My origional version.


So I was just swishing through the internet for pictures of Fire Emblem (the game) and came across this. I decided to make a signature out of it. =]

Now I was wondering what I could do to make it better.

I'd say sharpen it a little (it's under the filters somewhere). It looks a bit blurry and out of focus in a lot of parts. Also, change up the lighting. You can do that by using different kinds of gradients with the gradient tool and playing around with the blending mode (the place where it says "Normal" and stuff like that with the drop down menu) and the opacity (place where it says "100%" next to where the blending modes are). Maybe go with a different font as well.

I tried sharpening it over and over, but it never worked for some reason. And like you said, I tried out the different tools and messed around with them for a couple days now. So here's what I ended up with.

For the sharpen, try first doing Edit>Copy Visible, then Edit>Paste, then Layer>New Layer. Make sure the new layer you just made is selected and then try the sharpen. Also, use the sharpen under Filters in the menu, NOT the sharpen tool. Hope that helped (I've forgotten a lot about GIMP it's been sooooo long).

The font you used looks a lot better. And for the future, try not to get your text all huddled up in a corner (like the "Clorox" text in the other version. Doesn't look too great. The way you did it now looks a lot better.

REAAALLY nice job on those edits you did for a beginner.