Hey all,

I'm apparently stupid when it comes to these things, but I have a few simple questions regarding how to do basic things with graphics and about Photoshop.

The first is how come it seems like everyone and his uncle HAS photoshop? There are photoshop contests all over the internet, and it seems like at least half the people here have it, and ... well, last time I checked didn't it cost like 800 bucks for a basic version? It seems too prolific for that to be accurate, but I google'd it and I'm seeing $$$ all over, so I just wanted to ask if I'm missing something here.

Is there a cheaper or freeware version that, while certainly not as good, does the basics at least?

My second question is specifically about graphics. Bear with me as I'm not familiar with the terminology for this stuff.

I want to know how to take a picture and make it so that if you use it as an avatar (or signature, whatever) it shows the background of the board/webpage in the background. For example, let me use someone's Avatar that I've seen all over the boards, ip82.

Here is his profile containing his avatar, notice how the background behind the Looney Tunes dude matches the dark green of the boards.

Now, if I had a picture like that but instead of showing the dark green background that matches the board exactly it instead had a square picture in which the background was white/black/other that I cut out of, say, a screenshot, a wallpaper, or a real photograph.

Another example would be my current avatar -- What if I wanted the black lines and wording to appear without the white background, and in place of the white background would be the background of whatever webpage I was on.

How do I get rid of the current background of my picture and make the background match the board/webpage. I guess that's what I'm trying to ask, damn that's hard to put into words.

Oh, and what program can I use to do this? I'd assume Photoshop does it, but I'm not sure.

 

I myself suck at photoshop -- but I can tell you this: most people have obtained it via... dubious means, let's say.

 

I suspected as much, but wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing that up

 

Just found GIMP on download.com, going to give it a try. Thank you Zyloch.

 

I tried Google before posting but I couldn't figure out how to remove the background like my question asked -- maybe I wasn't wording my query correctly but the tutorials I kept coming up with were not very helpful (probably because I'm too much of a n00b to understand them). They also contained a lot of words like layers and whatnot that make no sense to me in this context.

I decided to just try asking instead after a while of beating my head against the wall.

I'll have another look later for tutorials though. Speaking of, Jon has some in this forum which I looked at and they appear to kickass. If I ever end up with Photoshop I'll be trying those out.

 

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