Tracing an existing symbol/image and styling

[somethingrandom]

I may not have described it very well but I couldn't think of much else but I'll put more detail in the post.

Basically what I want to do is trace a symbol like for e.g. the 'golden arches' of the McDonald's sign. So it's not text, although I know the example is an 'M' but what I want to use is a symbol. I want to be able to trace it and control the style of the lines like if it was a font. I don't just want a perfect copy of the symbol I would like to be able to control the thickness and texture of the lines to make them rough looking rather than being straight.

For a little bit more info the symbol is like the male and female symbols, the two circles one with a cross protruding and the other with an arrow, I guess that gives more of an idea of what I mean rather than just a big M lol.

Any help appreciated.

[NEMESIS]

Hi,

The best way to trace something in Photoshop is to use the Pen tool (P) or any shape tools for example if you want to trace the circle you would use Ellipse tool (U). So bottom line is that with Pen tool you have great control over the lines you are drawing or tracing so you can adjust them as you like. And for that male or female symbols you will have to draw multiple paths and use options like Add to shape area, subtract from shape area, intersect shape areas and exclude overlapping shape areas. To get that paths with holes you have to draw two paths which one is outline of the symbol and other path is hole and after that you have to select them with Path selection tool (A) and press in Options bar Exclude overlapping shape areas and after that click the Combine button and that will merge two paths in one shape with hole.
So when you master the Pen tool you will see how that tool is powerful.
Hope it was helpful, if any questions you have post it here.

See ya

[somethingrandom]

I'm a complete beginner with photoshop so I couldn't really take much from your post. I tried the things you said but I just don't have a grasp of it.

When I tried to use one of the four options when making a shape add/subtract/intersect/exclude overlapping path area I had no result, no doubt I was doing it wrong. I think is has something to do with the two options at the start of the tool bar, the shape layers and path boxes. I'm not sure what does what and which one to use.

However I did manage to take the information from one of the video tutorials on this site about making shapes by a Canadian guy and apply it to what I was doing. Even after playing the video several times I couldn't figure out how to apply what was happening in the tut to my image. I eneded up doing exactly what the tut was showing to try and get a hold of what to do, eventually I found away to apply that method to my image.

I'm struggling with photoshop, I've used many other programs that do all sorts of different things and learnt how to use them from scratch because I enjoy learning new things in a practical manor. Is photoshop just really that difficult to start with or do you think it just isn't the program for me?

However, this is the image I finally made.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1153/allies1mt8.jpg

I made it by using shapes, first a large circle then a smaller one which I then deleted to leave the outer ring. Same with the star and circle in the middle. Made the star using the polygon shape tool. I'm pretty happy with it considering the struggle it took. But to come back to a point in my original post I want to be able to make the lines rough as right now they're all perfect circles/lines. I don't know if you know what it is but it's one of the allied symbols the allies used during WW2 and most of the time it would have been painted/stenciled onto vehicles and they wouldn't have got those straight lines, this is what I want to recreate.

Thanks very much for your help so far, any more would be even greatly appreciated.

[NEMESIS]

Hi,

YES, YES, YES Photoshop is definetely program for you and anybody else who want to learn Photoshop. First of all i am glad that you tried to do what i told you and in fact i am teaching people Photoshop in my country and always what i tell to them when they find some things difficult at start is that Photoshop is made by ordinary people for US ordinary people to use it. No "alien" technology is involved because of it you must quit. Is true for some of us takes less or more time to learn it but generally that depends how much you are willing to learn it.There is one saying which says: Where is the will there is the way. So i hope you have your will and certanly you will find your way.

So what am i going to do to help you is that i will take that picture you have made and recreate it with Pen tool and that intersect, exclude... options so you can find out little more about Pen tool. I will make a PDF tutorial for you and you can send me private message with your e-mail so i can send you your Pen tool tutorial. And by the way i like very much WW2 history, so maybe any sign you want to learn how to make it you could again post it and you will have yet another tutorial.

Keep learning Photoshop it will worth it. Your time, struggling, nervous times is worth of that knowledge. And i can recommend to you one book for Photoshop is from Adobe. Book title is CLASSROM IN A BOOK for Photoshop CS2.

See ya

[somethingrandom]

Thank you very much.

I made a direct copy of the original image as an alternative, both of the images I made I turned into jpegs so the file size wasn't too big to upload but as with most jpegs they lost colour and became slightly distorted. I use bmp atm for full quality.

Here is the 2nd version that I made and also the original I used to trace along with the second symbol I wish to trace but because one of the shapes is a mixture of straight and round edges I can't do it (the cross). They were orignially .tga but I had to convert them to upload them.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/2757/allies3kk1.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=allies3kk1.jpg) http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4400/alliescd5.png (http://imageshack.us) http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/3636/axislu9.png (http://imageshack.us)

To trace I increased the image size to 472 squared.

Basically if I decide to go with the all white version then the background I'm going to put them on will show through and if I use the full colour copy then obviously it wont. I was going to decide what looked best when I made the final composition. If I can get the 'rough' effect on the white version I described in my previous post and it looks the way I imagined then I'll probably go with that.

Thanks a lot again. Greatly appreciated.