Using Purchased Clothing Templates

Please help as I am completely new to this. I have bought some previously made clothing templates. i.e. a complete dress template and I can create my own fashions with the template. I am not an expert on gimp but I know quite a bit now. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to add a textured design to these previously made templates without it looking like garbage. I have been through all of the main tutorials plus about 5 million on youtube and nothing seems to have what I am looking for. They are all about creating new items, not redoing items already created. I have looked through tons of posts here on the forum and I have not found one pertaining to this issue. I would not ask but I have spent weeks looking through things and am ready to tear my hair out!!! Please please please any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

There's really no difference between creating a new item and editing an existing one. I'm not sure what it is you're trying to ask. Can you try to explain?

You need to know the basics, follow her instructions and make a few items from scratch. That will help you then re-texture the purchased templates.

The URL might help, so here it is .... http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html

Sorry, I neglected to post the website....thanks!

I have been all through the mermaid diaries as well as many other common tutorials. What I have purchased is a kit that has the items premade and you change the texture or color. Here is an example of what they are. Even if you could point me in the right direction for classes or something. I thought it would be simple. Apparently it is harder to work with these than to try and create on my own. When I try to use the magic wand it is finding things that do not exist so I cannot put it onto a texture I already have with the design and I am losing hte lace and other things inside the design. Are these things even worth the time and effort?

https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&CategoryID=239&SearchKeyword=clothing+template+kit&searchSubmitImage.x=0&searchSubmitImage.y=0&SearchLocale=0&SearchPriceMin=&SearchPriceMax=&SearchRatingMin=&SearchRatingMax=&sort=&dir=asc

Let me try and address each of your questions. Forgive me for breaking up your paragraph into individual sentences, and for changing their order slightly, but I want to do my best to make sure nothing goes unanswered for you.



How experienced are you with Photoshop? I know you said you're new to texturing, but if you're also brand new to Photoshop, I'd strongly urge you to slow down a bit. Learning Photoshop itself, and learning to texture for 3D are two entirely different things. The latter has to build upon the former. It absolutely can't go the other way around, and it's nearly impossible to do both at once, at least not without really good hands-on instruction.

It doesn't matter how talented or capable you may be, so don't get upset that you're struggling. There is an order to learning this stuff. I've never known anyone to try to put the cart before the horse, and succeed. It's going to take some time.

What I recommend is you spend some time mastering the basics of Photoshop by doing only 2D projects for the next few weeks. Once you've got a decent handle on the program, and on your own technique, then come back to the subject of texturing. At least 3/4 of the stumbling blocks you're tripping over now will feel like they've been magically removed at that point. If you're brand new to all this, then you don't yet know enough even to know what it is that you don't yet know, if that makes sense.

If by chance I'm misreading you, and you actually do have a good working knowledge of Photoshop, then there are some things I'm going to suggest you try. But fair warning, if you are new to it, you probably won't (yet) understand everything I'm about to say.



It is and it isn't. In Photoshop, there are about a million ways to accomplish any given task. Not every artist is going to approach every problem the same way. I haven't looked at those templates to see what's actually in them, but here's what I'd guess would be the case if I were to dive into them. Most likely there's an easy part and a hard part.

I'll start with the easy part. I'd probably have no trouble deciphering how the templates are set up, and how their maker intends for their various elements to be used. If all I needed to do was recolor one of these, rather than make a new item from scratch, it certainly would save some work. So in that sense, it's "easier" to use these than to start afresh.

Now the hard part. I probably would not enjoy the experience one bit. There's every possibility that these templates are not set up in a manner that jives with my own preferences, my own thought process. Their creator, no matter how talented he or she may be, is simply not me. In my own images, I know every pixel, every layer, every effect, every filter that's gone into it. It's all putty in my hands, to change and mold as I see fit, at any time. But when someone else has already done a good portion of the work, that's not the case. If the other artist's creative process sifnificantly differs from mine, I'm probably just going to redo 90% of what he or she has done anyway. So in that sense, it can very well be "harder" to use these templates than to do it on your own.

Consider that everything I just said comes from an expert on Photoshop (not to toot my own horn, but this IS what I do for a living). If you have a similar level of expertise, then you'll probably find the templates to be both good and bad in exactly the ways I've described. However, if you're fairly new to Photoshop, then you've obviously got a compounded problem. You might not be yet experienced enough even to be able to make much sense of how the templates are set up, let alone figure out if they fit with how you prefer to work.

Again, if you're new to Photoshop, take a step back from this, and make the investment in yourself to learn it properly before you attempt to do texturing. It's not that texturing is inherently difficult. It's just that it requires a certain method of thinking about imagery, and of course, a high level of familiarity with the tools at hand, neither of which you could possibly have right now, if you're just starting out. Learn Photoshop itself first, then learn texturing.



Well, that's problem number one right there. Don't use the magic wand ...EVER. It's easily the clunkiest, clumsiest, most horribly underpowered tool in all of Photoshop. Forget it even exists. If I knew how to hack the toolbox to make it disappear, I would. It's totally useless. No professional texture artist in the world ever touches the thing, and neither should you.

There are a great many methods of selection that are infinitely more powerful than the magic wand, not to mention easier to use, counter-intuitive as that may seem. The magic wand fools you because it's a one-click solution, and what could be simpler than a single click, right? But as you alluded to already yourself, going with "I thought this would be easy" is almost always a recipe for disaster. When that single click doesn't actually do what you need, all you did was waste your time on something that doesn't get the job done, and in all seriousness, what could possibly be more complicated than that?

I can't tell you which selection solution will be best for you, because I don't know exactly what you're trying to do. Different tools have different purposes, obviously. But here are a few you should definitely explore, no particular order:

1. Ctrl-click a layer's thumbnail to select everything on the layer (complete with all transparency levels accounted for).

2. Quick Mask. This allows you to quickly paint a selection with any brush. When in Quick Mask mode, anything you paint white will be selected, and anything you paint black will be deselected. This makes it very easy to form complex selections, including partially transparent selections, in seconds. Like most things in Photoshop, its especially useful if you have a Wacom tablet. (If you don't, get one!)

3. Channel masking. I've posted a few tutorials on this. Here's one: /109/c6/274214/1.html

4. Select -> Color Range. This can be really handy. Let's say you want to select everything red in an image, and turn it blue. Simply hit Select -> Color Range, click on a red area, adjust the fuzziness setting to control how close a shade needs to be to the sampled color in order to be included, and then hit OK. Everything red will now be selected, and you can apply whatever recoloring technique you want. (Added tip: turn off selection outlines temporarily (in the View menu), and you'll be able to do your recoloring without the 'marching ants' distracting you. Just remember to turn it back on when you're done, or you'll end up all kinds of confused later on.)

5. Layer masks. These are your best friend in Photoshop. They allow you to apply transparency to layers, completely non-destructively (unlike erasing, which is absolutely destructive). Transparency can be a powerful method of selection. Anywhere you paint white on a mask will make that part of the layer opaque. Anywhere you paint black on a mask will make that part of its layer transparent. All shades of gray fall in between for translucency. After masking off the parts of a layer you don't want to select, you can easily select what remains by ctrl-clicking the layer's thumbnail. Remember I said transparency values are accounted for in ctrl-click? Here's where that can really come in handy.

6. Marquees and Lassos. Marquees are great for quickly selecting regularly shaped areas, and lassos do the same for irregular shapes. There are lots of different kinds of each, so play with them to see what they all do. Note, all are affected by feathering, so watch that setting, to make sure you're not under or overdoing the accuracy.

7. Vector paths. For selecting cleanly outlined areas, there's no substitute for forming selections fr0m vectors. Simply draw a path with the pen tool, or create a path with one of the shape tools, and then convert it into a selection. Note, the pen and shape tools each have three modes: Fill Pixels, Shape Layers, and Path. Make sure you've got them set to Path in order to use them for that purpose.

The list goes on and on and on, and I'm getting too tired to keep going. I could probably write an entire book just about selection, there's so much material. As I said, there about a million ways to do every one thing in Photoshop.

The point, once again, is ditch that magic wand. It's basically the Ginsu knife of the Photoshop toolbox, a totally ridiculous item. Sure, it can cut that can in half in no time flat, but do you really need to cut a can? Try using the thing to do any fine slicing, delicate dicing, and you'll be there all day, mashing your food instead of cutting it (because it's really just a hacksaw with a knife handle stuck on it; can you tell I sold knives for 12 years?). So yeah, the magic wand can select a large monotone area of color very quickly. But just like cutting that can, how often is that function really going to be useful? Almost never. Actual pictures, just like actual food, tend to be soft and delicate. They require a much finer, much more controllable, touch.





That's going to depend on whom you ask. I can see why there's a market for such things, but I personally would never use them.





It's funny you should ask. I'll be teaching Photoshop courses at Xeniversity starting in October. I'm in preparations at this very moment (well, almost at this very moment, since I did take a little time out to write this post). Registration info and class dates should be on the xeniversity.com site soon. There's a cap of 8 students per sequence, so if you're interested, keep checking the site regularly. It's probably going to book up fast.

I'll also put a line or two about it in my forum signature as soon registration is open, so if you'd rather just keep watching my posts here than check the site, that will work too. But either way, act quickly once you see it open up. There's a lot of interest.

I don't want to turn this thread into an add for my classes, so I won't dwell on it too much, but since you did ask, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention I'm designing the introductory sequence to appeal to all skill levels. If you're brand new, you'll of course learn your way around the program. And if you're more experienced, some of the information will of course be redundant for you, but most of it won't.

I've put a lot of thought into how to teach Photoshop in an SL-focused way, with texturing as the primary subject instead of photography. As anyone who's ever taken a PS class before or read books on it will tell you, this is not the typical way it's done. But I've been back-burner planning this for years, and actively planning it for several months, and it's going to be good. Everyone who attends will walk away with new knowledge, new skills, and very likely a new outlook on Photoshop itself as a tool, regardless of prior experience level.

I don't want to say more here because, as I said, it wouldn't be right to turn this forum into an ad space, and registration isn't even open yet anyway, so it would be premature to keep discussing it. I just wanted to make sure I'd answered each of your questions, and that happened to be one of them. For what it's worth, I think this is only the second time I've mentioned it at all on the forums, and it's certainly the first time I've gone into any detail about it.

Thank you for your response and I appreciate all the time you put into answering it. I have actually been using Gimp which is similar yet so different from Photoshop. I am by no means an expert but I have been using it for about a year so I do have most of the basics down. I have learned mostly by experimentation. I personally prefer not to use the magic wand but most of the tutorials I have been looking at regarding these things use it. So I figured if they can do it that way then I should be able to. I normally do things the hard why...i.e. try to figure it out then when I can't I go for help.

As for why I was using the templates....I have absolutely no success when creating my own clothing in SL. Most of my experience has been creating/manipulating textures and photos. The few times I did try to create my own....well the results would have you rolling on the floor in laughter. I am doing this all for my sister, I learn these things then pass on the knowledge. She really wants to make certain clothing. So I have been working on this to try and teach her.

I would love to take your class, but as I do not have Photoshop it might not do me as much good as someone else. I truly do appreciate your response and I will work on the items you mentioned to try some things I have not tried.

Ah, sorry about that. I just assumed Photoshop. I should have asked.

I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you with GIMP. While it's a great program in that it delivers an enormous amount of power for free, I've never had much success in learning its particular methodologies. It's quite the oddball. It's wonderful for the people who are able to get into it, but I'm just not one of those people.

That's ok!!! I have been learning it as I go And again thank you for all of your help and tips. I will certainly work with what you gave me and try some more experimentation. I had been without a job for over a year so I could not afford Photoshop even though I wanted it. I now have a job and after a new PC that is one of the purchases I will be making. IT is in some ways eaier touse than Gimp and other ways harder. If I use a tutorial for photoshop I can usually figure out how Gimp does it. So that is a good thing.

Photoshop tip to new users, play, play, play, click all the buttons, apply all the filters, move all the sliders, search random tutorials, like texturing stone, make a button, etc. Have fun. Some of my better textures for SL have come from happy accidents. Tutorial tips, if it goes wrong don't backtrack to see where it's gone wrong, start again, if it's still going wrong it's usually a simple misuse of a word, try and find a similar tutorial, sometimes finding out what was a misunderstanding or error in the first tutorial can go far in helping you wizz through other tutorials later.

Hi Marissa,

I actually make PSD templates for designers and have several tutorials on how to use them. The tuts are for PS but most of it can be translated to Gimp.

Not knowing what sort of templates you have I can tell you there are 2 sorts. The first gives you a greyscale finished layer of the design which you simply put over a base fabric and set the blending mode to either overlay, soft light, multiply, etc. The second sort is multilayered and gives you more options on choosing parts of the templates and adding things on your base fabric etc. and also use the blending mode for the folds, texture, shading layers.

Here is a link to my tutorials (it is PS but they can be translated to Gimp when it comes to the basic functionality of layers and tools)

http://lillethmills.com/?page_id=10

Here is a good overview for how gimp works

http://www.tankedup-imaging.com/gimp/layers.html

The most important thing to understand is how layers work this will affect where you place your added laces etc and also explain why selection isnt working (if you are on the wrong layer). The next thing to wrap your head around is the Alpha channel.

Hope this helps you some

When I try to use the magic wand it is finding things that do not exist so I cannot put it onto a texture I already have with the design and I am losing hte lace and other things inside the design.



When you use the magic wand there is a setting you can change to help make it easier in finding what you need to highlight. That is the scale slider. Move it left or right depending on what you need it to do. I had something pretty much white on white that I needed to hightlight and moving the slider to the left actually helped me. Play around with the slider and you will get better results with it. I am sorry that I do not know all of the professional techniques to use so that we can stay away from the wand but that is how to utilize that tool a bit easier. Good luck!

When you use the magic wand there is a setting you can change to help make it easier in finding what you need to highlight. That is the scale slider. Move it left or right depending on what you need it to do. I had something pretty much white on white that I needed to hightlight and moving the slider to the left actually helped me. Play around with the slider and you will get better results with it. I am sorry that I do not know all of the professional techniques to use so that we can stay away from the wand but that is how to utilize that tool a bit easier. Good luck!