How to make so nice thumbs?

[Horny Joe]

Take a look at this site: http://cherryseries.com/ , how does they make thumbs like this? Any special filter in photoshop or what?


Joe

[WillyFRESH]

check out this site: http://www.good-tutorials.com/

[sfera]

look up airbrush or color smoothing

[fxprophet]

I bet they use this:

http://www.thumbflicks.com/ThumbBuilder.htm

Its what I use and it looks exactly like the example on the coders page

[leroytrolley]

I experimented with this and got a good result.

Us ethe Curves option and make the straight line arched a little. THen use the SmartBlur filter and keep the setting low. Sort of works.

Leroy

[mizmiz]

Photoshop is the best!

[kostas]

Hi JoeDoe,
Try to use PS. First choose good photos. Then increase a litle the contrast, if needed ( digital cameras usually produce low contrast). If your picture looks good use the effect called "Smart blur". Make experiments.

[membob]

Anyone know how to do this with imagemagick?

[PussyTeenies]

Photoshop

for the dutch fotosoep

[zigx]

those thumbs look Reall nice

[kostas]

those thumbs look Reall nice

Plastic skin?

[perlcoders]

very nice

[Horny Joe]

Thanks guys!
I use PS and experimented a little on my site onlyteeny.com ... now I will try smart blur and other "blur" options.. I noticed that usin "Surface Blur" gave the thumbs a retro look... Cool!

[kostas]

Worths it the time?

[Dynamix]

Will have a full tutorial built up shortly, but until then here are my notes:

PHOTOSHOP CS2
Filter > Blur > Surface Blur
Radius: 3, Threshold: 10

OLDER VERSIONS
Filter > Blur > Smart Blur
Radius: 2-3, Threshold: 10
Quality: Low, Mode: Normal

Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast
Brightness: ~15, Contrast: ~25

[OPTIONAL]
Duplicate the original layer and set the new layer's blending mode to Soft Light
Apply a gaussian blur (Filter > Blur Gaussian Blur) with a radius of ~3px
Adjust the layer's opacity as needed.
Flatten everything (Layer > Flatten Layers).
[/OPTIONAL]

Using the marquee tool, adjust top toolbar options:
Style Fixed Aspect Ratio
Width 110
Height 150

Make your selection, and crop it. Image>Crop.

Tweak brightness/contrast again if needed.

Change image size to that of your thumb (Image>Image Size) WIdth: 110, Height: 150

[Dynamix]

Notes:

- The tilde symbol (~) means approximately. You will need to change the values on a per-image basis.

- [OPTIONAL][/OPTIONAL] tags are exactly that.. those steps are optional.

See my results at:
http://www.tgpfactory.com/high-quality-thumbnails/

[Horny Joe]

Dynamix, thank you a million! I did what you said step-by-step and it looks good!

[picsmasters]

Take a look at this site: http://cherryseries.com/ , how does they make thumbs like this? Any special filter in photoshop or what?
Joe

They are photoshoped, over photoshoped I`d say, I may be wrong but plastic dolls look isnt so call as it seems at fearst time

[OFFSHORE DAN]

Great thread!

[maalox]

wow,good thread!
Thanks a bunch--Bookmarked

[dirtysean]

with imagemagick you should set the jpeg quality to higher level. (~90)

and i use the command -modulate 110,110 +contrast -unsharp 0.5x1.0+0.5 -unsharp 0.5x1.0+0.5, but sometimes images getting too shiny.