I update every so often so check back.
EDIT: if this gets stickied, i will love you long time and give you t3h oral pleasures. Oh and if there are any problems or im a little too vague on a certain section, just post a quote of what should be edited and i will change it.
I know one has been posted, shut up.
Alright, heres CockerRocker28's tutorial to using photoshop to create designs for annoing. If theres a thread on this then too damn bad.
INTRO
My tutorial will show you the basics of creating anno's, or overlay layers, to make it appear, using photoshop or gimp, that you the gun was anno'd another color. I'm using photoshop elements, and when it comes down to what im doing, the difference doesnt really matter.
MY EXPERIENCE: I have been doing skins for Digital Paintball, the half-life paintball mod, for a few years. That involves the same techniques. Also, I've messed around photoshopping guns.
Step 1-Acquiring a Picture
Alright first off open up the picture of your gun. I will be using this shocker, you should too, its an easy starter gun.
Thank PBgear.com for that picture.
Now open up photoshop and open the picture.
Step 2-Removal of Stock Color
Use your paintbrush, with a color of white or black, and switch the brush setting to "Color" as shown below.
Now take your paintbrush and make sure the color is white or black and then paint over all the colored parts that you want to change until you end up with this.
Step 3-Layer Creation
Now what you need to do is create a new layer which will be the anno layer. Call it whatever you like, i shall call it anno. From the new layer popup, select Overlay as the layer style and make the layer opacity set to 86%. I seem to like 86% as it gives a little bit of realism, but you can change it to whatever you like once you get the hang of it.
Step 4-Anodizing
Switch to the paintbrush tool and make sure it is now set back to the normal setting and not color. This is where you will paint the gun the color you like. Colors dont show up on the gun as they appear when you select them, so experiment a little. If you mess up, dont be afraid to use the erase tool as it wont affect the gun layer. Paint all the parts you want colored with the color of your choice and then clean up all the mistakes or areas you dont want color with the eraser. I chose red which ended up like so.
As of now, I do not know how to make a really white-looking, clear anno layer. If you know how, please post. Whenever i do it, it comes out a little to chromy.
Step 5-Fades
Fades follow pretty much the same guidelines. However, you use a gradient rather than a brush. Start by deleting the old Anno layer and creating a new 86% layer in Overlay mode. Now select the gradient tool which looks like a black/white fade square on the tool panel. On the top left of the screen choose the edit button.
Now select your fade colors. I chose the age-old rasta color fade. Now go back to your shocker and click and drag from the back of the body to the back of the barrel as shown.
Clean up the gradient with the erase tool and then paint the barrel tip the front color of the fade which, in my case, is green.
Step 5-Tatoos
Tatoos are just as easy as the rest of this. Since I chose the rasta fade, ive decided to compliment it with the so cliche "maple" leaf. Yes, folks, its a MAPLE leaf. First go to google images or just pick your custom tatoo. If the background of your tatoo picture is one color, youre are very lucky. If it isn't you will have to use the eraser to erase all of the background so the only thing left is your tatoo. In my case, i was lucky.
Now use the magic wand and erase all the background so you are left with just the tatoo. Select the tatoo (making sure there's no background) and paste it onto your shocker pic. Resize the tatoo and place it where you want on the shocker. Now change the layer of the tatoo(s) to overlay and 50% opacity. 50% works nice for me on tatoos, btu you can change it if you think your way comes out more realistic. Heres my gun.
Step 6-Complimentary Colors
Now I know all of you (well most of you) who have thought about a multi-colored gun have wondered what color would go well with your main color. Well I used to wonder the same thing, until I figured this out of course! Now like always, the answer to this is math. First pick your main color and paint it on your gun. Here's what mine came out like. (yea, its a gross color, it was picked at random). I am using an opacity of 54%.
Next I will go back into the color selection screen and do a little math.
What you do is you write down each RGB file. In my case these values are R=251, G=248, and B=3. Use a calculator if needed, and subtract each number from
255. I came out with R=4, G=7, and B=252. Replace the old RGB's with the new ones.
That color you come out with is the exact scientific match for your base color. In some cases, you might not like this complimentary color. You can move the litle circle around, making the color darker or lighter, until you find a match that you see fits.
I chose that. Next up, paint the new color in all the areas you want to be complimented. I had to do this in about 15 seconds because i have to leave right now to orange county but you'll get the picture.
Step 7-Overlaying Black/White
Ok, I will start off by saying you cant overlay white. It is impossible. It will either faintly show or won't show at all. If you come accross this, just get another pic of a gun with a different color. Ok now onto black. To paint over black, i still haven't found any good techniques. The best way I have found though is to raise brightness on the background layer. Also, you might want to paint an overlay of black or white over it on a different layer.
Step 8-Making Dust Polished
This technique is still very new to me. I mean I just figured out how to do this just before writing this. The basic technique here is to accentuate shading. I was screwing around trying to make a polished gun and this thought crossed my mind. All you have to do is make the shading stronger. First start by taking off the color of your gun. I'm starting with a dust red PM6 barrel.
Step 2 is to add your gloss color. I'm doing polished gold.
Next I added a white overlay layer with an opacity of 80%
The next part is the difficult part. Well not really, but it's the hardest part of this. What you have to do now is actually paint this directly onto the layer that has your gun. Now use a brush that matches the size of your shading and has an opacity of 30%. Paint a small line that covers the brightest part of your selected area. If you mess up, you ahve to undo because when youre using an opacity brush, each brushstroke makes it lighter. Ok so anyway, paint your line on the brightest part. Then, paint a larger brush stroke that still covers the bright line. This is difficult to explain. Basically, think of it this way. You do each brushstroke progressively, one for every level of shading. So every time the lighting on the gun gets a little darker paint it there. However, you also let your brush overlap with the preceding brushstroke. That way it makes the previous one lighter.
After painting your white, Use an opacity of 25% and paint black the same way. This time painting the shadows rather than the lighting. If you understood any of that, it should come out something like this.
Conclusion
Well there you have it. A really quick and simple way to making anno photoshops. If you have any questions or are too lazy to do it yourself, PM me.