Photobucket | Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog

Posts Tagged 'Photobucket'

Make your own thumbnail for Azeroth United

Published September 22, 2009 Gaming , World Of Warcraft 7 Comments
Tags: Blogging, community, Photobucket, thumbnail

If you haven’t heard already there is new /extension of existing warcraft communities called Azeroth United and straight from their introduction post We are the World of Warcraft

The purpose of this site is to be a hub for the Azeroth United World of Warcraft Internet Media Community. This community includes, but is not limited to:

Bloggers
Podcasters
Webcomics
Videocasts
News Sites (like mmo-champion, wow.com, etc)
Utility Sites (like wowhead.com)

They are after people to Submit a 200×200 sized logo to plug your blog/podcast ect ect – and I know not everyone has access to a decent Graphics program and you may want to make your own thumbnail, so below is a run down on making simple, but clear thumbnails. I used Gimp, and some of my saved banner graphics for mine, but you can use Photobucket’s editing tool just as easily

In Photobucket upload a screenshot, or even a copy of your banner and select “Edit”

Use “Crop” and select the part of the picture you want to use by dragging the box over it. The requested dimensions are 200×200 but it won’t matter if what you are cropping goes over as we can resize it. If you hold down Shift it will lock the aspect ratio.

When you get the part of the screenshot you like. Select “Crop Selected Area” up in the top right. Try and keep the ratios as close to each other as possible. It will make it easier when resizing.

Now select “Resize” and change the size. You may want to play with the Keep proportions box.

One you have applied the resize, Select the “Text icon” on the Decorate Tab

Add your text. You might want to untick the transparency button, and play with the colors of the text, and the font dependinng on what your background is.

And the result is this. A fictional blog thumbnail.

and some other fictional ones from images I had saved in my photobucket.

Making a Free Guild Website Part 2 – Making the background Purrrty

Published June 12, 2008 Gaming , Guild , MMORPG , World Of Warcraft Closed
Tags: 2, Banner, Free, Guild website, Photobucket

Adding Other Graphical elements to your Guildportal Website Is easy, You just need a place to host the image. Unless you pay for membership, then you can host it on Guild portal.

Your Photobucket account can be used to host these images.

I’m going to show how you can add a background image to your Guild website to further personalise it and make it stand out

The Background.

if you go into your Guild Control Panel, on the left hand side select “Site Pages” scrolling down you will see “Page Background”
You can keep the background colour that is there by default or change it to any colour you want by selecting the Artist Icon, this could look quite plain, to liven it up add an image, it can be anything but I would suggest that you keep in theme,
Somethings to be mindful about the image you pick
Use either Screenshots from Wow Eg like a shot of the sky, or a texture or scene in game you like, or have a look on Warcrafts Website for wallpapers and other promotional material, that under their creative commons agreement allow you to use, rather then potentially breaching copywrite by nicking someone elses image,
The image you select will be tiled, meaning that it will be replicated across your page, like floor tiles, this can make the background look crap if its busy, or there are incomplete things on the sides of the image, I’ve picked a simple shot of the sky, that fits with my reddish theme yet still has some texture. Upload a couple of images to Photobucket to use, and you can edit, and crop or change the colours as you see fit using their Image Editing tool.

To add the background to your Guild website use the “Direct Link” that photobucket provides you, and copy it, then paste that link into the Blank field that is next to “Page background Image”

Then go to your Website and Refresh the page to allow the new image to upload.
If you don’t like it, try another,
This is what the guild site looks like so far – while it may not win any design awards, its a start

I has a New banner..

Published May 24, 2008 Site Design 1 Comment
Tags: Banner, Photobucket

I’ve been playing round with Photobuckets little Image editing tool.. and have produced the following

It was a Log in Chararacter screen shot I started with – Duplicated it and stuck some ‘stickers’ and text on it.. Blurred the edges… and changed some colour hues

easy..

It amazes how many people in Wow forums ask for a header to be made for them.. or even that people charge an armload to make them for people – and Im sure that someone with formal design qualifications could do better with better tools.. but I have gimp.. and sometimes its a pain.. So I’m happy for now and it was simple enough to do inbetween farming fire primals.

How to Make a Quick and Dirty Guild website Banner

Published April 22, 2008 Gaming , Guild , MMORPG , World Of Warcraft 19 Comments
Tags: Guild, Guild website, Photobucket, Web Banner

How to use Photobucket to make a Guild banner/Blog Banner

www.photobucket.com now has all the tools you could need to make a Guild website banner / Blog Banner.. I’ve used it to make my Blog Banner with some of its basic and advanced tools.

So how to do one? – Im assuming you have basic Image editing experience.. Eg crop / Save/ ect.. you don’t need to know Gimp or Photoshop.. you just need a photobucket account.

I took a WOW screen dump of a Picture with an interesting background and cropped it to banner size.. ( if you arent sure what size you want right click on a banner you like the size of and look in the properties to see the dimensions)

Upload that Image from your screenshot folder into Photobucket –

Open the image and Select the Edit Tab above the image

Then select the crop function to select the area of the Picture you want as your banner.. Drag to size..
On the same Tab Select ‘Resize’ to change the dimensions to the banner size you want..

This is one I have done.

Then select Save – ( I always “Save a copy” incase I do something I don’t like.)

Now select the “Decorate Tab” and the Beta ” Borders” Icon to the right hand side above the image.
Select your border style – I Picked the Solid One.
The Border options floating bar should come up. Change the colours and thickness of the white and black to how you want. The corner radius is a nice little touch too.

This creates a nice little neat Banner like this.

Save a copy.

Now select the “Decorate” Tab, and Select “Text”

Type your text… /Select your font, and adjust the text box on the Image. Play around with the sizes and colours.
Tick the “Transparent” Box so you don’t get a ugly white background behind the text. and you can play with the coulour that shows up best on your image. Now Select apply and then Save a copy.. and you get something like this..

Save a copy…
– Basic – But effective… you then have several codes for putting on a website/blog/ forum ect ect… formatted for you for that image to add wherever you want…. there are also alot of other great features on there that you can play with to get differnt effects. Experiment, but remember to Save a copy.. so you have the orginal to use if you stuff up.

Some other examples of what you can do is my Blog banner for Pugnacious Priest, and also