Nolgroth Posted March 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 Re: Echoes of a Forgotton Empire Yes, for screen only work, those images are fine and dandy. But at 300 dpi, which is sort of standard for printable stuff, they are only 3 - 3.5 inches square. I simply need to make new ones that are bigger. I am not insanely wealthy that I can afford Photoshop at ~$900 plus whatever the cost is for Lunarcell. And honestly, while Lunarcell planets are absolutely gorgeous, I am trying to strike a balance between pretty and functional. Luckily, I have Ascension over at the Cartographers Guild on my side. His planet making tutorials for Photoshop led me to experiment with Gimp to come up with my own style for Earthlike planets in Gimp and rock planets in the lighter-weight and much older Photoshop Elements 2. This does not kill my project, only makes it slow down a little. Now that I have some basic techniques developed, I imagine that I can crank out one a day for a couple of weeks. Honestly, the writing and character design are going to likely take much longer than that. So, any thoughts on the images themselves? Always open to constructive criticism.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted March 5, 2009 Report Share Posted March 5, 2009 Re: Echoes of a Forgotton Empire I am not insanely wealthy that I can afford Photoshop at ~$900 plus whatever the cost is for Lunarcell. You were not reading me closely enough. I said "Rich people with no talent can use..." I was not referring to you, since anybody with eyes can see that you have got the talent! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted March 5, 2009 Report Share Posted March 5, 2009 Re: Echoes of a Forgotton Empire Screen size is irrelevant. All computer screens are 72dpi; resolution (as Nyrath pointed out) determines exactly how much of the screen a picture takes up. Printing is significantly higher in most cases. Absolute minimum is 150dpi. I usually use 750 for printing when I do feel the need. Yeah, I've been through that dpi issue before, I was just curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted March 5, 2009 Report Share Posted March 5, 2009 Re: Echoes of a Forgotton Empire Well, you must have your screen resolution set rather low. On a 1280 x 1024 monitor, the images are about three-quarters of the screen. But if these are meant to be printed, the determining factor is not how big they look on the screen, but the dots-per-inch setting the printer uses. This can be more than 300, which would make the planet images very small indeed on the printed page. Yeah. 17" flat CRT, 1024x768, btw. Anyway, they're nice pictures, particularly the one with the nightside showing city lights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted March 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2009 Re: Echoes of a Forgotton Empire You were not reading me closely enough. I said "Rich people with no talent can use..." I was not referring to you, since anybody with eyes can see that you have got the talent! Thanks. I still have to give kudos to Ascension over at Cartographers' Guild. Without his help I would not have gotten very far. That board is my other online home. Good folks over there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted March 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2009 Re: Echoes of a Forgotton Empire Anyway' date=' they're nice pictures, particularly the one with the nightside showing city lights.[/quote']Thanks. That was particularly difficult to come up with a methodology to do, but it is something that I really wanted. After the first couple of attempts were given some useful, constructive criticism, I was able to refine the technique somewhat. Thanks again for the kind words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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