Need avatar design help

[Warning Track Power]

<<<<< I would like to eliminate the white box surrounding the Brewers logo for my avatar. It doesn't show in the "white background" posts but it does show during "grey background" posts. Can anyone help me with this?

[1992casey]

Give this a look.

 

http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/png/4fc35062577d4b015d3e490a0dcf63521148936.png

 

If you see an area for improvement, holler. If you like it, download it by right-clicking on the image, choosing Save Image As (or your browser's equivalent), and uploading it to your Yuku avatar folder.

 

Don't delete your old avatar, though. It'll mean that avatars on your older messages will disappear.

[Warning Track Power]

1992Casey: You sir are the man. Thank you so much!

[1992casey]

You're welcome. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

My Photoshop skills are very limited, but this was pretty easy. In this case, I got rid of the white by selecting it with the Magic Wand tool and deleting it. What was left was transparent. Additionally, I removed a few super-light yellow pixels at the top that looked out of place with the white removed.

[Warning Track Power]

My computer skills are pretty much limited to Microsoft Office so Photoshop knowledge blows my mind. Thanks again.

[Warning Track Power]

Hey 1992Casey:

 

One quick followup. I noticed the sharpness/resolution took a hit by eliminating the white box. Anyway to bring back the same sharpness/resolution AND have the white box removed or does the removal of the white box cause for the loss of sharpness/resolution?

[1992casey]

You have a converted profile, which makes a difference. Your image is 100px by 100px. Converted profiles display avatars at 170px by 170px, so in the process of trying to blow up the image, sharpness is lost. Do you also notice this loss of sharpness on the board?

 

If you have a converted profile, it's better to use an avatar that's 170 by 170. Yuku will reduce it to 100 x 100 for the board. It's better to let the system reduce an image than trying to enlarge it.

 

I've found a larger ball and glove image that I can reduce to 170 by 170. I'll post it in a bit. Let's see how that works.

[1992casey]

See how this one works. If it isn't right, we can try again. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/png/21425e758940f598451017dbe8ec14265d7a6ff.png

[1992casey]

I see that the logo above uses traditional colors vs. the darker ones in your current avatar. I can give you the darker avatar too, so you'll have a choice. I'll be back in a couple of minutes. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[1992casey]

Here's the darker one. It's basically identical to the image you started with.

 

http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/png/9103549556b7442f5ae74c3f02fe4181d8e646c.png

[Warning Track Power]

You have a converted profile, which makes a difference. Your image is 100px by 100px. Converted profiles display avatars at 170px by 170px, so in the process of trying to blow up the image, sharpness is lost. Do you also notice this loss of sharpness on the board?

 

If you have a converted profile, it's better to use an avatar that's 170 by 170. Yuku will reduce it to 100 x 100 for the board. It's better to let the system reduce an image than trying to enlarge it.

 

I've found a larger ball and glove image that I can reduce to 170 by 170. I'll post it in a bit. Let's see how that works.

I have never noticed a sharpness drop on the board. I will say that I have always had difficulty loading clear pictures into my profile. They always appear fuzzy or distorted. It's a miracle when a picture I load works on the first go. Is it something on my end that is fixable or is it something that is Yuku being Yuku?

 

Lets see how this one works. In the preview it looks perfect.Thanks for all the help. Really enhances the experience with a avatar that you can appreciate and call your own.

[1992casey]

Is it something on my end that is fixable or is it something that is Yuku being Yuku?

 

The trick is to play by Yuku's (weird) rules. The main thing you can do to avoid problems is to use an avatar that's perfectly square.

 

Unconverted profiles deal with non-square avatars fairly effectively. They'll re-size the longer dimension to 100px and make the unused area transparent. The caveat is with JPEGs. Since JPEGs don't support transparency, the avatar that displays will be converted to GIF. That reduces the number of colors, especially in photos.

 

Converted profiles can mangle non-square profiles. Rather than showing the entire picture, the system is likely to crop it to make it square. I'll have to dig around. I have a picture of Chris Capuano that the system murdered when changing it into an avatar on a converted profile.

 

By the way, which avatar did you choose (lighter or darker)?

[1992casey]

I found the Caupano image that was mangled by a converted profile.

 

Here's the original image.

 

http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/jpg/56836cc1678643100bc3dc4ac1b9602fe455de15.jpg

 

Here's the avatar that displays in the profile. It's fine.

 

http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/jpg/56836cc1678643100bc3dc4ac1b9602fe455de15_s.jpg

 

Here's what appears next to posts. Look ma, no hands!

 

http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/jpg/56836cc1678643100bc3dc4ac1b9602fe455de15_a.jpg

[Warning Track Power]

That is bizarre on the Capuano picture. I had loaded a Molitor picture where he was batting and it cut him off at the waste. It was an awesome avatar of Molitor's legs. I thought that was kind of weird so it never saw the light of day.

Just out of curiosity, do some on this site have converted profiles whereas others have unconverted? What is the difference?

I chose the darker of the two. I am an advocate of the return of the ball and glove jerseys with some small modifications. Those modifications include a more goldish yellow (darker version) than the bright yellow found in the original logo (your lighter version), sticking with a deep royal blue and staying away from the sky blue that is popular on the player name-number shirts.

The retro uniforms just are the Brewers to me. They bring out a passion in me that the current uniforms do not. Nothing against the current ones, just I'm rather indifferent towards them, and I think a team's identity (logo and uniform) should stir passion not indifference (getting off my soapbox now). http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[1992casey]

Most members have the old unconverted profiles. People who joined after May, 2010, have the converted beta profiles. You joined in April, 2010, meaning that you must have done something to manually convert.

 

We've been advising against converting because of a plethora of issues with the new profiles. Avatars stand out as one of the problems, and the PM interface sucks horribly.

 

Two options for the Molitor picture in a converted profile:

• Attempt to crop it so it's square. That way, the system won't have the opportunity to ruin it.
• If a square crop doesn't produce a good result, re-size the longer dimension to 170px, then paste the image into a blank 170x170 PNG image with a transparent background.

I'm glad to help with avatars (when the task is within my capabilities), and I'm sure that others (who are better at this than I am) would be glad to help, too.

[Warning Track Power]

Casey can you hook me up again...?

 

As I am still computer illiterate when it comes to design, I would like to take my current avatar and change the royal blue to the navy blue of the current uniform. Is that something you have the ability to do? If not no worries. I love my current one that you hooked me up on. Thanks again for that.

[1992casey]

The one you have looks like navy to me.

 

I've attached one that's darker, but the gold also changes. I'm not sure that's what you want, but if you wish to use it, the background would need to be made transparent and the image would need re-sizing.

 

Maybe you can find a sample on the Internet that we can work with.

[TooLiveBrew]

Honestly that looks better than the ball & glove logo updated with the current colors. I actually got curious when I saw WTP's post yesterday, & started to work on the b&g logo w/current colors... and frankly I didn't think it looked very good. I was a little surprised; I'd always assumed it would look great.

[Warning Track Power]

I think it was just more of a curiosity thing. I like the royal and yellow that I have but I know a lot of people feel it is very 80s-ish. I like the idea of blending the new colors with the old colors. I think the perfect color combo for updating the Ball in Glove logo is the University of Michigan navy and yellow.

 

...And I agree TLB. The new colors on the Ball in Glove look very, very average.

[TooLiveBrew]

Well, I might as well post this, since I worked on it yesterday prior to trying out the new color scheme on the b&g logo. Here's what you were looking for, WTP --

 

http://i.imgur.com/kUxfw.png

 

It was pretty quick & dirty, & by no means a finished product... but thar she blows

[1992casey]

I think it looks great. TLB. Where do you think it's inadequate?

[TooLiveBrew]

There are still a few pixels that I'd need to color in. You have to look closely, but they're there (hence why I blurred all of the borders within the logo itself)

[Warning Track Power]

TLB if the Brewers introduced that logo and that color scheme I think they would have a nice blend of the past and the present. That looks awesome. Thanks for putting that together for me.

[TooLiveBrew]

No problem. Glad you like it.

[Warning Track Power]

TLB...

 

Is there a way you can remove the box around the logo? Wehn I saved it, there was a black background. One of the things I truly love about my current avatar is that it is just the logo and no background regardless of whether my post is an odd number in the thread (white) or even number in the thread (gray).

 

If not no worries, but thanks again.