How do you create watch faces?

Hi all.

I would like to know how do you build your watch faces. What Programs are you using beside the Facer Creator?

I personally create the base construction mostly with AutoCad (2d and 3d). Finetuning, Animation- and Light-Effects are afterwards made with Photoshop.

Greetings, Phantasico aka GAUSS

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My designs are mainly illustrations. They ladies seem to prefer those rather than mutiple dials. I use several versions of Paintshop Pro with the most recent being PSP 2018.

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Hey @GAUSS, I’m a Photoshop addict and have been since the first flavor of CS. I build all components completely in Photoshop, split out the various layers as separate .PNGs, then upload everything into the creator and add the Facer tags. I also make my own hands and upload them last.

Today, I subscribe to the cloud subscription of Photoshop and I am currently running Photoshop CC release 19.

-John

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I know, what you mean with “addict”. :slight_smile: I am working with Photoshop since about 15 Years (graphic Freelancer and Photograph). I own Versions up to CS3 but most of the time i work with the old Photoshop 6. Autocad Renderings are already in .png with alpha-Channel so i can split them very easily in different Layer. But often, the effects from the CAD-Rendering are not perfect and need a tune-up with PS.

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I once tried an older Version of Paintshop Pro but it was not my thing. Photoshop is far better in my opinion. Don´t know how good the current Version of PSP is. Does it have Layer-Abilities? Whats about Transparence-Effects?

Greetings, Phantasico

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Yes and yes. Corel knows that it’s competing with Photoshop so the 2018 version seems to be comparable at a better price (according to other artists who have switched). You must’ve had a really old version! I wanted to stay with PSP so that I can link to older PSP files on my computers, although I’m now using a lot of Photoshop gradients with it. Haven’t tried other Photoshop files yet because they were not compatible with my old PSP. I suppose I will get around to it if I need them.

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Hmmm… i may have a look onto the new PSP, but i think i will be better stay with Photoshop because i know all the tricks of the program.

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Hi guys, I create every single piece with PSP, working with vectors and then export the PNG layer.
One question for all of you: at which resolution do you work or export your objects? I am currently working with 640x640@72dpi but I don’t get very good results… you can see an example in this post

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@pyle77 I saw your other post earlier, but I couldn’t add anything informative because I’m also using 640x640 @ 72dpi with PSP. Perhaps someone will reply with a suggestion so both of us can learn something new.

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I use 2000x2000, 72dpi. Tried 1000x1000 pi before but wasn‘t amazed by the antialising and sharpness results. The better the base size, the better the results in the watch.

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@Linlay wow same software and same “template”? Amazing! :grinning:
@GAUSS do you import 2000x2000 graphics into facer creator? for the hands too? My first faces was 960x960 but I had to lower the resolution to 640x640 because hands (same resolution) was moving jerkily and badly :scream:

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Yes. As well the Hands. And i never had any issues or complaints even on very thin ones. I think facer creator compresses the images, when it builds the watch.

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@pyle77,
I typically work at 960x960. Creator nicely scales any multiple of 320 so 640, 960, etc. I don’t know on publishing if creator gens new images after the scale-down? Or just scales on the fly. In other words, if I create two exactly identical faces, one at 320 and one at 960, are they the same size after publishing? Or does the higher resolution take up more memory when sync’d to the watch even tho the display is scaled to 320? …dunno.

John

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@GAUSS, @jmorga106
thank you for replying.
It would be great if any of the developers could answer these questions. I’m doing different tests again, with different resolutions, but I still have so many doubts.
IMHO it would be really important to have some documentation about it.

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Yes. Indeed it could help to know the best base-resolution of the working-size for sharp results. @Faceradmins, can you help us in this case?

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Yes, that would be helpful. At this point I’m using 640, but I am curious to know if there is something better.

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Hey guys - Sorry for the lack of documentation on this, we will update soon! The recommended size to design for is indeed 640 by 640 pixels.

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Well… thanks for the answer but i disagree that 640x640 is the best. I tested out multiple Design Resolutions in the meanwhile. As John said, multiplications of 320x320 are better because of the clear factor. 960x960 or 1280x1280 as base resolution seem to give better results. 640x640 scaled to 320x320 doesn‘t give enough sharpness. I think, this is because of the low resolution. I use now 1280x1280 pixel and i am fine with it.

But there is another reason to use higher resolutions: the watchscreens are getting better in future and then i have material i can use directly…

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Can’t afford Photoshop so I’m just using Gimp for all the elements and then building the rest in Facer.

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That’s what I use a lot of the time. Mostly cutting things out and creating transparent layers.

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