Stocks

can anyone help me out on how to use stocks properly... I can never find the right balance its soo annoying as I know they add a lot to your sigs

 

Resize it firstThen Desasturatethen set on overlay play with opacity to your liking

 

I hate stocks I try to avoid them for the most part, I try to only use jerseys and other renders now, it comes out much better, but you if you fit them in perfectly they work. And this leads to the fact that is very hard to get them to fit, yeah you have to desaturate most.

 

yeah stocks work great if you know how to use themI usually blur them (motion blurs and gaussian blurs) then use a gradient map on them which is under the same place as brightness/contrast/hue/sat/desature stuff. then for lighting set on linear dodge and lower the opacity. or what I've recently been doing is just using jpg. of other sigs I've made, and just putting them in and blurring them and what not.oh. just a word of advice. NEVER BRUSH A BG (idk if you do or not, but don't) also try working with patterns. search squidfingers in google and check out that site, they have some good ones. also just try using the keyboard for patterns like xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx+++++++++++++=============={}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEthen just blur the (gaussian) very slighty and set to overlay or something. mess around with stuff.

 

thanks alot everyone esp. G =K very useful info

 

What is a stock I've heard a lot about them and I could use some improvement.

 

stocks are photos of anything. usually nature scenes or repetive pattern type pictures (railroads, hallways) pick ones with lots of lighitng.

 

Alright, thanks G=K

 

yeah stocks are basically all I use for my sigs now- they are great if you experiment with them.

 

Anyone know any good stock sites? Besides Surreal Designz? Cause their stock page its really really really slow, always jacks up my computer

 

imageafter.com and google

 

Deviantart, it has loads of stocks.

 

sxc.hu. You have to register, but there's tons of stocks.