Finishing a shirt.. making a hem etc..

How do you 'finish' a piece of clothing.. how do you make the hems so it looks nice and not like you have a shirt taped on.

I did a search and tried some of the tutorials that were given.. Robins was the best so far but for some reason when i tried it on it looked like it was stitched to the person itself. But that may had to do with me because i had issues making the stitch brush.

So share your ideas fellow designers

To make it so it isnt painted on you either do shadows and wrinkles, or you use the sliders to puff out the shirt.
On hems I am not sure what you mean. I do mine in Paint shop pro.

I am aware you can work with shadows and wrinkels but that is not what i wanted.

I just wanted to know how to make it more realistic with stitches/hems.. 'cause right now its kinda 'bare' and it has that unfinished look over it.

(forgive me English is not my primary language so i am not exactly sure how to explain it)

Hi Teria!

You can try several things to finish off a hem, but this is my "usual" edging for basic pieces of clothing:

-Darken the edges maybe 8-10 pixels wide (I use burn or multiply..but whatever works for you). So basically it looks like a dark trim. Add a little Gaussian blur or the blur tool.

-Then in the center of the dark trim, put a thinner line of white or light gray on overlay or screen...etc. Use a Gaussian blur again.

-When I use "Stitches" I place directly above this edge (or below it if it is the hem around the neckline).

This will give the appearance of a raised hem.

See pic for example.

Hope this helps a bit.

Best,
~Ari

PS: Your English is wonderful

You are on the right track. Hems make a huge difference. See
http://www.throughlinedesign.com/secondlife/clubWearPic.jpg

Here is how I do this in Photoshop. I make a narrow rectangular selection. Copy and paste to a new layer and apply a button style to that layer. The style called flat rounded normal works well. Then I fiddle with the style to get rid of the drop shadow and take the opacity down so it is more subtle.

These steps in Photoshop are a quick and easy way to do the following. From the very bottom of the hem upward there is a gradient from dark to the fabric shade. This gives the hem a slightly rounded look. At the upper edge of the hem is another gradient from light to the fabric shade. This give the illusionthat the hem is adding a layer of thickness and light is falling where the thickness sticks out.

Some designers also do stitching and I haven't gotten that far yet, but I want to try that some time.

Oh Sylvia, the drop shadow is a brilliant idea. I've messed around with the "styles" pallet but not for my hems. I'll have to try the drop shadow.

~Ari

Awesome!

Thanks for the tips guys... I will try it out as soon as i make my new piece of clothing.. (since my old file got corrupted ><

Excuse me but a button style? I can't find that..?

I use lots of vectors. For the hem: I duplicate my main shape, and I play with stroke, stoke bevel, and drop shadows (in the Blending options). I then tweak the shading manually, just like Arikinui. I also add stitches when appropriate.

Window>Styles then click on the little triangle inside a circle to the right of the styes tab to bring up the styles libraries. Once you apply a style to a layer an "f' will appear to the right of its thumbnail and name in the layers pallette. Click on the "f" to edit the applied style.