Logo Assistance.

[DJ espeed]

Hello again.

As some of you know, I'm a music-maker, in the sense that I am a sequencer who uses a sequencing program (Logic, Garageband, etc.)

I feel that a I'm in need of a logo to represent this particular endeavor of mine. I've created some in MSPaint, but the problem is--They're not anti-aliased.

I can't seem to pull myself together to use Paint.NET or GIMP, because complexity in the regards of mere image editing "scares" me, so to speak.

I use MS Paint because I want to make it simple, using simple tools, just making the logo as simply as I can. However, I lose out on quality thanks to simplicity.

How can I apply anti-aliasing to something as simple as an image made in MSPaint, like this?

[wtfreely]

anything with blur gaussian filter will satisfy your desire!

[LarkSS]

Not using MSPaint it won't.

@espeed: Can you make it using a very large font? Then if you can get a hold of any program that can resize bilinearly, trilinearly, or bicubically, you can try to size it down and get anti-aliasing as a result from the edges smoothing together.

However, unless you use a program like Paint.NET or the like, you will not be able to make the logo a proper PNG with anti-aliased transparent edges that can nicely overlay anywhere. It shouldn't be too complex; give it a shot!

[Nitemare]

Don't use gaussian blur for anti-alias it looks stupid. Pretty much any program now is capable of doing it. MS Paint for Windows 7 I think can, however you lose the option of not using anti-alias. =/

And if you just can't get the hang of any of the new photo editing programs, feel free to just mock your logo entirely in paint and I can create either a vectorized version or high res raster image for you. Doesn't take too long.

[DimensionWarped]

The new MS-Paint is the worst piece of shit ever to miss a point ever. I can't even begin to describe how much I hate hate hate it.

[Nitemare]

YES

I'm so glad you've said that I'd lately convinced myself that I had simply lost the power to precisely pick a pixel out of an image. It's been driving me fucking mental.

[GSF]

I can't seem to pull myself together to use Paint.NET or GIMP, because complexity in the regards of mere image editing "scares" me, so to speak.

I've thought similarly three years ago. But PDN is the best image editor in the "middle" spot, which is to be powerful AND user-friendly. Yes, advanced stuff looks tough to handle, and GIMP is confusing, but with PDN you should be able to get a hang of editing in a very short span of time.

Get 3.5, the madjik, pyrochild and boltbait plugin packs, and Shape3D. Start the program, and break free with every tool, adjustment and effect until you get the hang of it. Believe me, it's worth it.

To be honest, the 3.5 line started to be an annoyance to me, as I used an XP virtual machine when I couldn't just use GIMP correctly. Text rendering is horrendous now. If you use Vista or 7, it uses another renderer, and looks great.

So if you use XP:

http://www.oldapps.com/old_version_PainDotNet.php

You can get 3.36 (imho, the pinnacle of PDN) there, and in the forums, you can still get the plugins adjusted for that version.

--------------------------------

And on the logo itself: Use a solid color, put the text, then use a slight, slight drop shadow effect.

From there, you can try a "gloss line" or a slight outline. If you want to "transform" the shape, then a vectorial image editor (www.inkscape.org) is the way to go. You can export the image to a PNG file and import in PDN to keep working.

Check out the PDN forums, in the tutorials section, open any topics you're interested in, then save all these tabs. When you have the time, follow the tuts one by one. Learning the keyboard shortcuts and the way tools work will be "automatic".

P.S By the way, with your MSPaint logo, it'd be impossible to make the text soft, as PNG files outputted by said program are anything but PNGs, there's no way to set up transparency. And the new MSPaint is even worse. That one's USELESS actually. Old Paint still helps with spriting projects.

You could make the text ridiculously big and scale it down, but Paint does a meh job at resizing, and even with that, you're stuck with the ugly white background because there's no transparency support.

[DimensionWarped]

You must have been a time traveler 3 years ago then.

[GSF]

You must have been a time traveler 3 years ago then.

Meaning?

[Pheonix Gamma]

Logos are made in Illustrator so that they can be stretched/squished without turning ugly.

[DJ espeed]

I can't even begin to describe how much I hate hate hate it.

It's inevitably true: Paint in XP and Vista was where it was at.

But PDN is the best image editor in the "middle" spot, which is to be powerful AND user-friendly. Yes, advanced stuff looks tough to handle, and GIMP is confusing, but with PDN you should be able to get a hang of editing in a very short span of time.

I suppose I'll have to try Paint.NET sometime over the weekend as I'm swamped with an English paper. Thanks for the advice, gsoft.

Logos are made in Illustrator so that they can be stretched/squished without turning ugly

I'll have to try it when the CS5 Trial comes out. Looks interesting.

[GSF]

If you want to experiment vectorial graphics, try out Inkscape, which is free and has Windows, Mac and Linux builds.

Like PDN, the site has a tutorial section (not in a forum though) where you can get info about the tools, shortcuts, and other things.

If you ever used WordArt or some other shapes in Microsoft Office, you'll quickly adapt, as vectorial editors basically compose shapes, which you resize, rotate, skew and combine, similarly to the said office suite.

Start out with PDN and just try tools and menus. Everything will build up gradually. Once you get the hang of it, try working with vectorial graphics so you can enhance them further with PDN's tools.