February 9th, 2010 / 4:38 pm
Craft Notes

Glowing tutorial

Faster Times contributors banner

I’m always struck by how all the contributors at The Faster Times are glowing. Sometimes I feel people think we at HTMLGIANT also want our contributors to glow, but that we don’t have the photoshop skillz. I say NO! — we do have the photoshop skillz, we just never got around to doing a “mass glow” for our contributors.

Glowing is pictorial lubrication, and augments the experience of looking at a bio pic. For writers who want to glow, what follows is a photoshop tutorial on how to make that happen.

1. With “Magic Wand tool,” select and delete background until only your head protrudes. This tool works by interpreting boundaries/contours based on pixel tone (i.e. dark vs. light), so if your face shares the tonal range of the background, you may accidentally delete part of your face. Don’t do that, Invisible Man and The Invisible Man have been taken.

2. With “Blur tool,” blur the contour of your hair, shoulders, and face, giving the impression of emanant light radiating from behind you, lending to a feeling that you are a silhouette eclipsing the sun. Your scale will be relative to the cosmos, and stars will budge to squeeze you in.

3. It’s that simple, you are now glowing.

Adam Robinson

To prove that we know how to do this, here is one of our contributors glowing. Please do not let his “child molester glasses” dissuade you from HTMLGIANT. Adam is going through a strange time in his life; that it has lasted a decade is a futile concern. Don’t fret, Noam Chomsky also wears “child molester glasses,” and he cannot stand children. Here’s a motto: if you need glasses to see children properly, don’t bother.

26 Comments

  1. Adam R

      JC, lemme know when you put one in your new wife. I’m planning a relo to the west coast.

  2. Adam R

      JC, lemme know when you put one in your new wife. I’m planning a relo to the west coast.

  3. Adam R

      I feel bad about saying that.

      Funny post, Jimmy.

  4. Adam R

      I feel bad about saying that.

      Funny post, Jimmy.

  5. Sean

      Clank!

  6. Sean

      Clank!

  7. Vaughan Simons

      No, I think every HTMLGIANT contributor should have a different Photoshop filter effect applied to their pic. It would make the site look very 1999.

  8. Vaughan Simons

      No, I think every HTMLGIANT contributor should have a different Photoshop filter effect applied to their pic. It would make the site look very 1999.

  9. Vaughan Simons

      Animated GIF versions, too.

  10. Vaughan Simons

      Animated GIF versions, too.

  11. mike young

      remember when jimmy posted those “child” versions of contributors?

      jimmy is the king

  12. mike young

      remember when jimmy posted those “child” versions of contributors?

      jimmy is the king

  13. brittany wallace

      i laughed
      very otherworldly

  14. brittany wallace

      i laughed
      very otherworldly

  15. Jimmy Chen

      nah man chelsea martin posted those, she is queen

  16. Jimmy Chen

      nah man chelsea martin posted those, she is queen

  17. Jimmy Chen

      no worries man, our intentions are good

  18. Jimmy Chen

      no worries man, our intentions are good

  19. mike young

      oh that’s right!

      sorry chelsea

      for some reason i thought they were you

      you are king and queen together, you together form the qung

  20. mike young

      oh that’s right!

      sorry chelsea

      for some reason i thought they were you

      you are king and queen together, you together form the qung

  21. jereme

      poor adam & his glasses

  22. jereme

      poor adam & his glasses

  23. Jason Diamond

      I think my Faster Times photo could be described more as “creeping”

  24. Jason Diamond

      I think my Faster Times photo could be described more as “creeping”

  25. Lincoln

      We aren’t glowing, we are fading away

  26. Lincoln

      We aren’t glowing, we are fading away