Thanks to both clarings and asa's help... along with the others... very much appreciated ^_^



ok, here's version 4
>moved the clouds
>colored the moon a bit
>smudged fog and sky
>tilted left building and right
>adjuted color tones of buildings...

that's it for now... and i can't seem to open the fonts a DL... >_<

Ohh nice...
this looks much better..

Well i think you need to try another brush for that moon.. one a bit more transparent.. cause that one is looking to solid and it doesn't match so well with the cloudy sky..
i would also move the moon more to the left side... on the empty dark space and try adding some stars..

you need to work some more on the clouds on the left side... cause they aren't looking so good..
and i think it could look better it you make the clouds a bit more daker... cause they are looking too white for a night sky...

As for the fog.. well it's still not so good.. but it's not so bad... so you can leave it that way if you want.. or you can try improving it, for example you can make more transparent the fog on top of the chatacters ... and you can also darken a bit the fog on the left side to give some depth... you just need to play a bit with the blending modes and gradients..

About the text!!... you need to paste the unzip file.. on the text fold of windows (go to .. control panel ---> fonts ---> paste there... i don't know if these are the correct names cause my windows is on spanish)
after doing that, close your photoshop... and open it again.. so that it charges the new fonts...
any questions? just ask me ^_^ i'll be glad to help you!!
goodluck!
kisses..

Improving. =]

okay, now, i think you are using a stock moon, is that right? well, always always extract the dark part along with the crescent because a moon is a sphere, not an actual crescent! ;P i realize that the cloud can be in front of the moon, but then it wouldn't be lit like that -- it'd block the moonlight and be a glowing edged silhouette. that reminds me, the clouds do seem a bit bright. dim them a bit. and more smudging please!

the same goes for the mist -- more smudging. currently, it looks too solid and layered. it needs to be "ghostly", translucent, somewhere in that direction. so smudge and blur to your heart's content. a low opacity soft-edged eraser could help too. just do whatever you can to make the mist look less solid and more...misty? ^^;

you overdid the rotation on the building to the left side of the wall a bit. rotate it clockwise just a tad. but the colors are much better! the buildings suit each other better now.

and please give it a go at getting rid of the reddish/orangish stuff on haji. =P

these are my thoughts. hope to see an update soon! =D

The moon is really a brush... and i changed it a bit to a more cresent one...should i make it a sphere?

anyways, version 5

>put up some stars
>darkened the clouds
>fixed left clouds
>changed moon
>tilted left building again
>removed haji's glow on forehead
>smudged on mist and clouds
>applied opacity to mist

and i still can't open the fonts to my PC... all my fonts are in a format of True Type font or something like that... >_<

Ah a brush...hehe, don't use brushes so i can't recognize them. anyway, there should not be any stars in front of the moon, so none should show up where the dark part of the moon is. as well, why are there no stars in the space between the two buildings? ;P

the mist still requires more smudging. don't be afraid to smudge diagonally. if something goes out of place, you can always smudge it back. sticking to keeping things horizontal gives it that rather stiff layered look. fool around with the smudge tool so soften up the strict appearance of the mist.

i noticed this: the cloud behind haji's head is directly in front of the right side building. that's a bit of a play on fore to background order, isn't it? i'm also wondering about the light on the left side building...where is it coming from? i'm kind of picky about lighting so that's why i'm bringing this up. think about it if you want to, but i don't think most people will care.

the glow on the haji's head and ears is dimmed, but not gone. it is a gradient look, so it obviously is different from the way actual skin shading is done: by areas with clearly defined borders. the glow is still there on haji's arm. and that made me realize that there are a couple of slivers of white stuff still on his upper arm/shoulder. please check your extraction. ^^

keep going!

Ohh it looks good!... nice job!!..
Well about the moon you still need to work a bit... i think it's too visible comparing to your smudge sky.. the same goes for the stars... so try turning down the opacity of the layers..
What asa says about the building on the left side.. is a bit right.. i mean.. it's ok that the light came from the window...
but if you take a look there.. the hole thing is lighten.. as if it was a lighting source near... So adding a lamp.. (those lamps that are on the sidewalks).. could be a solution... i'm sure that you can find a brush for that...
Anyway it's not such an important thing.. but some people could notice it...

As asa already said most everything.. i'm gonna talk about the text...
The text file it's ok... (if you look at it, it can have a picture of "TT" or "A" or "O" ... they are all different kind of text's files..
anyway you don't have to open it..! you just need to crop and paste it on the text fold of windows!!
follow what i have posted before...
(go to .. control panel ---> fonts ---> paste there... i don't know if these are the correct names cause my windows is on spanish)
after doing that, close your photoshop... and open it again.. so that it charges the new fonts...
goodluck!
kisses..

Ok, here's version 6



clarings, i still can't DL it... it says "Unable to install the font, its either invalid or damaged" >_<

The mist has improved =] now, another thing that makes mist look like mist is the soft and gradual transitions between visible parts and invisible parts. i notice that for your mist, the transition is not so gradual, mainly for the mist on the right sight of the wall. take a soft-edged eraser at a low opacity and dab around a bit to help the gap between visible and invisible/hardly visible.

now the cloud on the left side of the wall is better looking than the one on the right. the cloud on the right still has some defined jumps from high opacity to low opacity. as well, i think you used an eraser to erase lower portions of the cloud. however, because of the dimness of the wall, you did not completely erase all that you wanted to. i can still see remnants with the round marks of an eraser drifting below the void of what has been erased. perhaps temporarily adjust the brightness of this wall to help you see what i'm talking about.

there are still a couple of stars in front of the moon, near the upper tip of its lit up crescent.

the lamp is good (although if i am to be super picky, i'd say it can't provide so much light) but its pole/post looks transparent. lamp posts should be solid metal ;P

lastly to fix haji's head and arm glow problems, i think it is best if you used the eye dropper tool to get a sample of haji's facial color and recolor his forehead and get a sample of his sleeve and recolor his sleeve.

oh yeah and for the font, make sure that you DL the usable ones, depending on if you use a mac or a pc. after that's right, you click DL and save it to a folder. it should be in .zip form, so right click & extract. extract to the same folder. then, you copy the font file and find the system's fonts folder (control panel is one way; your file browser is another). it should automatically install. but if that is how you did it, then check with other fonts to make sure it isn't just the one that you downloaded. i've never had that problem before though.

Mmm ok... better.. here is what i think
buildings are ok!... the lamp looks nice! (good fixing!)
Mist... still needs some more touches...
Example... The mist on the black part of the wall (left side).. it's ok...
but the mist on top of the building it's a no (try to erase it or make it less visible)
Also i would get rid of the mist between his arm and sword, on the upper part... cause there you should see more the sky than a fog..
Mist on the right side.. still needs some more work.. cause it looks like a spot without movement, as asa said you need to play more with transparent looks.. visible/lessvisible/visible...
stars seam ok... but i would try adding some clouds near the moon... you can strecht the clouds on the right side... (as you did on the left).. and make the clouds cover a bit the lower part of the moon.. cause i think that the moon has still some blending issues...

As for the font... try downloading another one.. to see what happens.. (you don't need to install it!! it's just a copy/paste thing... and close /open photoshop...
goodluck!

Phew~ i finally got the font thingie working... this is the only font that i got so far... >_<

anyways, here's version 7

Better ^_^
the clouds over the moon are helping a lot to make it blend better...
anyway you still need to work some more on that clouds.. and smooth them a little...
The fog on the left side looks good ^_^ nice job, The right side of the fog.. still needs some fixing..

The text it's ok.. but you could move it more to the right.. and add some glow.. maybe a red glow... so that it matches with the rest of the wallpaper...
you are doing great... keep up!!
kisses...

Much of what i said in my previous post still applies -- the stars in front of the moon, the cloud on the right side needing fixing, the remnants of the cloud that should be erased, the mist requiring some more softness, and how to fix up haji so he doesn't have the extra coloring from some source in the original scan. since i had explained in detail previously, i won't be doing so again, since that'd make it redundant.

but the lamp is much better with a solid looking lamp post =]

glad that the font is working for you now, but i personally would go for a different one. i think there is a theme at dafont called "eroded" or something along the lines of that. it offers some nice grungy fonts that would fit the nighttime/eerie kinda feeling going on in your wall.

as well, i would also recommend that you try out some other text colors to see if that might help, although it also depends on the font that you choose. but here's something you could test out. duplicate your text layer, rasterize the duplicate, move it underneath your original text layer, and apply a horizontal motion blur (experiment with the pixel distance). you might have to play around a bit with the duplicate's opacity too. i find that this blur helps add a bit of...creepiness (? not sure that's the perfect word ^^;).

keep working on this piece. :D

Gomen ne, i kinda forgot about those pointers... >_<
gomen ne...

anyways, version 8


>fixed right clouds
>smudged the clouds and mists more
>lowered opacity for mists and clouds
>fixed stars...
>did the eraser thingie about the gaps on mists too.

i tried a different font...i found the eroded category, and did the rasterize-motion blur thingie... did i do it right? o_o?

Ah, is that font "all used up"? anyway, um...the text just looks like you duplicated it and move the duplicate slightly away from the original. and it doesn't look particularly blurred? ^^; okay, i just opened up photoshop and did a quick demo for you to see what i meant by motion blurring and how it should actually come out. the pixel distance used was 60-something, i think. but you can see the effect as you adjust so you can use your own judgment on this one.

here:

i hope that clears that up. now i wouldn't go with this red color. it is more saturated than any other color in the wall and it is a tad hard to read for such a dark background. play around with the color more if you want but for the moment, if i had to chose between white and this type of red, i'd go back to white. xP

the mist does look better (although might i ask what brush head are you using for smudging and what strength is your smudge tool set at?) and the left half of the right cloud looks better. that means you'll still have to fix up the right half of the cloud on the right side. the thing is that you've got these sort of "bars" forming there and that looks a slight bit unnatural.

that's all from me for now. =]

Ehehehhe... *scratches head* i really don't know what i did with the fonts... XD
anyways, thanks for the demo... i finally got it... for the first try i only used 6 pixels for distance... silly me...

anyways, here's version 9



fixed the clouds too... i used a soft round brush with 80% strenght.