The Graphics Rating Thread [READ THE FIRST POST. D:<]

[/Circa]

New theme I made, though I havent made a banner in ages ;O!
Feel free to scrunch it up and throw it in the bin.

 

[Nell]

Loki
Wow, the colours in that second SOTW entry of yours, are amazing. o_o But there's a problem, because the focal point isn't really distinct with all those contrasts, as Shiranui said, and instead of a lock-on-to-one-spot 'Woooow', it's more of a look-at-that 'woa- WAIT, look there! No, there!' kinda thing, so perhaps you should add a bit of flow? I'm not exactly sure of how you'd go about doing that, but... XD; ...sorry. :x

CheesePeow:
I'm not really liking the effects~! ;; It seems a bit too matte in general, and the cross-hatch brushing kind of effect on the right is very distracting, it doesn't seem to fit in too well~ I think you should have a few bright cyans flying around in there? :3 also, that text stands out like... -can't think of a simile-. D: Maybe if you set it to soft light, I think that would make it a lot better~

Heh, my first evar SOTW entry~

EDIT:
Oh and guys, can you rate this lil' thing for me too? <3 It would best be viewed with the 'Pokélink 2.0' skin~

 

[Motsuko Live]

Before I begin, I'd just like to say that this rate will be absolutley horrid, seeing as I'm about ready to pass out. Please ignore any spelling mistakes, typos, randomness, jibberish, etc. Thank you ^^;

@ Tinkerbell: OH MAH GAWD, I JUST CREAMED. xD (eww)
jkbutya... excellent job. I love the lighting effects. They seem to match the render prefectly. Though I must say, the render doesn't seem to blend in too well.
... wait. No, sorry. I should have said, it seems like the render... I don't know. "Pops off the page" a little bit. If I had any clue how to fix that, I'd tell you. Unfortunately, I do not.

The text is amazing. The brushes are amazing. WTF, where did you come from!? *spaz'n*

You've got some serious skills, but I've never seen you around before until just recently! But whatever... wrong place to be discussing this.
Anyway, on to the other thinger.

I don't know what it's suppose to represent, but I like it! It looks pretty simple, which is good. Extra brownie points would have been awarded if it weren't for Haine Togu's idea kind of stealing the thunder of this "photo idea".

---

Just made this. Rendered it myself. I think it's alright, and I was actually able to think of some text this time! : D Maybe I should work on the blending a little bit?

 

[Loki]

I think the blending is okay, but the problem is mainly like... the colors. D: They're really pale, and the transition from the light to the color is somewhat abrupt. The cut is good too, and the main thing I would tell you to work on is the fact that the banner is very... boring. D: There's not much happening around Lelouch, or the upper left hand corner, which looks empty. :< The text is okay, but text is basically impossible in all vertical banners, so I guess I'll cut you some slack and not comment on that at all. xD; Bascially, I'd suggest turning up the contrast, or maybe the saturation.

Then, I'd say sharpen it, because it looks really foggy and blurry as it is. xD; And lastly, turn the scanlines way way down. :3 And I guess that's it.


-------------

BYAKURAN! >:DD

I can't decide. I hate the way this banner looks when I've got the sides all dark, but otherwise, the focus is just... gone. D: So, which one is better, darker, or lighter? And I am aware that it's really busy and messy. xD; I seem to like my banners better that way. *shot*

This was mainly the test to make sure that my Badou Tutorial made sense, and I ended up not reading the tutorial after like, the first two steps, because I decided it was too awesome and I needed to make it into my next theme. xDDD!

 

[Comic Tragedy]

Loki: Once again you have made a really great banner. Like you said the dark sides need to be fixed (someway that I am unsure of! haha). I really like the composition of this piece it seems like the sig is a paint canvas or something. Really cool! One thing that looks wierd tho is the render itself. Did you resize it wierd kuz it looks slightilie stretched. I dunno maybe I'm just super tired >_< haha.

-------

Anyway can you guys CnC this new piece!?

 

[Gummy]

El Capitano: I'm a little "on the fence" with this banner. You're pretty good at using real people in your banners but I feel like this one is too empty. All we have is the render, a few effects and some nice text. Give it a little more substance.

~~~~~

Soo... It's been almost a week since I made a banner, but I was bored this morning so I opened up my PS. Here is the finished product:

 

[Michii]

Gummy: the Background and image are both good, but the text is difficult for me to read. Try brushing over the image a little bit too, to prevent the look of just a copy and pasted banner from paint. On the plus side, the background layer is pretty good, and I like the lighting effect on the top.


Gawd I have no banner to post. Crap. Erm... -searches photobucket- aha!

A picture of the sunset taken on the plane coming back from California.

ilovecalifornia

 

[Twinx]

Haven't been here in a while...

Gummy, I like your banner a lot, but I would follow michii's advice and change the text. We need to get you a text tutorial.. seriously ;P

Michii, yay for photography :3
It's a nice picture, but it's sort of blinding because of the sun and all. And those dots ruin the picture...
I don't know what else to say really >.<

----------------------------
I finally had the time to do something. I've been in a slump for a while now... but I think it's good..

Not funny.. I know.

 

[PiSToLZ]

Gummy-change the text otherwise its good.
Michii-i dont like the effects you did sry.
DarkChild-nice choice of render. Awesome blending
Cnc?

 

[Motsuko Live]

@ Pistolz: Good to see you. It's always great to see fellow artists join the community more competition xD

Anyway, around here we always usually sometimes go into great deatil when rating other people's banner. It doesn't have to be four pages long *stares at Loki* but it needs to be a little more than "I don't like the effects you did sry". :/

Here's an example of a quality rate (if I do say so myself), though I'm only going to rate your all your banners in general, instead of one by one.

They're pretty good for a begginer, but I think you could benefit from looking at a few tutorials. (PM me later if you need any.) Also, try adding some focal points. A focal point is a specific spot on your banner that the viewer's eyes are drawn to. It doesn't have to be fancy, but there should just be some little tweak that makes one point stick out more than the rest of the banner. There's multiple ways of acheiveing focal points. Again, tutorials are really great for that. Focal points can also help with depth, which brings me to my next point.

Depth... oh boy, this fella. Depth is one of, if not the hardest things to understand and use effectively. (I don't even fully understand it.) I'm not going to give you to much trouble with it though, seeing as you've just begun (at PC, anyway).

Next is the background. In all four of these (especially the Lucario one) you can tell that the background consists of merely a motion blur, twist, wave, or ripple of the render. Some type of distortion. Once again, tutorials can help in massive amounts when trying to determine how to do a background.

So yeah... your rates don't have to be that long, but at least try to tell the person what you don't like, why you don't like it, and (if you know how) how to improve it.

 

[Gummy]

I don't exactly need a banner rated, just want to know which one should I submit for SOTW Humor:

My original submission.

Found this old MS pic from when I still played.

 

[Renyui!]

Gummy:Personally I think the Naruto-Rbbit thingy is better. The Maplestory one is too pixely. Also sharpen the Nrto-Rving Rbbds Banners (Yay for shortened words!)
Me:
I made this banner because I made the bonsly. I wanted to test my umm... Art skills.

Here's the pic of Bonsly I made. For Proof.

 

[TheFire's[Inside]]

lol, wtf? Is it crying?
Sorry, horrible first impression syndrome. Meh.

But, I can say I am impressed with the vague style you put out into the BG.
How about a little more details next time?

7/10

 

[Michii]

Poke'd: It's definitely, erm, creative. That's for sure! You've really improved over the past couple months. I like the colors, but it's a little bit plain and unfortunately gives off an unproffesional feeling. Something about it though, makes me really like it. XDD

Me:

Another ghetto-ish punk grunge touched banner. Haha I gotta get out of this style. I'd appreciate if I could get a good, proffesional rating from someone that really knows there stuff. :]

 

[TheFire's[Inside]]

If this was left to bias, I'd give you a 10/10.
Gir is my hot sex. Mine.

But, in overall skillz, I'd give this a 9.4
I like it, I really do. Just not my style, because I'm having a hard time commenting. ><;

1. -cough-, this still needs a border. A top and bottom 3-5 pixel white should suffice. Maybe tinged a light yellow. Subtle.
2. The images pasted in are rough; any effects, drop-shadows, pizazz?
3. The BG above and behind the center text; wha happen? Its a gaping void. o_o
4. Er, the top left corner; the brush throws the flow out there.
5. The center text; its just a bit rough on the edges. Literally, lawl.

Overall, I'd say this is an epic banner, just that I can't find it appealing to me, personally.
Post-grunge music is where its at, BTW. Not punk-grunge. Lawl. x3
I hope my rating sufficed.

Now, can I have a rate for me siggeh?
EDIT: Lawl, Ima GIMP'er. Last time, people here at PC were pretty amazed I could do things like this with such "primative" technology.
GIMP > PS
I have both.

 

[Gummy]

TheFire's[Inside]: I've never used GIMP before and no GIMP banners come to mind right now, so feel free to disagree with everything I say. Anyways, the splatter and motion blur (which I didn't know could be done on GIMP) sets a good flow for the banner. I'm not really feeling the render, though; it seems a bit blurry. And that background is just empty space while so much could have been added to this banner. I do like the border though, for some odd reason.

~~~~~

Okay guys, I pulled (or tried to pull) out the big guns on this one. Took me hours to finish, mainly because that tutorial was so darn confusing. I wanna know what other people think of this, even though I know in my heart I worked hard on this.

(PS: I'm aware that the left shoulder looks weird. No idea how it got that way. XD)

 

[TheFire's[Inside]]

Thanks, I tried a minimalistic BG. Kinda likin' that style for myself. x3

For j00, a nice 8.9/10.

- Nice flow.
- Render gives a good feeling, emanating from it.
- The lighting is near-perfect. Why I say this, there is no such thing as perfect, 'cept for Gir.
- BUT, the displacement methods used are overdone; this style is nice, but reduce the quantity, and aim for quality.
- The text; er, a bit simple, don'tcha think? Its wrap is fine, but a little bit of subtle effects are key here.

Overall, great-excellent.

And you'd be surprised about GIMP. You should look a little bit more into it, since the motion blur is the most basic filter.

We have displacements, mapping, fractal tracers, gradient mapping, Noise, Scan effects, etc. A LOT of etc.
PS is just more expensive and really for Pros who do it for a living. IMO.

EDIT: Oh yeah, can someone rate me siggeh again? (other than who rated it already? I like to get many rate, to get all mistakes.)

 

[Loki]

Damn. Database Error ate up my rating for ya Fire. :/

Let's see how much of it I remember and/or am willing to re-type.

+Simplicity - It's a good style, and not over cluttering it really helps bring the focus to a render that's impossible to see.
+Flow - I can see the direction, and everything about the banner adds to the flow. While this is a little unexicting, it's definitely good in it's own sense. Everything just seems so... / and no other direction, thanks to the motion blur. D:
+Text- Font and angle are awesome. Positioning is a minus, but you'll see that later.
+Border- I will be stealing this from you now. *runs away*

-Motion Blur- It seems a little complicated for the simplicity of the banner. Or maybe it's just too undefined? I think a sharpen layer is in order, it would really help clean up the blurriness of the whole banner.
-Splatters- The solid color really bothers me. It's the perfect chance to add like, a firey texture over it to give the simple banner the pizzazz a simple banner needs to save it from being 'boring' rather than 'simple'. But seeing as it's a solid gray, it's just kind of... blah. D:
-Render- It's waaay too dark. It just looks like this blob of gray that looks kind of humanoid in the middle of the banner. I think you should first lighten it up, and then contrast it, because Ironman's colors can really pop the banner out of this boring gray rut it's in.
-Colors- Like I've been saying, I hate the color scheme. xD It's dull, boring, and nothing really catches my eye, which brings us to the next problem,
-Focus- I see one place where I could possibly focus my eyes, and that wasn't played up to it's full potential, therefore, I'm inclined to think that it's not the focal? The place my eyes go to first is the light from his chest, but that's not exactly anything special, so then I look at the light in his hand. Well, there aren't any lighting effects like lens flares operating anywhere near there, is the focal supposed to be his head? Well it's so dark and hard to see, probably not his head. The text?

The focal is never the text unless you're doing word art.

Basically, I'm not sure what I should be looking at. Because quite frankly, looking at the whole thing for a gazillion minutes to try and absorb everything isn't really in my list of things-to-do, unless I'm rating it like I am now. xD;

--
Wow, looking at this banner, I realized that a lot of things I get on other people's cases about are totally blown out of the water in this tag. xDD (AKA: They're not even there. :B)

 

[TheFire's[Inside]]

Grah, I feel so outward.
I tried to emanate color from the center bottom, by gradient cutting a desaturated layer on top of a color.
Its solid because of that, that splatters. =-=
But, I really do appreciate the in-depth rate. ;3
I guess some magicians are really the only ones to appreciate their tricks, eh?

//Comments//
lol, displacement? As I recall saying to someone else, it has been a bit overused here. It takes away focus from the focal point(s) to cut-up designs sticking out of nowhere, IMO.
Even though this defines the flow, it also seems to contradict it. Kinda hypocritical, with personification.

Sorry, no-borders are a style, but this one just... needs it. D:

The text is too good. It fits way too easily into the banner, I almost didn't notice it.
Otherwise, perfect choice of font and subtle flare.

But in retrospect, this banner is one that is totally based off of the displacement.
Try mixing with another method here. Its looks like thats all it was, mainly.

And now the good parts that make a GFX'er feel better.

- The render is nicely fit in, perfectly imbalanced. Good thing.
- Those random 'lil swishy things. -points- Ya, those. Perfect touch. Really mess around with the whole banner, adding perfect pizazz.

Personally, those things are extremely crucial here, and pulled out excellently. I'm impressed.

I'll have to experiment with the paths tool to get those swishy things...

-points to signature one more time-

 

[Loki]

Reply: Actually.... xD;; I didn't use a single displacement in that banner. I've tried again and again, but displacements... hate my guts. Therefore, I don't use displacements in any of my banners. :x I think what you're thinking is displacement is smudging, and I'll tone it down next time I use these settings. But yes, this banner was indeed set entirely on smudging. xD;

hypocrites make the world go round

I can see how a border could make this banner more interesting, and if it wasn't a request, I'd probably add some filmstrip brushes. xD; I haven't added proper borders in so long that I don't even know if I can do a spiffy border other than filmstrip anymore. *dies*

edit: Oh, and the random swishy things... I'm pretty sure that's a light texture, but I found it in a resource pack, so... while I'm 99.5% sure it's a light texture, that .5% tells me it might be something else.