Versions of Photoshop

Hello,

I am just starting to learn to how design clothing. I only have the Adobe Photoshop Albulm Starter Edition; I don't think this version has the tools necessary to design SL clothing. Which version(s) of photoshop are compatible with designing SL clothing? Thank you for all your help.

Taylor

I really wish Adobe would realize how much damage they do to themselves by insisting on putting the Photoshop name on products that have nothing to do with Photoshop. PSA is a really silly application, as you seem to be discovering, Taylor. You're absolutely right that it does not possess the necessary tools for texturing. It doesn't even come close to beginning to get started with even thinking about making textures.

If you can afford it, then what you want is the real Photoshop. The current version is called Photoshop CS2. It'll set you back about $600 US, and if you're going to use it regularly, it's worth every penny.

If you're looking for a less expensive alternative, Paint Shop Pro is only around $100. It's far more powerful than Adobe's Photoshop Elements, which is around the same price. PSE will work, by the way, but only in kind of a round-about way. It's another product that should not have the Photoshop name on it, but does.

If you want another freebie, there's GIMP, which is very powerful but difficult to use, and there's also Paint.Net, which is a relative newcomer on the graphics scene. I've never used Paint.Net myself, but from what I know of it, it seems to be not as powerful as GIMP, but set up much more logically. It's interface appears to be similar to Photoshop's iterface, which is good.

Thank you so much for your advice. I downloaded a free trial of Corel Paint Shop Pro and I am really liking it. I made my first shirt the other day but it was really plain and simple. I am reading everything I can find to add detail and etc....but I can't find anything.

How do I add details such as buttons, designs, etc. I tried using the paint brush and other tools to draw but I find that they are too big to do detail work. Right now I just have a plain shirt and would really like to be able to add my own style to it.

I use Photoshop, and I have a good list of web sites where I can get free brushes (and I have a few sets that I have bought). I have quite a few button brushes.

Try searching for free PSP resources on the web and you might run into some resources to help you.

Thank you! I will do that.

GIMP is not difficult to use. it is merely very differnt from Photoshop. Photoshop users, who are often very experienced and talented professional graphics artists often complain abou the GIMP because it does not use the exact same steps and key strokes that PSP uses.

Speaking as someone who went the other way...experienced happy Gimp user, I find PSP to be completely mysterious and impossibly counter-intuitive. *I find*...meaning that it feels like that to me.

PSP: more powerful, more expensive
GIMP: powerful enough, free.

I am really disappointed in Corel and PSP. The product simply has lost it's way. I have the newest version, and it's very similar to each version going back at least 3 full versions. Nothing really stands out, plus the GUI is cluttered.

My suggestion is to go with GIMP, and maybe one day, if you need it, go for Photoshop.

Well - decision made either way for me. I purchased PS Elements. Im following Natalia Zelmanov's Tutorial on a simple shirt and Im stuck. There is no "Pen" tool (options of Shape layers, Paths, and Fill Pixels) in Elements that I can find. Im trying to "cut out" the head opening at the top of the shirt and Im having trouble finding tutorials on using Elements. All help is appreciated (and if this is not the thread were I should be, I apologize in advance).

In regular photoshop there is a tool called polygonal lasso that will do what you need. I don't know if PSE has that tool, but take a look. With that tool you can create a selection by clicking on the points of your path (the corners of your shape) when you have your shape, bring your cursor back to your starting point and click and then you will get the marching ants selection and you can simply delete. AFIK you can only get straight line segments for the sides of the polygon selection, but this works fine for cutting out collars. I believe you get cleaner edges when you put the texure on your avatar.

Kendall, you'll find no such tools in Elements. This software is just not cut out to be used to create clothing textures. I tested it myself and ended up returning it and switching to Paint Shop Pro (nothing like the real Photoshop but much better than Elements).

Do your design work at a larger size, and then scale it down before you save for use in SL. Clothing needs to be 512 x 512 pixels when imported into SL. Anything else will get re-sized by the client, which does a poor job of it. I usually design clothes at 1024 x 1024 or even 2048 x 2048, and then scale that down. The anti-aliasing that the graphics app does when you scale down makes the detailing look far more realistic, as well. Just remember to save your master image, and then scale down and 'save as' to make the 512 x 512 .tga image.

Good luck!