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Resources

Resources will include small blurps of 'how to's, including but not limited to:
-How to get certian effects
-How to get soft, curvy manes & tails
-How to couple pictures so they compliment one another
..and any number of other things my itty bitty brain thinks up.




MANES AND TAILS

I use the lasso tool, freehand, when I cut horses out. Zoom in to about 3-4 hundred, depending on the size of the pic and the clarity; don't want to zoom in too much or you begin to lose focus of the natural curves to the horse, and not enough means more pronounced bumps and oops's. When I'm cutting out the manes/tails, I'll generally give the ends a soft flip, a slight curve. When you trace back up into the mane before coming back out for another end, make that trace get nice and thing and tiny and pointy - huge spaces between ends of the manes you cut out just makes them look choppy. I'll follow the natural curve to the manes if they look good; like if the manes are already giving a slight curve at the end I'll go ahead and follow that instead of creating my own.. Though if they're all straight and not so pretty, I'll just create my own effect. The only trick is that you have to keep it light, but not so light that you don't notice it. I'll make some curve one way, a few the other, and some straight, and just generally try to follow what manes and tails usually do; make the curves natural looking. Like if the horse is moving forward, I don't want the curves to go forward with him simply because that way unnatural. A lot of the time the manes don't look good on their own and I have to sculpt them myself. You can get away with doing this with light or dark horses, and take chunks of the background to make the mane fuller. If you do that, you're going to have to use the burn or the dodge tool to blend it in, and it doesn't always work. Kind of a trial and error thing. Its a tough trick to do with chestnuts and medium haired horses, though if there’s strong shadows on the horse you *might* be able to turn him to a bay or a dark chestnut.. but that’s a tough trick and you have to have the right bg and horse pics to pull it off. I'll generally not do it on chestnut pics. I'm so lazy.

After all that and the horse is cut out and positioned on the bg, I'll use a dropshadow or a outer glow to help soften the horse into the picture. They're very versatile on what pics you can use them on, though obviously if the pic is, say, a horse on the snow a dropshadow wouldn't flow well. Outer glows I really don't like much, though every once in a while they surprise me and work well.

At any rate, outer glows only work real well if the horse is on a very light bg and the horse is dark and shady enough that you can see its features and outline without enhancing. 99% of the time I’ll use an outer glow only if it’s sized to roundabout of 13, is overlayed and off of the programmed yellow – I’ll make it white. The most important thing is that it’s overlayed, though. Leaving it normal just makes the horse look… well… like an add-on, and the point is to make the picture look as realistic as possible.

The last thing I'll do is use a splayed (not round or square) smudge tool on 14 or 26 setting depending in the size of the horse picture and smooth the hair into place. Go with the flow of the strands, not against or sideways or anything else. Flowing with it keeps the natural shadows and highlights - I've seen lots of pics where people over smudge. I try only to smudge one strand once; if you do it too much you lose clarity. Go over the top line of the mane if there is one and help it smooth into the pic, and when you go over the ends, be careful. I'll generally zoom back in to 2-3 hundred percent when smudging, and especially at tip time. Be light with the tips very ends, though follow the edging and make sure it blends into the bg and itself; go right up to the very skinny tip that you had cut out into the mane and smooth it in.

Make sure the strands of mane look like they would in nature: Big at top, skinny at bottom. If its skinny at top, don't make the strand too long no matter what it looks like on the original pic because it just looks way long and awkward. Don't have fat bumps in the middle of manes, even little fat bumps. Use an eraser tool or the handy dandy lasso tool and slice the bumps out, then smooth the slice edging over with a smudge tool.

So. There you have it. My long winded version on how to do manes and tails. Cutting them out usually takes me a whopping 10 seconds each, and smoothing/darkening/lightening will take up to a minute. Sometimes more, though usually less.

Hope I didn't bore you to death. I don't see the point in giving half-ass tips.