many thanks to Rod, Molly and especially Mahvin for your help with the textured extruded text that enabled me to complete this project.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63292728@N ... hotostream

That's pretty neat, nice job!

Good job, Drac!

Very, very nice, Drac!

The pic minus the text is actually quite pretty. The text, of course, is icing on the cake!

Excellent results, Drac!!

By the way, you can embed the image here and when you click it, it will take you to Flickr.

That's fantastic Drac!

I wish I could accomplish something like that! All I know are simple parlor tricks. *sigh*

I'm still wowing at it!

Excellent results Draconian.

Thank you ever so much for the wonderful complements. Makes it all wothwhile, especially from what I consider the "A" team here.

Not counting the extruded text (another 6 hours including the learning curve) it took me almost 2 days to complete. I've been scouring the internet for PS tutorials that really stand out and this one caught my attention. Lot of interesting techniques like "adjustment layers". I've pretty much worn out the tuts here and was looking for some different effects like the one I posted with the Antique looking text.

Heres the link to the PS tut:

http://www.psdvault.com/text-effects/cr ... photoshop/

More to come guys & gals. Hold on to your bippie!

PS: Mr. Biggz, don't be so self-deprecating. You'll get there with the help of the great folks here on this site. I was exactly where you are about a year ago. Baby steps dude.

bookmarked because some day I am going to try it. One thing I like about ps tuts is that they use such cool lighting effects, and although it can be done equally as well in Gimp, I just don't see as many tuts with them.

If you are going to give it a whirl, I'd suggest trying an easier one. That site is really good with hundred of tuts to choose from. I would try one of the simpler text effect tuts first then move up. Gotta get used to how they do stuff in PS vs how to get 'er done in GIMP. Sometimes confusing. Good Luck!

thanks, I will need it!

Nice tutorial!
I subscribed to their YouTube channel.

Thanks Rod. I didn't know they had a You Tube channel. Must've missed that.

Did you notice how he uses the "adjustment" layers to lighten, darken and colorize different parts of the image. I see this technique along with a lot of lighting effects in most of the tuts on that site. The lighting effects has got to be the single most important factor in giving the final image that extremely dramatic effect. That is what makes it really jump out at you and elicit the WOW response when first viewed. I'm learning quite a bit just messing around with the tuts on that site. Gotta long way to go yet. Monkey See/Monkey Do is just for the learning curve... I can't wait to start creating some really original stuff.

You can get a lot of those same lighting effects in Gimp.
One of my favorite things to do is mimic PS tutorials in Gimp.
So checking out this site is going to be great fun for me.Maybe i will submit some more tutorials myself after.

I hope you do, Rod! Maybe starting with a simple form of the text thing that Draco did. *not so subtle of a hint*