So I worked this design out, which was originally very large (1200×1200). I finished it and then set it to the required sizes for submission, 640×480 as a jpeg. I received the rejection mail that I had issues with my format. I contacted them to pry them for further information and am waiting for that reply. In the meantime I thought maybe I could get some critiques on this, perhaps fellow photoshop users can help me out here (I never have format issues in illustrator hehe).
Thank you for your insights. You are spot-on in your observations, although I already came to the conclusion shortly after posting this that I should just re-do the whole thing in illustrator, to avoid certain aspects that seem to be deeply ingrained as hindrances when working within Photoshop, particularly the issues of formatting and quality-loss. I must re-evaluate my approach to this design and make it work, for I feel the idea of Oppenheimer and his nuclear guilt is worthy of at least several artistic attempts, but for now it goes to the back-burner. I am starting to strongly believe (as a result of several conversations with accomplished designers such as yourself) that vector is the only way to go. I will return in a week with a hopefully much improved design, as soon as I think of something new to work on….
How did you arrive at the conclusion that vector is the only way to go? Because it’s not, and I didn’t mean to put you off Photoshop. Photoshop is what I use exclusively. There are no issues with photoshop nor any ingrained hindrances or quality loss. What I was getting at is that you’re using too much of the bells and whistles of photoshop so to speak. Your image looks filtery. Kinda like the way a movie looks when they overuse CGI for things that would’ve looked better with practical effects, you get what I mean? Photoshop is a tool (one that’s personally given me 7 printed t-shirts here), it’s only as good as the person using it though, same goes for Illustrator. Don’t blame the tool. By all means though use Illustrator if you’re comfortable with it.
Also, like I was saying, be careful of using photos you did not take
Check out the 101 section. Here are some basics
21×17in center chest placement avoid sleeves and seems
4-8 colors (dbh can do better but odds are you won’t win, and you want your design to be as usable as possible so that more people can print it and increase your ability to sell the design later.
Don’t Design to the edge, this makes the image blend in better and avoids hard edge crop look.
Probably not the most polite way to say it but you can’t polish a turd. if your concept is weak from the start it dosen’t matter what you do, it’s going to be lame. So work on your sketching and brain storming skills, it can save you a lot of trouble if you learn to spot problems early rather then try to back track on an already heavily modified image.
There are a metric shit ton of people with photoshop all lined up for the same slice of pie, so your best weapon is your own imagination and style, develop that and you will be golden. cheers.
Is he supposed to be smoking a pipe or something? Because you can’t really see the object that’s in his mouth, which makes it look weird. Also, where’d you get the photo from? You can run into problems using photography that’s not yours or not free for commercial reuse, even if it’s altered.
I think you’ve relied a little too much on the photoshop filters. Photoshop filters just have a way of making a piece look gaudy if they’re used too obviously, it’s kind of distracting. It looks like you’ve got some kind of stroke going on and an inner shading along the edges, I’d remove those because I don’t think they do it any favors. What’s going on with the red squiggles on the shoulder? I can’t tell what that’s supposed to be. All in all I think the image just looks a little too “photoshopy”. Good luck though, and welcome to DBH.