I am ABOUT to THROW a computer through the WINDOW!!!!

[amedia]

So I'm trying to create a background image for a poster and I want white binary code on a dark blue background and then I can warp it or play with it, whatever. How hard can that be? And I feel slightly guilty that my employer bought me Photoshop for exactly this kind of thing and I still use the free program that came with my scanner, which doesn't handle text terribly well and would take forever to do what I want, so I open up Photoshop.

How in the name of all that is holy do you create a freakin' blue background?!!!! You can select shades of blue on the nice little square that says "BACKGROUND" until the cows come home, but the blank document stays obstinately white. You can go into the help file and search "color" and learn all about color management tools and web colors and channels, which I already know thankyouverymuch, but how to color a damn piece of white "paper" blue? Not so much. Finally it told me to use the Paint Brush Tool, which is only available in full screen mode, on alternate Tuesdays when it's raining - since the sun is shining, I'm out of luck.

So I cheated - went into my other program and made a big blue bitmap with three clicks - and then opened it with Photoshop. Of course, then I couldn't add layers because bitmaps suck, which I had forgotten, so I made a jpg the size I wanted and copied the blue onto that, except Photoshop had resized the bitmap without my permission by changing the freaking resolution... um, anyway, I got around that and added the first line of text and it was beautimous. Then I went to add some more text and it decided it needed to create another layer, whereupon I HOWLED at the screen, "No! Add this to the previous layer! You don't NEED another layer! It's just more of the same!" and I swear it LAUGHED at me. And it wouldn't give me a bounding box so I could just paste in the whole damn block of text from the Word document. (I had tried earlier to import the text directly by converting the Word document to a .pdf and opening the .pdf with Photoshop, but Photoshop treated it as a picture file, not as text - which is only to be expected - so I couldn't do it that way. So close and yet so far.)

Meanwhile, the automatic anti-virus screening, which is controlled from a central server and can't be shut off, began running, so not only was Photoshop being viciously uncooperative, it was doing it i-n S-L-O-W M-O-T-I-O-N. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh. But hey, I have that one line of text; I can use my old stupid free program to duplicate it and move it around so that's really all I need.

I'm gonna have to go through the stupid tutorials or something because I need to be able to use this supposedly cool and awesome program without having to fight the urge to batter my poor computer into a sproingy pulp.

*sigh* So how is YOUR day going?

Comments

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

You couldn't do a bucket fill with the pattern/color you wanted on your base layer?

And layers...they took forever to get used to in GIMP, but now I love them. Not sure how PS handles the text; GIMP lets me cut and past in text box, so far no limit on amount of text.

So, that was your computer I saw flying out the window as I walked across the common area this afternoon? *g*

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find a "bucket fill" command anywhere. *pouts*

I'm hot-to-trot about learning to do layers - it's just going to take some time.

So, that was your computer I saw flying out the window as I walked across the common area this afternoon? *g*

LOL! Fortunately not. I managed to force it to do my will, kludgily though it may have been.

[koslorollo.livejournal.com]

You can always get colour to stay on the background using the paint bucket tool. And use Layers. Layers are brilliant. A book or something on Photoshop may help, but sometimes the best way is just mess around with it. You're just in luck it's made of indestructible material, not made of glass.

I'm not sure about the text thing. The best I can say is copy it in Word itself, as text, and then paste it when you've the TEXT option selected in PS. And make sure you select the area of the image where you want the text to go (you do that by clicking the bracket-bar on the image: the cursor will start to blink.). Then just do Ctrl-V. Should paste. But you might have to mess with the text options (font type, style, size) to get it to look how you want it to.

Hope your day's brightened up a bit!

[amedia.livejournal.com]

butbutbut... where oh where IS the paint bucket tool? *whimper* (Don't worry, I'll find it eventually.)

Don't get me wrong, though - I am *really* excited about Layers - it's why I want to learn Photoshop. The program I usually use (iPhotoPlus) lets you input text, but then it kinda pastes it down - you can't change the text on one part of the picture without undoing everything you've done since, and if you've done too many things, you can't change it at all. Similar problems with pasting multiple images onto a background - you can only move the one you've added most recently.

Thanks for brightening my day!

[koslorollo.livejournal.com]

Paint bucket tool should be right above the "T". You can switch the paint bucket to a gradient. So it might look like a little gradient square instead.

Never had the privilege of using iPhoto - so definitely not the Plus version! Are you using an Apple?

[amedia.livejournal.com]

Paint bucket tool should be right above the "T".

Thanks!

Are you using an Apple?

It's a Windows program, actually. It worked better with Windows 95; I've lost some of the functionality, primarily while saving, in Windows XP. (It no longer brings up resolution options for saving JPG's, which is why I do drafts in bitmaps and only convert to JPG at the end, if that's what I want. In fact, on my home computer, it won't "save as" anymore, but on my work computer, it will. Go figure.)

We're a bi-computeral family; husband and son have Mac's, I have a Windows machine because it's what I got used to using at work. I like Mac's better, but I have gotten used to Windows.

[blackletter]

This may be too late to do any good...but here's directions for Adobe 7 run in Windows. Even if it's not exact, it should be close.

First, go to the "Window" box on the top of the screen and click on "Layers". This will show you your current layers. You should have only one and it will be labelled Background. Double-click on the label and give it a new name. This will transform it from a background layer to a standard layer. This will give you more versatility.

Next, go to the toolbar (if it's not open, open it through the "Window" box). Set the foreground color to whatever shade of blue you desire. Then go to the bucket tool. If you don't see it, go to the gradient tool and push Alt+left click mouse on the little black triangle in the bottom right corner of the tool. Once you've selected the paint bucket, click on the canvas.

Once that's done, click on the text tool. Change the foreground color to the color you want the text. The text tool *will* automatically make a new text layer every time to mouse click with it. But don't worry, you can collapse layers later. Add text as desired.

Then go to the layers window (which should still be open from when you changed the Background layer to a standard layer). You'll see eye shapes on the right next to each layer. That marks the layer as visible to you. To make a layer invisible, left-click on the eye. If you want to delete or duplicate any layers right click on the layer name. To merge layers, go to the "Layer" box at the top. At the bottom of the options that appear, you can merge just the visible layers, or you can select "Flatten Image" which will merge all the layers and turn the whole image into one Background layer.

(I used to do some Photoshop work for USGS. It really is a very fun program.)

[amedia.livejournal.com]

Bless you! I will try this. I will even believe that it can be fun. (I do believe, I do, I do!)

[kyleen66.livejournal.com]

I promise I give you lessons when you come in May. Ne?

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I promise I give you lessons when you come in May. Ne?

*pounces* Yes, please, ma'am! *snogs*