NewBee - Crucify my first image!!!

LOL - Ok I have been working with Photoshop 7 for a little over a week. Prior to that, nothing except Paint Shop on occasion. Yeah Paint Shop, not Paint Shop Pro. I did a lot of tutorials and would redo them until I understand why they worked. I can't even count how many times I did them or redid them. I also read How to do Everything With Photoshop 7, fairly easy and simple read. Well here is my first graphic I did completely on my own. Took me about 3 days to get to where I liked it. I just want to spice up my website that I created about a month ago, so this will eventually get used on my home page. I already know of one mistake I made, and that was making the image with my screen res set at 1280x1024. I learned in FP that I should design webpages in 1024x768. Also there are a lot of jaggies, where when I began I forgot my anti-aliasing tuts. So give opinions, tips, or tell me I should persue another hobby.

The logo at the bottom of the pic is one I just made up from a nickname I have at home, so I hope I am not taking anyone's logo there...

http://www.gumataotao.com/menu_interface.htm

When I started with photoshop, and probably alot of other people on this board, I made an image of which I thought it was great. I posted it on a messageboard right away and everybody on the told me that it sucked real bad. You know why they told me? Because it did.

Same with your image ;)

Keep practicing, you'll get there.

When I first started as a supervisor on my job, I was told my people skills sucked. You know why? Becuase they did.

Same with your post. :D

Keep practicing, you will get there.

You know what is funny, of all the comments on other boards and friends with PS experience they have told me not bad for a first, but no one has out right told me it "sucked"... LOL and to hear it from someone with a whopping 37 posts, sorry but I don't think I will give it too much credit.

Ok, you can't discourage me, it is my first and I know it is bad, but what I am looking for is WHY? What about it "sucks"?

That critique probably wasn't all that helpful so let me see if I can make any comments that could be benefit you. Bear in mind that I am no Photoshop pro and ask for critiques and help with my stuff as well, but maybe I can get the ball rolling...

First, the grey background would be fine if you weren't using a drop shadow on the beveled stuff. So lose the shadow or change the color of the background (porbably to a lighter grey, white or black). I think the grey would be ok if you made the bevel look like it was raised out of the background.

Second, you are using too many cookie cutter effects. Not that you can't, but it looks like you are trying to throw in as many cheap tricks as you can to increase the "cool" factor, but it's over the top IMO.

Third, the text is a little hard to read for the J2I Designs and definately for the www address.

Fourth, the "window bubble" with the car under it should have less of an edge on it. I think it would look more authentic if you eliminated some of that border.

It's really not bad for a week's worth of Photoshopping experience. Keep at it and pay close attention to the advice you get from the more "seasoned" members in the group. Check out the resources section of the forum for links to other PS tutorials. They'll help you along.

Hope this helps and gets others to comment as well.

Thank you D4TVGFX!!!

You are giving me a lot better points to work with.

1. You bring that to my attention and makes perfectly good sense. I like your idea of bringing the bevel out of the background...

2. Yep completely agree. In a sense all I did was take a couple of the tuts I had done over and over and combined them in to something bigger. Too many? Cool np!!!

3. I had tried to work on those using the same anti-aliasing techniques I had learned with making smooth shapes, but could not seem to get anything better than what I got in the end. Any suggestions on clearing up the text? I will continue to work on those and try myself too.

4. You know that bubble took me forever to get even close to what i have now. I got so frustrated at times. Again I was taking two tuts and trying to combine them to get the effect I wanted. Never did really come out right. I think the edge you are referring to is because I loaded the eliptical selection and went to my base layer and cleared the selection. This caused the bevel effect to also effect that portion of the base as well. I thought it looked good, but I can see what you are talking about.

Thanks for taking the time to comment and for the helpful comments you left. Much appreciated!!! Like you, I am no pro! I am having fun with this though and pretty much taking this up as a hobby to make my website more unique and not be the typical FP crap.

Thanks again!!!

On the text, I think you just need more "real estate" so that it's bigger and easier to read. Make the lip larger for the www address or put it somewhere else where you can size it up a bit. On the J2I thingy, either make it taller or extend the bottom of that beveled area so you can keep the top where it is but still extend the height.

On the window, I think you might find this tutorial helpful...
link1

And for the interface...
link2

I really like these tutorials for some reason. Hopefully you'll find some use from them.

It's pretty good for a first image. I agree with D4TVGFX in some aspects. I think you used too many bevel/emboss layer styles. The style gets repetitive.
On the GUMA text, I'm not convinced that that looks realistic. Maybe you should try a different style of emboss.
Something also worth noting, is that the lighting looks off. In some spots it looks like the light is coming from the NW, and in others, directly above. Some areas should be shadowed because other objects would normally block the light.

[QUOTE=Guma]When I first started as a supervisor on my job, I was told my people skills sucked. You know why? Becuase they did.

Same with your post. :D

Keep practicing, you will get there.

You know what is funny, of all the comments on other boards and friends with PS experience they have told me not bad for a first, but no one has out right told me it "sucked"... LOL and to hear it from someone with a whopping 37 posts, sorry but I don't think I will give it too much credit.

Ok, you can't discourage me, it is my first and I know it is bad, but what I am looking for is WHY? What about it "sucks"?[/QUOTE]

Hmm okay.

I've been on this board under another name, since march 18th 2001. I have been using Photoshop almost daily for well over 5 years now and have recently made it to a very well known art school in my country.

I think it is kindof childish to judge someone by his postcount. But hopefully, by the time you have some more photoshop experience, you'll know that eyeball-design.com, big bevels and strange shapes are not necessarily (?) cool. If I see some of my first creations I laugh my ass off and I know that you will do the same. Yes it sucks, should I say it is awesome just to be a nice person? You'll never get further if everyone keeps saying that your crap is nice. And I mean it, I am by no means trying to insult you or something like that.

But ok, Ill tell you what is wrong with your layout, without reading D4TVGFX's posts.

- Color. Big grey shape on a grey background with some greyish-blue buttons. Not every color on the rainbow has to be in there and it should never look like Las Vegas, but some color and variation would do it some good.

- Bevel. A big ass bevel on a very strange shape. The bevel is uge and also has a hard edge. Looks real cheesey. Either make it softer, smaller or (please) remove it completely. Also, there seems to be a drop shadow underneath the whole layout. So there is not anly the dark/shadow side of the bevel, there's also the shadow of the object itself. These 2 thing together create a very large black area that doesn't look good. Getting a smaller distance for the drop shadow would improve things a bit.

- Buttons. What are they for? If you click one, where is the content going to be? And whats with the big grey area between the left and the right row of buttons. Is that gonna stay empty? Not very nice, is it?

- Car Pic. It makes no sence and is an ugly picture. Besides the positioning is all wrong. You can smallen the picture by pressing Ctrl+T so the whole car will fit the circle. I advice you to either take a better picture yourself or find one of the same type of car on the internet. You can also brighten up the pic a bit by using Auto levels, to begin with.

- The black horizontal bars. They seem to be intended to be layed in the layout. Doesn't really look like it though. Change your settings. You can also use black and white stripes in overlay mode. Try some eyeball-design tuts to see what i mean.

- "guma". Big blue letters with an innershadow, outerbevel and a horrible blockeffect over it. Try to keep things simple and don't use every "cool" effect you know or come across on the net on your images. (hardest part for newbees.)

- The "moon". It's horrible! Please get it out of there. It makes no sence at all. I remember myself drawing circles with the marquee tool and then cutting other circles out. Loved that, but trust me, it sucks 99% of the time. Nike logo is not 1 circel with another circel cut out of it.

- J2l designs logo. Get it a few pixels up so the g won't touch the dark part anymore. Also get the top line of the logo straight. It looks weird the way it is bend now.

Here you go, my 38th post! Hurray!