MEME WAR TUTORIAL: LESSON 1 : LAYERS

posted 1 year ago by Join-or-die 1 year ago by Join-or-die +72 / -2

credit Reddit user u/Brick_Suit I'm copying some useful T_D posts over here so they are not lost forever

We want YOU for the coming MEME war!

r/The_Donald is deploying a program to train you how to meme our side to victory in 2020 and to help KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

If you love America, you already have the greatest asset you will need to succeed, the heart of a patriot!

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TRAINING SESSION 01: LAYERS

Concepts

99.9% of any memes you make will involve the use and manipulation of layers. If you already know what layers are, great. But even if you do not know what layers are, you already know how they operate.

If you have ever done any “scrapbooking” or had a Colorforms playset, you already know how layers work. The uppermost layer on the top of the "stack" is always fully visible and it blocks whatever is underneath it.

Photo editing programs use “layers” to stack images/text on top of each other. What you see in the final image depends on the order in which the individual layers are arranged and the properties of each layer. The image on the bottom of the stack is often referred to as the “background” image (which simply means that it is on the bottom and that all other layers will appear as if they are placed on top of it. In Paint,net this background layer is also known as Layer 1).

Take the example of a page in a magazine that shows a picture of a tropical beach. If you tear out the page and put it your scrapbook it becomes your “background” layer. Remember that “background” it is the image on the bottom of the stack. Next, you decide to add a picture of yourself to the beach scene so that it looks like you are there on the beach. You find a picture yourself that works and you paste it over the “background” layer of the beach scene. You just made a new image in the real world using the same concept of layers that are used in photo editing programs. You now have two layers in your image. The background layer of the beach scene, and the picture layer of yourself that you have pasted on top of the background layer.

As a last step you decide to add some text to the page, but you don’t want to cover up a lot of the picture, so you you get a sharpie pen and write, “ME AT THE BEACH” on a strip of clear plastic that you have handy. This is essentially what a “text layer” is. The letters are visible and cover up any image below, but the clear plastic you wrote them on doesn’t block anything and the beach scene and the picture of you are still visible underneath. (Of course, if you arranged the text so that the word “BEACH” was on top of the picture of you, the letters would cover you up.)

So that’s how you would make a picture in the real world that has three layers. Today’s training session is about how to make a similar three layer image in the electronic world.

This link Your guide to layers leads you to a very detailed explanation of how layers work within the Paint.net app that we are using for our training sessions here. Feel free to watch it now or at any point if you want insight into how to manipulate layers work in Paint,net. (See the bottom of this post for a link to download Paint,net.)

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Practical application

In this training session we will be making a simple meme that shows Michael Avenatti giving a lonely press conference at a remote phone booth located in the Mojave desert. Your background layer will be a picture of the phone booth which you can copy below:

This picture of a phone booth. http://magaimg.net/img/8o72.jpg

Once you have this image open on your screen, make a copy of it by using a right mouse click, and selecting “copy image” (Apple users are your own here but I imagine you know what to do)

Now jump into your Paint.net app and do the following. Hit the EDIT button located next to FILE on the top left of the menu bar, Select “Paste into New Image” from the dropdown menu that appears. Paint,Net will now create a new image of the phone booth scene that you just copied. Note how this is labeled as “Layer 1”.

On top of this layer you will place an image of Michael Avenatti standing at a podium. So use this link to get that image displayed in your browser http://magaimg.net/img/8o73.png Next, simply copy it the same way you did with the phone booth scene by using a right mouse click, and selecting “copy image”

(NOTE: The image of Avenatti is a special type of file, a .PNG file, that allows for an image to appear on a TRANSPARENT background. Using the scrapbook example, its as if the picture of Avenatti was printed on a sheet of clear plastic. How to make these PNG images will be the next week’s lesson.)

Next, return to your Paint,Net app, select the EDIT button again, but this time select “Paste into New Layer” from the drop down menu and the image of Avenatti will be put on top of your phone booth image as a new layer. Note how this new layer of Avenatti is labeled “Layer 2”

Of course you are not going to leave this layer of Avenatti just floating in the picture, so hit your "M" key on your keyboard (a shortcut key) which will change your cursor to the Move Pixels tool (if it is not already there by default), place your cursor over Avenatti, and just left click, hold, and then drag the image to where you want it to be in the scene. Semi Advanced challenge: Feel free to get bold and resize this layer by selecting and moving the circular "handles" on the corners of the Avenatti image.

The final step in this training session will be to add a text layer. But before you can add it, you should DESELECT the Avenatti Layer 2 image that you pasted in. To do this go back to the EDIT button and then hit Deselect from the drop down menu. (You will find it all the way at the bottom). The flashing dashed lines around the Avenatti layer will now disappear.

If you add new text in at this point you will actually be putting it into the same layer as your Avenatti image (Layer 2) which we don't want, so you next need to create a blank third layer. Do this by going to the LAYERS button on the menu bar and selecting the very first option on the drop down menu which is "Add New Layer". At this point a completely blank Layer 3 will appear and this is where you will place your text.

You can select the Text tool by clicking on it on the vertical toolbar or by hitting the "T" key on your keyboard (the shortcut key to the Text tool). Your cursor should now change to a bracket and once you click somewhere on Layer 3 and once it does you can begin to enter your text. You can use any caption you like or just a generic "Michael Avenatti's Lonely Press Conference". You can also change the font and text size using the controls on screen and can also move your text around using the Move Pixels tool (Keyboard shortcut "M"). For this image white text will probably work best and should be sized near 48 depending on the length and placement of the text.

Proper text formatting can be very complicated and will be the subject of our third tutorial, so if you want help on it for now, please visit this link Adding Text to your Memes

This link will also be helpful for some of the other basic concepts mentioned above such as moving layers, selecting and deselecting. Paint.net : The Basics

When you have your new meme all arranged the way you want it, you are ready to save it. Go to the FILE button on the menu bar and select Save As from the drop down menu. Note that at this point Paint,Net is giving you a default option to save your entire PROJECT as a .pdn file. This is a file that you can reopen with Paint,Net later and all your current layers will be in place. You can add more, subtract some etc. Save your file as a project and then hit File - Save As again, but this time use the drop down menu to change .PDN to .JPG . This will save your entire project as one single image with NO LAYERS. This is the image that you can share, send, and post.

Feel free to post links to your finished images below, to substitute other lonely places you find images of as a new background, and to basically just explore the theme as you see fit, or adopt it to a new one.

Look in the mirror, you are memeing now!

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While you are welcome to train with us using your own software, we will be gearing our initial lessons towards the use of a free image editing app named Paint.net so that everyone can participate before moving into more advanced meme techniques with paid software.