Customs

[gatorfan234]

I dont really understand the concept of customs but they are interesting. I have a few questions: Where do you get the image? Best workshop to use. and where to get the design? Help is appreciated thanks

[djauwerda]

I'm sure it differs for all of us, but...

To me, Customs are a small piece of art. They are my own creation that I send off to get signed. They are unique. Something different from the status quo.

Most of my images come off the web. I usually do a google search until I find something that works. The design is purely creativity. if you go to my site you'll see they can be as simple or complex as you would like. Some people go heavy on the artistic side of creation... Bigga and Rockiesfan33 have tremendous vision and create cards that blow me away when it comes to putting a card with a lot of color and character. My cards tend to include larger areas for the athletes to sign. It's all you're own flavor...

I would guess most here use some version of Photoshop, but some of my earlier designs were done in Printshop.

What's fun is it's only limited by your own creativity. I don't consider myself an overly creative person, but I'll admit, it's cool to see the finished product signed. It gets the creative juices flowing for the next idea.

[gatorfan234]

Like what size does the image need to be????

[djauwerda]

It depends on how big you are going to print, the bigger a picture is in terms of KB, the more you can do with it.

If I was looking for a picture, I'd do a google image search for a player's name, then refine the search in google by restricting it to "large" or "medium" pictures. My personal experience is that I try to find pictures over 50 KB. But I've put some customs together with lesser size.

If your card is going to be smaller (2.5 X 3.5) you can usually get away with a smaller picture. If you are going to print bigger pictures (5X7-Up) You need pictures that have more KB to them.

Keep in mind that most pictures on the internet are set at a resolution of 72 dpi, which means if you try to make them bigger, they're going to distort faster. If you use bigger pictures, you get less pixelation (the grainy-digitalized look) if you change the shape, size, etc.

I print at 300 dpi, so the first thing you need to do is change the picture's dpi of the photo in your program (photoshop, etc) to make it the same as your card you're creating.

It's harder to find bigger pictures of older players, that's why on a lot of my older player customs, my pictures of them are even smaller... there's just simply not much out there that you can use.

If you need more help, pm me. I'll be more than happy to try to answer any questions you have.