Realistic holo style in GIMP

[~Sloth~]

Yes, I know, there are plenty of holo tutorials, but this one is different. Today I will be teaching you how to apply two different holographic styles to your cards and merge the two styles to make a realistic holo pattern.

 

To begin, let me describe the holo styles:

1. Full picture holo - this one's the easiest; it's simply a card image with a semi-transparent holographic overlay making the whole image holographic

2. Render with holo sheet background - this one's slightly more complicated; the holo sheet is used as the background for the card image

Once you've learned how to both of these, you can put them together to get this:

3. Render with full holo background - the holographic overlay is applied only to the background of the image, with the non-holographic character placed on top of it

 

Before we begin, find a holo sheet. There are plenty of them in other people's tutorials; the holo sheet I use was taken from someone else's tutorial, but I can't remember whose it was (or whether or not they made it or got it from elsewhere), so you'll have to find one yourself. You can use either a solid one or one with transparencies; the transparent ones work better on style 1 and 3 because it's easier to see the image; either one works for style 2, because the holo sheet isn't covering anything.

 

IMPORTANT! I've noticed certain recurring issues when using GIMP; I don't know whether they are glitches or if I'm doing something wrong (I literally just started using GIMP two days ago and do not claim to be an expert). But just in case anyone else runs into the same problems:

*If the image layer somehow gets added to its own "floating layer" separate from the one it was originally opened as, you will not be able to select the other layers. This is an annoying ocurrence but is not really a problem so long as that's the only layer you're editing. Just keep editing the layer until you like the result, and save your card. The option to merge the layers will come up.

*If you try to scale the image layer using the Scale Tool and it crops the section of the layer within the borders of the background layer instead of scaling the whole image, just hit Ctrl+Z, then select "Scale layer" from the Layer menu and keep lowering the dimensions and scaling until it fits within the card border, then you can use the Scale Tool to adjust it to fit within the image border on the card.

 

Now that that's out of the way, for the first tutorial, we'll be making a full picture holo. Like I said, this one's pretty easy.

1. Open your card in GIMP.

2. Go to File, click Open as layers, and open the holo sheet.

3. If the holo sheet is larger than the card image (it really shouldn't be, but mine was...), make sure the holo sheet layer is selected. Find the Scale Tool in the Toolbox (on the left) and shrink it down to the size of the image box, then click the Move Tool and position over the box.

4. Find the Opacity bar in the Layers box (on the right) and drag it until you get the right transparency (make sure you can see both the picture and the holo pattern clearly).

5. Right now the layers are treated as separate images. To fix that, right click on one of them and go down to "Merge visible layers". This will combine the card image and the holo overlay into one image file.

5. Go to File, click Save as, make sure the extension is .png, and save.

 

Your card should look something like this:

 

Now on to the second style, where the holo sheet is used as a background. This is easiest if the card image is pre-rendered (meaning the background is removed). If not, you'll have to do it yourself. It's not too difficult though; even if you're not used to GIMP, tracing edges is a lot easier in GIMP than it is in Paint. (like I said, I started using GIMP for the first time two days ago, and I'm already writing a tutorial for it!)

 

1. When you make your card in the Card Maker, set the holo sheet as the card image. Save the image you wish to use separately.

2. Open your card in GIMP.

3. Open the image you're using as a new layer (see step 2 in the previous section).

4. If the image is pre-rendered, just scale it down (see step 3 in the previous section) and position it within the image border. Then skip to step 8 below. If the image is not rendered, you'll have to render it yourself. Do not scale it yet; instead, continue to the next step.

5. There are two ways to remove the background: the Eraser tool and the Select Tools + delete. Before you render, you need to add the alpha channel. To do this, right click the image layer in the right box and click on "Add alpha channel" near the bottom of the menu (if you can't click it, you already have the alpha channel, so ignore this).

6. Find the Eraser Tool in the Toolbox on the right and click on it. On the bottom left you'll find the Brushes box, here you can select different brush styles. I use the large circle ones to clear large areas of the background; for straight edges and details I use the Select Tools + delete (which I'll get to later). If you're using an image that's larger than the card, only part of it will appear. As I said before, you don't want to scale it down yet; the bigger the image is, the cleaner the render will be. Make sure the image layer is selected on the left, and click and drag the Eraser tool over the image to erase the background; you should see the card start to appear underneath it. (If you get white instead, you haven't added the alpha channel. Hit Ctrl+Z until all the white is gone, then go back to step 5.) Use the largest brush to clear the majority of the background leaving a thin area around the character you're rendering. Use the Move Tool to shift the image around, making sure you clear most of the background. Then switch to a smaller brush and trace around the border of the picture to remove the rest of the background. Once you're sure you have your image traced out, use the Scale Tool to make it fit inside the image box. Once you're satisfied with the card, proceed to Step 8.

7. An alternative to step 6 is to use one or more of the three Select Tools to render the non-holographic area of the card. I recommend using the Free Select tool because it gives you themost freedom in choosing an area; it also helps with tracing the edge of the image. With this method you have two choices: If the image only has one part, you can trace that part and extract it from the background; if there are multiple disconnected parts that you don't want holoed, you can use the Select Tool to select areas of the background to delete instead.Click the Free Select tool (the one that looks like a lasso). You can either drag the cursor like a brush to select an area (if you're tracing a curved area), or click different points to form a polygon (if you're tracing straight edges). Trace around the area of the you're removing (either the image or the background). Make sure you end your tracing where you started, there should be a dashed line around the selected area. If you traced a background area, hit delete to remove it; keep doing this until you've successfully isolated your image. If you traced the image that will appear on the card, hit Ctrl+X to cut the selected area, then Ctrl+A and delete to remove the rest of the image, and finally hit Ctrl+V to paste the rendered image. Now that you have your render, simply scale it down to fit the image box.

8. Once you're happy with your card, merge the layers and save it by following steps 5 and 6 in the previous section.

 

Your card should look like this:

 

Now that we've learned how to make two different holographic styles, it's time to put them together. This style is more realistic because it imitates the foil pattern on real cards - only the background is holographic, but the image is clearly visible underneath the foil.

 

1. Open your card and apply the holo sheet to the image as directed in the first tutorial.

2. Open the card image as a new layer and render the parts you want not to be holographic as directed in the second tutorial.

3. Scale the image down to the its original size and drag it so it covers up its holographic counterpart.

4. Merge the layers and save.

 

And this is what it should look like:

 

Congratulations! You now know how to make realistic-looking holographic cards.

[Yoshiman™]

well... thanks i guess. this must have taken forever to write

[..:Grimmjow:..]

Nice tuts, I will try this later and maybe post my results!

[david 10101]

very well done. acting higher than a noob. if we had no stars i would of thought u were 3-4 stars

[Carbon V3]

I like this holo tut but I now betters.But steel it is good 1 star member.

[Kzownsall]

I useta hafta bookmark 3 pages to learn how to do all 3, but now? Just 1! Thanks a lot! U helped a lot of noobs.