doesn’t really matter which one goes first, just open them and make sure to place them into the same image. Make sure to align the images if they aren’t already, but they should be as long as you’re not touching the canvas.

    While taking your pictures you may notice some weird stuff that happened. If you took your pictures outside you may have shadows everywhere, or if you took it inside with colored lights you may get the color affecting the background. You may even get snippets of the area behind your background.


    M3tut1.png~original


    If you get things like this, don’t panic! These can be corrected or even ignored (I don’t suggest ignoring some of them), and they won’t affect cutting out your sim. In fact, your sim will still be cut out perfectly, and so will the weird areas. So the shadows, the color difference, etc. will all be cut out along with your sim.

    Here’s an example of what I mean. I cut out my sim with the new method and then filled in a layer behind her with a pattern. You can see that her shadows and the extra area were perfectly cut out as well. This basically means that you can create a set, place the in-game background behind it, and then take pictures of it to perfectly cut out the set so you can add a background behind it. No need to trace edges just to remove in the in-game sky, etc.


    m3tut2p.png~original


    You can fix these errors in several ways:
    1. For the extra background, just crop the image, or do the second method listed below.
    2. For the shadows and weird color difference, either you select your sim, the background, or the color differences and color over them with the bucket or brush tool (make sure to inverse when needed so the sim isn’t colored as well). Don’t expand or contract the selection of your sim, just do a quick selection and paint around her so the errors are gone. To avoid getting jagged edges from the selection, you should use your "Feather" option (It finally has a use!). Make sure to use the color of the original background, so black fixes black and white fixes white. Also, color the whole background as a just in case. We don’t know if any other color differences in the background exist.
    3. Erase them after you cut out the sim.


    m3tut3p.png~original


    Once you’ve corrected them (or ignored them), we will now begin cutting the sims.

    Duplicate your bottom layer by right clicking the layer and selecting “Duplicate Layer”.


    m3tut4p.png~original


    Once it has been duplicated you need to go to the first layer then change the layer mode to “Difference”.


    m3tut5p.png~original


    Then right click on the first layer and select “Merge Down”. Or hit “Ctrl + E”.


    m3tut6p.png~original


    Once the first layer and the second layer are merged, you need to select the whole image of the first layer. Go to “Select” and then hit “All”, or “Ctrl + Left Click” on the layer image icon to select the canvas. Hit “Ctrl + C” on your keyboard (Cmd if Mac), and this will copy your selection. Or go to the “Edit” tab and copy from there. You can deselect the selection now, or you can leave it. Next we want to hide the top layer, so click the eye button next to the first layer.


    m3tut7p.png~original
    m3tut8p.png~original


    The next step is to add a “layer mask” to the bottom layer. This is where I teach you something new and useful.

    A layer mask can show or hide whatever you want in an image, and keeps you from deleting stuff you may need later. It’s a bit hard to explain, but the concept is actually quite simple. When you open a layer mask, it will either be white or black, but for PS it’s usually white. Black means off, meaning the content in black won’t show up in the image. White means on, meaning anything that is white will show up in your image. Layer masks allow you to keep your picture intact while you add special effects and hide certain parts of your image. Remember the background combining tutorial? You can use layer masks to “erase” (meaning hide) the parts of the backgrounds you don’t want to show up in place of an actual eraser. This means that instead of erasing the edges that don’t blend well you can instead add a white layer mask, take a fuzzy brush and select it to black paint, then paint over the areas you want gone. Then if you ever decide to change your mind you can go back with white paint and add the areas back to your image. It is extremely useful, so I suggest using this in place of the eraser next time you need to remove something.

    Now that we understand what a layer mask is, you can add a layer mask to your bottom layer by clicking the rectangle, with a circle in the middle of it, at the bottom of your layer window. Or by going up to the “Layer” tab, then down to “Layer Mask” and selecting “Reveal All”.


    m3tut9p.png~original


    Your layer should now look like this, with a weird white box next to it.
    Now for an important step. You need to make sure you are on the layer mask before you do anything else. You can tell if you are on the layer when the layer mask has white lines around it. If you aren’t, you need to fix this by clicking the white box, which is the layer mask, so we can make sure we are editing the layer mask only.


    m3tut10p.png~original


    Next you “Alt + Left click” on the layer mask box. This allows you to paste the image you just copied into the layer mask, otherwise it will paste as a layer. To get out of this selection later, just click on the original layer icon.

    Then we need to paste our selection of the first layer into our second layer. Hit “Ctrl + V” or go to the Edit tab and hit “Paste”. It should now look like this.


    m3tut11p.png~original


    Then we need to invert the layer mask. Hit “Ctrl + i”, and it should then be reversed. After that you need to click on the original layer icon to see your handy work.


    m3tut12p.png~original


    This should now give you a perfectly cut out sim. You can see that I didn’t remove the side of the background yet, so we will do that now. There are three ways to do this.
    1. You can turn that part of the background invisible as well by taking your paintbrush, turning the color to black, and then running the brush over the leftover background. This only works if you’re still on the layer mask.
    2. Or you can click on the original layer icon so you can erase the background with the actual eraser.
    3. The last option is to “Apply Layer Mask” by right clicking on the layer mask so you can completely remove the layer mask. This option is basically merging the layer and the mask together, which means you can’t edit the mask anymore. Then you erase the extra background with the eraser.

    Something that may happen is that the edges of the sim look transparent and seem like the sim wasn’t cut out properly. This is not the case, and I’ve already tested it with different backgrounds to be sure. The transparency does not transfer over to your background, regardless if it’s a pattern or solid color. This will probably happen when you use the same color clothes + same color background. And if you get jagged lines go back to the very beginning and switch the layers around. Most issues you encounter with this cutting method, which is minimal, can be fixed by just switching the layers around. It’s that simple!


    m3tut13p.png~original


    Now we’re done! Our sim is perfectly cut out, no jagged lines, no leftover background to remove either!

    m3tut14p.png~original
    Post edited by MizoreYukii on
  • MizoreYukiiMizoreYukii Posts: 6,566 Member
    edited September 2018
    Tutorial 12: Cutting with Paths (Gimp) (By LeslieM25)
    Level: Beginner
    If you are still having trouble with something in this tutorial, or need more help, please post here or contact me.
    Click here for more tutorials


    Personally I think that using the paths tool is the best way to cut out your sims and other objects in Gimp. Every other way I’ve tried leaves you with jagged lines around your sim or a line of the background color. This way seems like it would take more work, but I think that you spend more time trying to fix it with other ways. Using paths allows you to cut things out of pictures like you would with a pair of scissors and paper. I realize that some steps in here might be really obvious to most of you, but I decided to be very specific in case anybody needed me to or if a beginner decides to check out these tutorials. Here are the steps:

    1. Start with a nice, clear picture of your sim. In CAS, I like to use poses that kind of float a little so that you can actually zoom in a tiny bit. The picture I’m using is a CAS picture, which I actually think is harder to use that in game because of the quality. I have a white background here, but the nice thing about paths is that you don’t need a solid color background. Actually, I usually look for CAS backgrounds or settings for in game pictures that kind of match the colors of the background that I’m putting my sim onto. That makes it a lot easier for cutting out the hair because as we all know, the color of the background tends to show through the alpha hairs. If the colors of the background match the picture that you’re putting your sim into, you might have to do less to adjust the hair.


    ltut1.png~original


    2. Open Gimp and make sure you have your paths window open. You can find it by clicking on the Windows menu at the top, then going into Dockable Dialogs. Also, make sure your tools window is open. That one should automatically be open.


    ltut2.png~original


    3. Open your screenshot of your sim in Gimp and click on your paths tool in the toolbox.

    4. Zoom in on your sim. I like to zoom in to 400 or 550 depending on what part I’m working on.

    5. Click on the edge of your sim to place your first anchor. Keep clicking along the outline of your sim to place more anchors. Making a path is like using the lasso tool to make a selection, except you have the anchors that stay there and allow you to go back and adjust your lines. As you’re outlining your sim, try to stay on the inside of the outline of them, if that makes sense. Like, with my picture here, if I don’t stay right on the inside of the lines of the sim, you might still see some white in some spots.


    ltut3.png~original


    6. When you get to a curved area, place more anchors then you normally would so that you get a nice, smooth curve.


    ltut4.png~original


    7. Keep placing anchors all the way around your sim. If you want to go back and adjust any of them as you go, you can by clicking and dragging them. After you adjust the anchor, make sure you click on the last anchor that you placed before continuing your path. If you don’t, your path will have holes in it and they will mess you up later. The anchor you have selected will always have a see through square over it and the rest are white dots. For right now, don’t worry about any enclosed areas, like the area inside my sim’s arms.

    8. When you get to the hair, outline the outside of it with anchors for right now. We’ll get to the details in a minute. It’s ok to cut off any of those little unnecessary hairs that stick out from the main part of the hair.


    ltut5.png~original


    9. When you get to the end of your outline and place your last anchor, press ctrl and click on the first anchor that you placed. This will connect the end of your path to the beginning. You should now have a complete path outlining your sim.


    ltut6.png~original


    10. Now go up to the top of the window and click the Layer drop down menu. Go down to Transparency and click Add Alpha Channel. This is what allows you to have the cutout of your model with transparency around it.


    ltut7.png~original


    11. Go to your path window. Right click on the path that you just made. Click on Path to Selection.


    ltut8.png~original


    12. At the top of your main window, click on your Select drop down menu. Then, click Invert to switch the selection to the area around your model.


    ltut9.png~original


    13. (Hit delete on your keyboard) or go to your Edit drop down menu and click Clear. Now you should have the cutout of your model on a transparent background.


    ltut10.png~original
    ltut11.png~original


    14. Click on one of the selection tools and click the screen to get rid of the selection. This isn’t completely necessary. I just prefer to do it.

    15. Now we can go in and get the rest of the areas, like inside my model’s arms and her hair. Select your path tool again. Right click the path that you made before and click New Path. You can give it a name if you want to so you stay more organized.

    16. Make a new path outlining all the areas within your model that you want to cut out. You can have multiple areas outlined within one path. Just make sure to connect your last anchor to the first within each area. I like to save the hair details for later. Just cut around any hair the same way that you did before.


    ltut12.png~original
    ltut13.png~original


    17. Once you have all the inner areas outlined in a path, right click on the path that you just made and click Path to Selection.

    18. Go up to Edit again and click Clear. You don’t have to invert the selection this time.

    19. Now we can work on the details in the hair. This is the harder part with this method.

    20. Right click one of the paths that you already made and click New Path again.

    21. Outline any areas of the hair that you want to cut out. For this part, just use your judgement about what you want to leave there or cut out. Like I said before, I always cut the little stringy pieces that stick out. Outline all of the areas that are very obviously background color.


    ltut14.png~original


    22. When you’re done outlining all of the areas that you want to cut out of the hair, click Path to Selection again and then Clear.

    23. If there are any areas that you don’t necessarily want to completely cut because they are important to the hair, you can do a few different things. I’ll tell you the two things I do.

    Here’s the first one. This one is only good for if the background is a similar color to the hair. If your background is bright green, this one won’t really work. This way makes the hair cutouts have a softer look. Start a new path. Outline the sections with the paths tool like you have been. Click Path to Selection again. Go to the Select drop down menu and click Float. This makes the selected area float to a new layer.


    ltut15.png~original


    If you don’t have the Layers dockable dialog open already, open that up. You should see your new floated layer in there. Right click on the floated layer and click To New Layer.


    ltut16.png~original


    Now you can change the opacity of that level to make the area see through, but not completely gone. When you’re happy with it, go to the Image drop down menu and select Merge Visible Layers.


    ltut17.png~original
    ltut18.png~original


    The second way is for if you have a colored background and the color is still showing through in the hair. I had to use a different model for this part. This one has a bright green background. Make your path the same way around the section you want to change and click path to selection. Go up to your Colors drop down menu and click Desaturate. Choose luminosity in the menu that pops up and click Ok.


    ltut19.png~original
    ltut20.png~original


    Use the color picker to pick up the color from the surrounding hair. Try to get a medium tone in the hair, not a highlighted part or a shadow.


    ltut21.png~original


    Select your Bucket Fill tool. Make sure it’s on FG color fill and then set the Mode to Overlay. I like to take down the opacity to 50% also to give me more control. Use the Bucket Fill to fill in the piece of hair with color.


    ltut22.png~original


    24. When you are happy with your model cutout, go to File and click Export As and make sure you export it as a .png image so it keeps its transparency.


    ltut23.png~original


    Here’s my model placed onto a background and edited to fit the background a little.
    The paths tool can be very useful in general. It’s a good way to save a selection that you make. When I’m doing edits, I’ll use it to outline all the shadows and highlights on my sims and a lot of other things.

    ltut24.png~original
    Post edited by MizoreYukii on
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