My input? Very cool! However, the "halo" looks a tad lopsided in the bottom left hand side of it. I also think that the white background to the text should be removed, it almost seems redundant to me as if it was some random white background you didn't remove, since it covers some of the text, not all of it. None would look best.
Really? Personally I think It makes It pop out a bit more. Its intention it to draw attention to the name, but from what it sounds like is that it is drawing attention to itself (the white oval) instead. When I get a chance I will edit It out and see what difference it makes. While were on the topic, What do you think of these re-designs I did? All of these were part of my final project for Photoshop this year. I think I did a pretty decent job on them, especially considering I got a 95 on it.
Not bad. I'm often using Photoshop and just going from how I work with things in it - don't overuse the Artistic or Stylize Filters and if you want something to "pop" a bit more and to look a little neater - do look into using Layer Styles/Blending Options, custom shape tool (you can use pre-set ones or use the pen tool to create your own so that it will automatically be anti-aliased), learn to love the Polygonal Lasso as well instead of the Magic Wand Tool as even with the tolerance settings, you will still end up with jagged edges. As for doing things to bring more focus onto certain spots not just meaning the tools, contrasting colours are also good (say a teal colour against an almost blood red as an example) but if it's hard to tell what would be an opposing colour/shade/tone or what ones would work best together then looking at an online colour wheel and/or colour chart would be a good idea. Though with colours, if the picture is to be used online then I recommend going a shade darker or lighter for text or if it's going to be a large block of colour so it's not causing the viewer horrible screenglare (like default red text or white text would do, so say, a lot of forums use off-white backgrounds and and a slightly different tone/shade of red against it to prevent that from happening). Since you like using the effect filters, taking photos or using stock photos to add texture to a picture can also work, but it typically depends as to what you're looking for. Just having too many effects, colours that are not completely blended can detract from what you're attempting to achieve in your final image. Also looking into either making custom brushes, patterns, shapes/vectors or download some free ones would also be a good idea. Using a couple of things I mentioned, I just quickly made your avatar in Photoshop to show you other ways to make it "pop". . Though just fiddling around in Photoshop in general will show you a few new tricks. Otherwise some good things to try out are making fake magazines with realistic colour half-tone as though they were scanned, repairing black and white or colour comic book/manga/art book scans or doing things like wallpapers and the like until you discover new ways to do things or look through tutorials and find new ways through those. But that's just how I do things to be quite honest. To each their own really. ^^;
It was part of the rubric for the final. It was required to get full points. Otherwise, I probably would have used less or no filters.
Is there supposed to be a space between MY and CRAFT? If not the spacing is off. If so, leave it, looks great. oh yeah, and that N64 logo looks cool, almost Yoshi's Island style. Could fix up the green though, unless its supposed to look blotchy.
