I like this one! What font is that?

Wow, and what a good tutorial it is too! This guy's good!

"Save for Web" is the way to do it, as H3AdBaBy said. A jpg is compressed even more once it is functioning in its compressed format. When Photoshop shows something as being 200K as a jpg, it will be considerably smaller once its actually saved in its jpg format. "Save for Web" will show you that optimized file size correctly.

It might be an overfill problem with the black. Perhaps the black is only 100% black without the usual 40-50% of the other 3 process colors added in. Or perhaps it is a full 4-color black, but somehow during that fade you mentioned, it turns into just a 1-color black. I know alot of times pre-press artists at print shops will change the black from 1-color to 4-color themselves, but may be careless and not select everything to change, especially if it fades into another color. Hope this helps for future reference.

CMYK is the addition of color (ink) while RGB is the addition of light. The best way to prove that is because 100% of C,M,Y and K makes black, while 100% (255) of R,G and B makes white. I'd say your best bet is to pick one and stick with it since going back and forth between the two gets very confusing! :) Unless you do like Slynky said and work with one for the filters, then convert when you're all done. I do it that way, converting to CMYK for the color-correction process since I can get a much more precise color management with CMYK. And also not all high-end printers use CMYK, unfortunately. Some really good Epson printers use RGB, as do most color laser printers. But all in all, if you're going to be doing commercial work and taking it to be printed professionally, your best bet is to convert it to CMYK at the end. Good Luck!

In my opinion, I do personal work just for the fact that I can't get all those ideas out at work. Very rarely do I get to exercise my creativity at work, so there is a NEED to do stuff at home. At school, from what I remember, it was more like pumping out a forced creativity on a daily or weekly basis to the point of it not being creativity anymore and more like just doing it for a grade, which, ironically is like career work now. It took me about 10 years after graduating college to start doing personal work again because I was so burned out on it throughout school. I don't do personal work for any other reason than to get these images out of my head. Even if I don't like the finished product 100% and end up not wanting to redo the piece at any time, I'm happy to at least get it out of my head.

As for more on color correction, please remember one important thing that 80% of designers (and salespeople) always forget: Unless you and your service bureau have the exact same make and model monitor with the exact same calibration settings, the colors are not going to be the same. With that said, apply that same theory to printing presses. I work exclusively with a printer who has 3 digital wide-format presses and each one prints differently even though they're the exact same model, etc. Also, the resolution (as Retrocity covered quite well) is very important! I design mostly billboards and large-format prints so everything we do is 400dpi, but there's nothing that irks me more than a client sending in a 3"x 5" 72 dpi photo or artwork. It drives me nuts how people don't understand relative resolution. Ok, before I start to sound too bitter :) I just wanted to add all that in. Good luck!

Wow! Very cool. Thanks guys :)

I agree with you Zargent. I'm almost to the point of not wanting to look at my wife anymore because I'm so calloused to the nude female figure :) Thats a big almost, but still. Many people realize they'll get 200 viewings and 10 comments in one day if they have nudity in their works, and a nude Vue tree just doesn't have the same affect as Voluptuous Vicki :) I feel like I don't want to only view the Vue galleries because there are alot of GREAT works out there with Poser figures in a Vue or Bryce backround, but its categorized as Poser for some reason. The faux solution I've done is to change my profile as to not show nudity. It cuts down on the 'naked chicks with swords' epidemic.

If you mean you want a font that doesn't look all that rasterized, then my suggestion is to create the type in a vector program like Illustrator first. Then open the file in Photoshop at 300dpi or greater. When you arrange and transform the type to the size you want on the backround you want, the type will look alot cleaner than if you created the type in Photoshop. Although, from what I hear, they have better vector options in PS 7.0. Good luck.

Also I've found that the image file size that Photoshop says it is can be misleading since the actual file size is dramatically smaller when saved as a JPG. Try saving your thumb file at 200x200 at 72dpi and checking out the file size under Properties. Its usually alot smaller than it displays in the Image Size window of Photoshop.

Wow, what a tribute, thank you! Only kidding :) Isn't rust such an organic marvel? These shots are gorgeous!

Do you mean just selecting a few more pixels out from the selection? If so, you can do that under the selection menu to the 'expand' option. From there you can choose how many more pixels out from the current selection you want to select. The same is true for 'contract'. Does the same thing, just reverse :) If this isn't what you meant, then uh, just ignore me :)

Hey, thanks for the input, guys. I am leaning toward just keeping the AE-1. I only have the 1:8 "stock" lens but plan on getting some better ones for it. It seems the AE-1 would ultimately be more versatile than a digital camera. Thanks again!

I use 6 at work but only have 5.5 at home because I usually didn't require much more than what 5.5 offers at home. Now that I'm getting more into work at home, I'd like to upgrade to 7, but I'm not fully aware of all the upgrades/downgrades, etc. So, I think a little "Whats New" pro/con list is a great idea for us laggers :)