UYC #1 : PicSay Pro | Make your own Signatures ! [In-Depht]

[Taylor]

I just need to put screenshots in, and the thread will be done !

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UYC #1 : PicSay Pro | Android Photoshop-like app
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Hello everyone  Since signatures and visuals are a big thing, I decided to start  "UnleashYourCreativity", a

threads series covering assets and in-depth tutorials to help YOU design your own art !
You will mostly learn how to make your own banners, profile pictures, or even
video games montages !

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If you are a GFX | Graphic Designer | Editor or is specialized in
anything related to design/editing, using softwares such as

Photoshop, Cinema4d, After Effects, Adobe Premiere or

any other software such as PicSay Pro, and you wish to also share
your experience with everyone out here, it would be a great help since

these threads takes a LOT of time to make, plus I don't know every single

software out there, I'd like to learn a thing of two too :3 !
Just send me a PM if you wish to do so, I'll send you the UYC logo :3
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I put a lot of hours into this thread, so if you could leave some reputation points,
I would greatly appreciate it :3 :D!
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Today, I will introduce you to PicSay Pro. It has been my main GFX software
for 2 years now, due to its simplicity and flexibility at the same time.
Keep note that this is not as advanced as Photoshop, as it is a Android app,
but all my graphic work has been done on it, you can check it out here.

 

 

 

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Table of Contents

I - Overview & Price $

II - Features

➪ II.1 - Settings & Basic Features
➫ II.2 - Adjust, Color Correction & More
➭ II.3 - Effects & Filters
➬ II.4 - Text & Stickers
➪ II.5 - Saving & Exporting
III - Tutorials & Tips
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I - Overview & Price ($|€)

 

PicSay Pro is a pretty flexible app, that, even if it is lacking some important
features (Layers), still is great if you want to design your own
social media revamps easily, but most of the time, it being ONLY 2D.
There are some ways to make 3D stuff, without it being real 3D.

 

It comes with a lot of features, as well as some draw backs :
           ✔ Color Correction
   ✔ Lightweight
               ✔ Cheap & Complete
        ✔ Effects & More
                                     ✔ Easier to learn than Photoshop

✘ No layers
                                                                                           ✘ Touch controls (unless you got an Android compatible mouse)
                                                  ✘ Takes time and patience (and passion)
  ✘ No plugins
          ✘ No project files

 

When it comes to pricing, the app costs $3.99 | 2.99€ .

It is a perfectly reasonable price for its capabilities.

There are of course easy ways to download the .apk file

for free, but if you enjoy the app and plan on using it more often, please

support the developers and buy it directly from the Google Play Store :3
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II - Features
In this section, I will cover the most useful features only that the app offers.

I will only focus on the useful features, ignoring the obvious ones (e.g Brightness/Hide Status Bar/etc..)

and the various simple "select & apply" filters, explaining only the more interesting ones.

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II.1 - Settings & Basic Features

Those are the app's settings, I recommend you set them right away, so you don't haveto be bothered with them ever again in the future.
 

PicSay Editor Settings

 

Spoiler

 

Picture Import Size

Default size chosen when importing pictures.

Selecting Maximum is recommended.

 

Multi-Touch panning

Obviously enables panning when using

multiple fingers.

 

Titles Guides

Spoiler

Adds useful guides (little snappy lines) for easy alignment for text only.

 

 

 

 

General

 

Spoiler

 

Show Most Recent

Shows your most recent work in the top right corner on the homepage

for easy access to it.

 

Reset messages

Makes the tutorial hint messages appear again.

 

Edited Pictures

Shows recently edited pictures as well as your favorites.

 

  

II.2 - Color Correction, Adjusting & More

Spoiler

 

Color Correction

 

Spoiler

 

Exposure/Contrast

Manages the contrast & exposure of the project or selected work area.

 

Saturation

Manages the color saturation.

Best used with "Curves" (see below).

 

Temperature/Tint

Adds a cold or hot color tone, and also

manages the picture colors tint (almost the same as cold/hot colors).

 

Boost

Allows you to boost colors a little bit for precision.

 

 

Misc

 

Spoiler

 

Curves

One of the most useful features.

Controls the WRGB channels with precision.

 

Adjust RGB

Lets you adjust the basic RGB channels with sliders.

 

Paint Mask/Selection

Allows you to select a specific area to work on.

You will find yourself using that feature quite often.

 

History Paint

Allows you to restore selected areas of

the project back to a specific point.

Very useful to tone down effects with, for example,

a 25%/50% strength restore brush.

 

 

II.3 - Effects & Filters

 

In this section, you have the choice between a LOT of effects and filters.

I am only highlighting 10% of all of these features. They is way more than just that,

but since they are just "select & apply" filters without any real

use other than being filters, I will not cover them here.

 

Spoiler

 

Insert Picture

Allows you to insert a picture/effect in the current project.

I will share with you a lot of effects in another thread, along

with a lot more social assets & fonts

 

Pop Color

Allows you to turn some areas of the picture into B&W (Black & White).

 

Warp Brush

Warps the area you slide your fingers on,

following it like a trace.

Brush strength can be tweaked.

 

 

 

Color Adjustments

 

Spoiler

 

Hue

Completely changes the project's overall

colors range.

 

Black & White

Very, very strong B&W effect.

 

 

Artistic

 

Spoiler

 

Pencil Sketch

Applies a pencil sketch effect.

Best used with "History Paint" afterwards applying the effect.

 

Photo Effects

 

Spoiler

 

Tilt-Shift

Applies a very controllable linear blur effect.

 

Soft Glow

One of my most used effects.

Applies a soft smooth "lighting contrast" effect.

 

 

Filters & Frames

 

Spoiler

 

Vignette

Applies a fading rounded shadow effect on the project's edges

 

Focal Blur

Very controllable rounded blur effect.

 

Spotlight

A more controllable and overall better "Vignette" effect.

 

 

 

 

Misc

 

Spoiler

 

Dizziness

Applies a copy of the project over the original with a

slightly controllable position for a dizzy effect.

 

 

II.4 - Text & Stickers

 

In this section, you got a lot of built-in stickers, but you will most likely not use them.

They come in multiples categories & themes, such as eyes, hats, Christmas and more.

But what's interesting here is the text customization.
 

Spoiler

 

The app supports multi-lines text.

Here, you can select basic font styles to then customize their colors once selected.
By clicking on your text, you can select different Fonts.
You can either use the built-in fonts, or downloaded fonts that you need

to put in a "Fonts" folder in your smartphone.
I personally got some fonts, that I will share with you in another thread, along
with a lot more social assets.

You can also set the text size from here, but I prefer resizing it

manually.

The alignment and line height are also some customizable options.

 

 

 

 

II.5 - Saving & Exporting

 

This is where you can save & export your work to different locations or apps on your phone,

or share it on various social medias and communication app that are

installed on your phone.

You can also select the file extension (.jpg/.png) and the quality of the saved/exported picture.

In my case, I can share to Whatsapp since the app is installed

on my phone.

 

III - Tips

 

"How should I start a new project :/ ?"

"What are the size guidelines I need to respect ?"

You will most likely start from a background you downloaded, or a plain color.
I recommend using the "New Picture" option in the "Get a picture" menu on the homepage,
so you can select the size of the picture precisely. You can also select a transparent background as a starter.
 

Here are some editing sizes you should note down :
                                                                                ➫ Profile Pictures (almost everywhere) : between 500x500px to 1000x1000px.
                                 ➫ PSNProfiles Forums Cover Picture : 1920x300px
                                                                         ➫ Twitter Cover Picture : 1263x421px or higher, keeping a 3:1 aspect ratio.
     ➫ Youtube PC Banner : 2560x423px
                                          ➫ Required YouTube banner upload size : 2560x1440px
 

Then, just import the background you want.
Be aware of copyrighted pictures, though ! Always credit the artist if you use a drawing/etc
in your project while posting it ! Ex, a link to their tumblr/dA page.
If you want free-to-use do-whatever-you-want pictures in 1080p/4k and higher resolution, go check out
Unsplash. That's where I get most of my backgrounds from.

 

"How do I precisely control the colors/lightning in my project ?"

 

Both are important in a picture.
If you want to correct it on only a certain part of your project,
use the "Paint Mask" tool to select the area to edit.
Using "Curves" is the best option since you can have a great and precise range of control over
the white & RGB balance.
Combine that with some "Exposure & Contrast" and some "Saturation", and you can completely
control your picture's lighting and colors.
Also, "Hue" is good if you want a completely different range of colors to work with.

 

"Can I download more effects ?"

 

There are no "active" effects or plugins you can download.

But there are "passive" effects, acting as overlays.

Additional effects are pictures, often transparent, that you can blend in using the "Add" and
"Multiply" effects while importing them, after placing them.
For black background effects, once you selected the "Add" blend mode, if you still see the black background a bit,
apply the correct amount of "Contrast" to make the black background disappear.

You can customize some aspects of the effects once you import them.
If you wish to colorize a white effect/picture, first apply the "Duotone" effect with any color you wish, then "Hue" it.
(If you wish to keep some parts of the effect transparent, you may have to choose black
as one of the two colors you can change while using "Duotone").

I will have a new thread with effects you will be able to download, along with some
social media assets and fonts, and more.

 

"What are "Blend modes" ?"

When importing a picture/effect into the project, you can have it blend in 3 different ways :
"Normal", "Add" and "Multiply".
"Add" is mostly used to remove the black backgroud on the imported effects.

"Multiply" is mostly used to cover white parts of the project, like text (see below).

 

"I want to put an image as my text color"

You may want to have, for example, a purple space effect, as I did in my signature, or a background on your
text instead of a plain color.

 

To do so, first of all, you will need a white text with a black outline,

a thick one is recommended. Then, you need to, once placed, definitely
confirm the text's position by selecting it and using the "Blend with Background"
option (to 100%) to make it part of the picture.

Once done, import the background you want, place it over the text, positioning it as you wish,
and select either the "Multiply" (most likely) or "Add" blend mode, then erase the whole
effect and only restore it on the white text. The black outline is recommended so you cannot
cross the bondaries of the text, and therefore, put the background somewhere else than
on the text.

 

"How do I remove the background of my pictures ?"

 

Unfortunately, the app is not accurate enough when it comes to that stuff.

If you wish to precisely make some picture's background transparent, you need to download
"Eraser", a free app that allows you to do exactly so, either manually or automatically
with a controllable "threshold of similar color".

 

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There you have it, everyone :3
I hope this thread helped you a little bit to design your own banners, design, and anything you want !
I put a lot of time and work into it, as you can imagine.

It took like, what, 10 hours ? Even more ?
It took around 5 hours to write down everything on a notepad sheet.

5 hours to put the right formatting & shape the thread,

as well as upload some screenshots and organize everything.

I still need to put the screenshots in.

 

That done, I'm going to play some Potato Ops III on my PS3 

Have great holidays everyone :3 !

Edited December 19, 2016 by furryTay
Almost done, I just needa add screenshots.

[DEMON]

Nice tutorial I guess (most people prefer to make their signatures on PC, there's free software like GIMP/Paint.net that can make them). Although I don't think many will make tutorials for this thread, there's an overall tutorial thread (it's pinned) and then I have my own.. it's maybe buried somewhere here; I haven't made a tutorial in a while although I don't go into the basics like this in mines.

[Taylor]

UPDATE : I will be done once I add screenshots, but I will wait some days as I will be busy in the upcoming days.

I also need to make a new signature.

1 minute ago, DEMON said:

Nice tutorial I guess (most people prefer to make their signatures on PC, there's free software like GIMP/Paint.net that can make them). Although I don't think many will make tutorials for this thread, there's an overall tutorial thread (it's pinned) and then I have my own.. it's maybe buried somewhere here; I haven't made a tutorial in a while although I don't go into the basics like this in mines.

Yeah, it really depends if people are willing to use their PC for more advanced editing, or their smartphone for, even if not the best, good quality artwork.

 

I tried to explain really the basic and highlight the most useful features, but I still need to add screenshots to make it easier to read.

[Maxximum]

Just wondering , can we also request here?

[Taylor]

5 hours ago, ee28max said:

Just wondering , can we also request here?

Yes !