@Raven @kartoFlane
Actually, the psd doesn't work for me. I don't have photoshop, and GIMP imports the psd as a black lineart layer and a solid black layer. That's a shame.
GIMP is my program of choice for image editing. Free and powerful enough to get what I need done. I'll be telling you what I know with GIMP.
Here are some shield tutorials. I like Kiloace's. Pick which one suits your needs best.
For cloaking images, I do this procedure. I'm going to demonstrate on the banana thing I uploaded in the ship preview thread.
First, I go Filters>Edge-Detect>Edge, which brings up this window.
You'll want to set it to Laplace algorithm, amount: 1, and "black". Which should give you something like this:
After that, go to Colors>Invert (not Value invert). This turns it from black with white edges to white with black edges.
Then go to Colors>Brightness-Contrast, and change the Brightness to 127. This is to reduce the "harshness" of the lines, so that the black edges become grey and thus more easily colorized.
Which should give something like this:
Then go to Colors>Colorize. Personally, the default of Hue 180, Saturation 50, and Lightness 0 works just fine for me, but your image editing software may vary. Mess around. You should eventually have something white with blueish outlines.
Next, delete all the pure white parts. This is done with Color Select on the Toolbox.
And that should give a complete cloaking image. It won't have fancy glows like handmade images, and it may not get all the edges, but it's still pretty good for about ~30 seconds worth of clicking.
And here it is on a space background.
For gibs, I usually just use freeform selection to cut parts of my hull image off, then paste in gibs from vanilla FTL. For the Lux Tempestas, I went a little more freeform and just did it myself.
I don't like glows so I don't do red glows. :L