On 11/29/2011 7:46, Invisible wrote:
> - Many designs have photographs of cinematic locations, exotic flora and
> fauna, historic artefacts or beautiful female models. Normal people cannot
> obtain such things.

Google for creative commons images, or stock photography. Pay someone to 
take a specific photo if you want. Some people do this for a living.

> - Lots of designs have astonishingly elaborate calligraphy. Again, not
> something that normal humans can do.

It takes a lot of practice.

> - Some designs feature hand-drawn artwork. Almost nobody can draw as nicely
> as this.

"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is said to be a very good book. I 
never managed to find the time to follow the instructions to learn this, but 
it's something that you can learn the mechanics of if properly taught. 
Basically, you need someone who knows what you're actually doing wrong to 
teach you, rather than someone who only knows how to do it right.

> - Many of the designs feature texturing and effects which I cannot imagine
> any way of ever constructing. How on Earth can you take a photograph of some
> grass and then loop it seamlessly?

It's not hard. I have a bunch of things like that. Look up "seamless texture 
tutorial."  I have a script that does the mechanical parts, if you like.

http://darren.s3.amazonaws.com/Seamless/album/index.html

It just takes a bit of practice, watching out for good opportunities for 
pictures, figuring out which pictures would make good textures, and then 
smoothing it out. These are all textures from the video game I'm 
sorta-kinda-still working on.

> How can you make tea stains or splintered
> edges using just computer software?

Oh come now.

> How do you fake the texture of wet
> paper? It all seems so impossible...

Oh *really* come now. :-)   This is povray.off-topic, you know. ;-)

> I suppose we can sum all this up as "I really suck at graphic design". :-(

That's possible too. It takes practice, is all. Not that I'm any good at it, 
but I'm a lot better than I used to be.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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