Tattoo Question

Hello all, I have been dabbling with tattoos in a very Henna style.
I am using Adobe Photoshop cs3 I can get my alpha channel no problem
My issue is that even using the templates. all my work seems to come out jagged. when in 2nd life.
Is this the nature of the beast?
Or do any you have tricks to make your Tattoos looking cleaner lines on them.

Also what color % of gray do you all use to give the tattoos a nice worn look.
or are you using dodges and burns?

Thank you
Cathiee

Hi Cathiee

Not exactly sure what you mean by jagged, could you maybe post us a couple of snapshots so we can see exactly what you mean ?

Bitmappy Is what i meant, the outer edges of the Tat2's are not smooth.
Like if i use a font and a name I constrain my selection and then create the alpha channel.
the line is not smooth

Are you making the tattoo in 512x512?

I noticed sometimes if the artwork im using is not too "high quality" yet looks *ok* in PS, it looks like crap once on the avatar.

Keep in mind that on a 512 px image, a full back sized tattoo is only about 200 pixels wide seam to seam. A leg is only about 75 px and the arm is only 50 px. You'll never get crisp sharp lines at that resolution no matter what you try. There just aren't enough pixels for smooth line art.

One thing I'd look at if your problem is worse than normal, is to make sure that when you are resizing in Photoshop, not letting SL do it for you. And when you resize, make sure its set to Bicubic Interpolation. Some of the other options have really ugly results.

Also, keep the final size in mind and design your pieces accordingly. If your hi-rez original has fine lines that are 2 or 3 pixels wide, they are probably going to blur out when you resize your final

I get good results by using the (free) flaming pear solidify filter and then making my alpha selection with a feather by one pixel. Robin Sojourner has an excellent tutprial on using Flamng paer filters to get good edges.

To add on the colour: you can colour them in photoshop. I use the normal colours no burn no other filter. But sometimes I make them white and colour them in SL because I want to match them excactly with a skirt and primskirts can look in colour very different from the coulour of layers. This way I can adjust the colour in-world. You can also use (in Photoshop) the opacity to let them be more see-through wich will give them a wore worn out look. I have seen also that people sell their tattoo's in three different opacity's so the buyer can make a choise.

And yes the flaming pear is a great tool, especially when you use very darl colours.

Have Fun,
*AE*