GUIDE: How to make a banner.

[brianc]

EDIT: Please +Rep if this helped. -Thanks
#Request Sticky

Hello,

People often ask me to teach them how to use paint, so I decided to just make a guide on how to do it. Here we go guys:


The first thing you'll want to do is find your renders. Renders are images without a background. This is what a render looks like.



You can make renders, but it's a bit hard depending on the card your trying to render. If you can't make them yourself, you can find them on the internet, or have someone with photoshop make them for you.

After you have the renders of the images you want, the next thing is to get them in the banner.

The first step to making a banner on paint.net is as soon as you open paint, you should have a large white empty canvas. Before doing anything else, go up to the bar with all the options in it like file, edit, image etc. Click image, and re-size it to 510x110. MAKE SURE YOU UNCHECK THE LITTLE BOX THAT SAYS "MAINTAIN ASPECT RATIO"
Re-sizing the canvans to 510x10 will keep your images from merging into one another.

After you've re-sized your canvas, go up to file, and open the image(s) you want to be in the banner. Once you have them opened, you'll need to get your background. Your background will need to be added into the banner before the images. You can find the images on google, for example THIS would make a very beautiful background once you tweak it up a little bit. I'll go over that later though.

Now, say your using that image i just showed you, save it, then open it in paint. After it's opened go over to your tool bar, and click the move selected selected pixels tool, or the little back arrow. Then click the background you'll be using, and click " Ctrl C' on your keyboard. Then go over to your empty canvas, and click "CRTL V" on your keyboard.
A WINDOW SHOULD POP UP THAT SAYS "EXPAND CANVAS SIZE, KEEP CANVAS SIZE, OR CANCEL" MAKE SURE YOU CLICK "KEEP CANVAS SIZE" Now your background should be inside the canvas, and you can move it around freely. Move it to where you want it, or just leave it alone completely.

After you have your background the way you want it, it's time to move your images/renders into the banner.

If you have renders, your going need to use the magic wand. The magic wand is probably the most frustrating tool in paint.net. The way to use it is go over to your tool bar, and click the magic wand tool. It looks like a little black magic wand. After you have that, go over to your render. Now here's The Tricky part. You'll need to set the "Tolerance Bar" that is located at the top of the screen based on how many pixels your render consists of. And there's no way to find out how many are in there. So you'll just have to move the tolerance bar back and forth until you find the right setting. Click your image with the wand every once in a while to see if you have it right. If it's right, the render should be highlighted in blue, with a black outline. You'll know when it's right.

Now after you have it right, just click " CTRl C" to copy the render, bring it over to your canvas, and click "ctrl v" to paste it into your canvas. Do the same thing for the rest of the renders you have and your done. Well your mostly done anyways.

The next thing you may or may not want to do is add some effects to the banner. To add effects, which paint has a lot of, just go up to, and click effects. Go down to where it says "Distort" and play around with the options and tweak your banner the way you want. I recommend softening the portrait, as this will erase the outline of the renders you moved into your canvas. You may notice that softening your portrait may make the picture darker, and some other things. If it does that, you can just sharpen the portrait to make it a little more colorful. After you've added effects, make sure you save your banner unless you wanna do it all over again.

Now after you've added effects and all that fun stuff, go to internet explorer/firefox whatever it is you have, and go to www.photobucket.com You'll need to register a username here so you upload them for a huge album.


If you wanna have a matching avatar, just do the same stuff, except when you re-size the canvas in paint, re-size it to 135x135 instead of 510x110.

Good luck, I hope I helped, and if you have any questions please let me know.

P.S. Please don't give up because you can't do it right the first time. By the words of some dude I've never heard of "Practice makes perfect" Lol.

Regards,
Brian Crowell

[Vee Dub]

You've put a allot of effort into this and it has shown. This is a great guide & I'd advise everyone who wants to learn to be a good banner maker like you too read this.

This really is a great Guide. I'm going to give you Respect.

You really earned it man.

[Drunk Mario]

It has shown you have put much effort into this! Too bad paint.net doesn't work on my computer for some reason.. otherwise i would be testing this out!

[brianc]

It has shown you have put much effort into this! Too bad paint.net doesn't work on my computer for some reason.. otherwise i would be testing this out!

Please make sure you have Microsoft .NET FrameWork 2.0 installed.

Link to download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

Hope I solved your problem.

Regards,
Brian Crowell

[Drunk Mario]

It has shown you have put much effort into this! Too bad paint.net doesn't work on my computer for some reason.. otherwise i would be testing this out!

Please make sure you have Microsoft .NET FrameWork 2.0 installed.

Link to download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

Hope I solved your problem.

Regards,
Brian Crowell

That would probably solve my problem but i Don't know which option to select to download.. i Don't know what "T1" is or the unit "m". I will just wait. Thanks your your help though!

[Drunk Mario]

That would probably solve my problem but i Don't know which option to select to download.. i Don't know what "T1" is or the unit "m". I will just wait. Thanks your your help though!

The only thing you need to click on is "Download", Nothing else.

What about The "quick details"?