retired_motherangel4

Hi all. I'm new to posting here, though I've been reading the forums for quite a while now. You guys and gals have got to be the most helpful buch I've ever seen. Thanks for all your work.

But anyway, about my question. I'm pretty sure this has been covered somewhere, but I just couldn't find it. I made this design not long ago, and made a desktop background out of it. Though it's not nearly as noticable in the pic I'm including, because it's smaller than the original 1024x768, it has a lot of aliased areas. I was wondering if there's a quick and easy way to eliminate/lessen the effect of the jaggies.

BTW, a few details about the graphic: I made the design itself in CorelDraw. I know EVERYTHING can be done in PS, but I've known CD for a long time now, and I love creating my designs in it first, separating to layers, then export to .psd to add all the effects/fills/etc. There are only 3 layers to the .psd; the background, the design with the outer glow and bevel applied, and then a layer for the brushed metal effect.

I have a gallery on an art website, but I'm not sure of the rules on posting outside links, so I didn't include it. But if it's ok to do so, let me know so you guys and gals can look over it and tell me what you think of my work. I'm very much a amateur web/graphics designer, but I love doing it, and am very serious about it. Thanks for your help.

wbiss

Hi dragon457 and welcome to the forum!

Firstly, depending on where the "jaggies" originated, there are many different ways to lessen them. Prevention is "key"... working in a higher resolution and then down-sizing (as you found out) is one of them.

You mention that your file consists of 3 layers, one of which was imported from CD. Did the jaggies originate there? Even though you can't post the original file, it would be beneficial to post a screen captured segment so that we could see the extent of the problem!

Just quickly, the "blur" tool used lightly and sparingly along the edges does a quick and dirty job of anti-aliasing most hard-edged pixels! [righton]

Hercules

dragon457 Welcome to the forum . Nice work.

dragon457

It is OK to post the link, we would like to see your work!

retired_motherangel4

Thanks guys. Yes, I do know about downsizing from the original, and actually the graphic started aout about 3x the size it ended up, so I did downsize it from the original.

When exporting from CD, there is an option to export using anitaliasing, which I usually use, and so far (except for this particular design) it works really well. To tell the truth, I'm not sure why this one came out more aliased than the other stuff I've done.

I'll have to take your advise and maybe use the blur tool here and there. I just thought maybe there was a setting/tool somewhere that could possibly do it all at once. I've tried blurring it with the blur filter, but then it gets too blurry.

Anyway, thanks for the help. And here, I'll post my gallery. The site's usually a little slow, so give the thumbnails a chance to load.

http://dragon457.deviantart.com/gallery/

wbiss

I just had a chance to check out your work over on deviant art....good stuff, dragon 457!
[righton] [righton]
Your light sabers are amazing and I even recognized our Mark's "classy, glassy button tutorial"! Extremely well done, I must say! :}

Keep up the good work... It's evident that you're an exceptional and enthusiastic PS student!

retired_motherangel4

Why, thank you, thank you, thank you very much, wbiss. The lightsabers are my favorite thing to make. Like my graphic above, they're made in CorelDraw, then tweaked like crazy in PS.

Though it's kind of obscure, I actually did a splash screen graphic for a program called Academy Runner, for the game Jedi Academy that was realeased a month or so ago. I like doing that kind of stuff, and though I'm not a professional graphics designer, I wouldn't mind doing things like that on a regular basis.

Anyway, thanks for checking my gallery out.

Bacardi

1/ Hide all layers except your design (eye icon off)
2/ Copy it, and get rid of effects (glow) in the copy
3/ Set to greyscale
4/ Go to Channels Palette, and make a copy of one of the channels
5/ invert this ccopy (Image>Adjust>Invert)
6/ Ctrl/Cmd click on its icon
7/ activate the RGB channel, and uncheck the copy channel)
8/ Back to Layers palette. You'll see that your design-shape is selected.
9/ Select Menu>Modify>Border
10/ Fill in 2 pixels. This selects the borders.
11/ Gaussian Blur this.

retired_motherangel4

Thanks for the help, Erik, but I don't think I did it right. You said copy the layer, remove effects from the copy, then greyscale. The only option I know of to greyscale with (image>mode>greyscale) does it to the WHOLE image, not just the selected layer. But then even after I would do all this, what do I do with the copied layer? leave it on top of the original? If, say, the design had a tint of blue or something in it, wouldn't it being greyscale prevent me from using blue anymore?

Thanks anyway. I just didn't get it.

Bacardi

You are right. My mistake. Changing a mode changes the entire file, not a layer.

The intention is/was to have identical channels as greys have the same values for Red, Green and Blue. You don't really "need" to do this step, but it avoids having to choose which of the three is best, has the best contrast etc.

You can use Image>Adjust>Desaturate, or Image>Adjust>Channel mixer.
When using the Channel Mixer, tick monochrome. The advantage of the channel mixer is that you can drag the sliders of the three channels so you can optimise/tweak the greys. Yet, if you do so, try to keep the overall percentage at 100. For example, if you set Red to 70%, then set Green to, say 20 and Blue to 10 so that they add to 100. If not, you loose brightness.

MisterMister

A quick and easy way to get rid of jaggies is to highlight the layer that has them, then on the File menu go to Layer > Matting > Defringe

You can also do this: Crtl click the layer to select it, then Invert the selection, go to Selection > Modify > Expand and enter 1 in the box, then click OK. Hit the Delete key and this will delete the outer "fringe". This takes a one pixel edge off your selection.