@Jdeases, if the current megapack image is in 250x250, it makes no sense to replace it with a cut-out which is in 180x180, which is why I rejected a whole lot of the cuts in this pack. If you still have the original sources for them (and for the ones accepted), they might well be cuttable in 250x250 and would certainly be improvements. Also remember to include a collar in all your cuts (as per the tutorial in the first post of this thread) and to leave no more than 2-3 pixels above the head for all cuts.

ah ok, I did not have the size of the image in time, I will try to correct it, thanks for the comments! 

I apologize for answering this only now due to obligations. I'm interested after downloading this file, how can I put it in Photoshop and use it? Is there a video tutorial? I'm not coping, I'm just getting started. Thanks!

I'm sure if you google how to add action files to Photoshop you'll find some guide on how to add it. It's quite straightforward but I'm not on my PC till later to be able to explain it properly.

For FM22, SI changed how the cutout images included in the game work. Instead of being transparent .png files, they're now compressed .jpg files on a black background, with an extra black and white .png file with “[mask]” in the filename, which is used by the game to create transparency. This means that the player face images take up less space, but it means that it takes an extra step to make them transparent if you want to use them in the megapack. One other thing to keep in mind is that, because they're compressed .jpg images, they suffer from Compression Artifacts so the image quality will usually be worse compared to the .png player images from previous FM games, and the player images in the Cutout Megapack.

To make them transparent, first open the mask image in an image editor program - I use Photoshop but I believe Paint.NET, GIMP or Photopea should work as free alternatives. Press Ctrl+A to select the whole image and press Ctrl+C to copy it. Then, open the player face image, and click the button here in the Layers panel to add a Layer Mask.

Next,  go to the tab named “Channels” next to the Layers panel.

Now in the Channels menu, there's a hidden layer, in Photoshop called "Layer 0 Mask" in this case. Click the button here to enable the layer.

And then with that layer selected, press Ctrl+V to paste the mask image into the layer mask. Now you have an image with transparency! Then just go back to the Layers tab and click on the thumbnail for the player image, and press Ctrl+D to deselect the selection.

From there, you can do any of the normal image adjustments you make before completing a cutout - such as removing leftover snow (dark or light edges on the cutout, particularly around the hair), changing the brightness/contrast, or tweaking the colour balance.

Here's the resulting cutout player image - on the left is without any adjustments, and on the right is with brightness/contrast adjusted, and the green hue removed from the image using mons' Image Adjustments Action file for Photoshop. If I was submitting this image to the Cutout Megapack, I'd also tweak it more to remove snow/dark edges from the image, but I won't get into that as it's covered in other tutorials.

I'll add it to the second post for future ease of reference @weeniehutjr 🍻

It's a lot of extra work for someone, when one can very easily download the megapack (or the individual cut-out from the search tool) which will, in a lot of cases, have a cut-out of a superior quality which will be very recent.

Agreed, but I think that in some cases it could still be useful.

Agree absolutely 👍

Is there anybody using GIMP to create pictures for the facepack?

As already told mons, I really struggle using PS CS2. GIMP was always the tool to create our old facepack or any other easy graphics. Cut-out are special without the action file to e.g. remove snow or stuff like that.

Hope for some help. Thank you in advance.

I know we're speaking via PM but I just want to let you know that you can get by without the actions visible in a lot of my tutorials. They're just there as hotkeys to save yourself some time when doing common tasks such as downsizing images. It'll just take you a few seconds longer to do most of them manually. I'm sure that you can create actions yourself on Photoshop once you get the hang of it.

Hello, 

I have problems with Photopea. My method for make cuts is the following:

1.- Use Croppola.

2. Remove.bg.

3. Photopea.

When edit collar and crop the image, my cut size is 250x298, ot 250x291, for example. 

How resize the cut to 250x250, without deforming????

When cropping the image, keep the shift button pressed - it will then select a perfect square.

This is explained from 4.20 onwards of the below video.

My attemp with this player:

Any opinion????

Much better, but try to crop it even closer to the chin 👍

Like this???

This is cropped closer to the chin but further from the top of the hair than the previous version…

Not the same player, but whats your opinion for this???

Better than previous, but you should take care to avoid the shoulders being cut off before the edge of the canvas (below is another example, showing the gaps between where the shoulders are cut off and the edge of the canvas).

Hi @mons , linking from here to get feedback on my first attempt. 

It's perfectly fine - but remember that cut-outs should be 250 pixels tall and wide 😉

I've fixed and uploaded it for you 👍

Thanks for the feedback @mons! 

I thought by adjusting Image Size in Photopea (referencing your tutorial vid) that both values were being set to 250. I think what happens is when I change the Width THEN Height, the Width value gets auto-updated to something else. How do I ensure this consistency? Do I need to update Canvas size to 250x250 first then Image size to 250x250?

When cropping the image, keep the shift button pressed - it will then select a perfect square.

This is explained from 4.20 onwards of the below video.

@claudiu-marian it's best if you upload your cuts here if you're looking for advice on how to improve them

Hi!

Could someone give me feedback on this face?

Thanks and regards,

Sergio.

Two things I'd change about it:

a) for images like this in which the head is tilted to one side, they tend to look much better in-game if you rotate the source before cropping them. Here's what I mean:

and (b) all cuts must contain a collar within 2-3 pixels of the chin. Here's how to achieve it in cases where the collar in the source image is lower than that:

I made a simple actions file for photopea as well, but don't think I've shared it before. You open it just like you would with an image, if it doesn't show up then, you need to click on ‘Window > actions'.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/qo445p1hbhq65ae/Cutting.atn/file

It will look like this, and you can just click on the play button to apply something 👍 

Added to OP👍

alright so i got all the basics down in Photopea, but when i crop there is quite a big quality drop in a HD face-cut out pic, any idea how to maintain a fairly high quality still?

When you crop an image down to 250x250, it will inevitably decrease a bit in terms of quality. If you're not doing it already, my recommendation would be to crop the original source to an area around the face before putting the source image through remove.bg. While the free version of remove.bg is restricted to a maximum of 500x500, that won't really affect the quality of the eventual cut if the source image is just the area around the face.

This is illustrated from 2.34 to 3.34 in the below video, in fact 👍

If I've not understood your point, perhaps you could provide the original image and the cut after putting it through photopea, for the purpose of providing feedback 👍

working on improvements for now.

Another question, whats with the collar rule? why is it necessary? ive personally been editing out the collar throughout the years ive used face packs and cut-outs.