Basics of Signature Making.

[Freek]

Hey guys. I've seen a lot of simple mistakes to signatures that would be so much better if they'd just do some simple things. Some people mess up where to put what layer, they smudge incorrectly, their borders don't fit, or their text doesn't match at all. Here, I will help you with that .

Layers...
Blending the render in is often a hard thing to do. A lot of people skip over this and slap the render on top hoping it looks okay. Don't be that person. There's almost always a way to make it fit.

»Make 2 copies of your render untouched. Make the 2nd one invisible. On the 1st one go to filter blur gaussian blur at 2.3. Now unhide the 2nd one, and go to overlay as it's blending option. Then go filter sharpen sharpen. Should blend a little now.

»Select the marquee tool, hold control and click the little box next to the layers name. It should be selected now. Now go select inverse. Then right click on the sig and hit feather. Hit OK. Then hit delete about 1 or 2 times. Don't do this too much or it doesn't look good.

»After blending the render in, sometimes colors don't match. Add a gradient map of black and white and select Dither. Make it 20-50% opacity. Then go Invert. Set it to 20% opacity and Hue. Then make a brightness and contrast layer and mess with it and the opacity. Then make a photofilter layer finally, and select what color you want your sig to be based around.

Smudging...

Often people take smudging as a "click here and drag everywhere until it looks smudged". No. You need pattern or flow to follow. It's hard to teach flow and smudging through text. But all I can say is to try to follow a specific movement of your hand in each smudge. Make sure you smudge outwards on both sides of the render, or smudge in one direction. Never (almost never) randomly smudge, it looks bad.

Borders...
Easiest thing to do yet people fail at putting one on. If you feel it looks too bland you can even fix that.

»Making double pixel borders are nice. Select a darker color FROM THE SIG and select a second color but pick a lighter one. Now make a new layer and go Image > Apply Image. Then selecting that new layer hit CTRL+A. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the light color, at 2PX inside. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the dark color, do inside at 1PX. A border is made

»Want the border to show up but blend every time? This is how I make my borders. Make a new layer. Do Image> Apply Image. Hit CTRL+A on that layer. Go Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 3PX. Then Edit> Stroke> and do White, inside, at 2PX. Then do Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 1PX. Then set that layer to overlay. It blends the border and makes the sig darker. Mess with the opacity if you'd like.

Text...

People often think their text needs to be big and fancy. In fact, when you make sigs, you want your viewer to see the designs of the sig, not the text. Which is why you try to blend the text as much as possible.

»Placement. Try to follow the 4 dot rule. Thats what I call it. There are 4 specific places where you can almost always place your text and it will look good. Here:



Pick a dot that is away from the render preferably.

Or you could follow the flow of the render, as I did:

[IMG]https://i441.photobucke*****m/albums/qq136/SignatureFreek/Signatures/Lineage2Freeksig.png[/IMG]

Find a line, possibly straighter than others, and rotate your text to the same angle.

»Color. This is easy. Depending on where you place your text, pick a distinct color from its background. Not too distinct though :P. After you have selected it, lower the opacity a bit, to make it less distracting.

»Font. Often people think that font needs to be fancy and standing out. Incorrect. Try to pick the most basic font that fits your style of sig. Since mine is fancy-ish, I picked a stock cursive. I often use Arial and it's settings mixed up a bit or even Courier. Font does not (always) need to be fancy. If you decide to pick a fancy text, don't make it too fancy or it tends to look bad small.

If anyone needs anything else added, I will add it. Just post here! Thank me!

[Obey]

Hey guys. I've seen a lot of simple mistakes to signatures that would be so much better if they'd just do some simple things. Some people mess up where to put what layer, they smudge incorrectly, their borders don't fit, or their text doesn't match at all. Here, I will help you with that .

Layers...
Blending the render in is often a hard thing to do. A lot of people skip over this and slap the render on top hoping it looks okay. Don't be that person. There's almost always a way to make it fit.

»Make 2 copies of your render untouched. Make the 2nd one invisible. On the 1st one go to filter blur gaussian blur at 2.3. Now unhide the 2nd one, and go to overlay as it's blending option. Then go filter sharpen sharpen. Should blend a little now.

»Select the marquee tool, hold control and click the little box next to the layers name. It should be selected now. Now go select inverse. Then right click on the sig and hit feather. Hit OK. Then hit delete about 1 or 2 times. Don't do this too much or it doesn't look good.

»After blending the render in, sometimes colors don't match. Add a gradient map of black and white and select Dither. Make it 20-50% opacity. Then go Invert. Set it to 20% opacity and Hue. Then make a brightness and contrast layer and mess with it and the opacity. Then make a photofilter layer finally, and select what color you want your sig to be based around.

Smudging...

Often people take smudging as a "click here and drag everywhere until it looks smudged". No. You need pattern or flow to follow. It's hard to teach flow and smudging through text. But all I can say is to try to follow a specific movement of your hand in each smudge. Make sure you smudge outwards on both sides of the render, or smudge in one direction. Never (almost never) randomly smudge, it looks bad.

Borders...
Easiest thing to do yet people fail at putting one on. If you feel it looks too bland you can even fix that.

»Making double pixel borders are nice. Select a darker color FROM THE SIG and select a second color but pick a lighter one. Now make a new layer and go Image > Apply Image. Then selecting that new layer hit CTRL+A. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the light color, at 2PX inside. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the dark color, do inside at 1PX. A border is made

»Want the border to show up but blend every time? This is how I make my borders. Make a new layer. Do Image> Apply Image. Hit CTRL+A on that layer. Go Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 3PX. Then Edit> Stroke> and do White, inside, at 2PX. Then do Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 1PX. Then set that layer to overlay. It blends the border and makes the sig darker. Mess with the opacity if you'd like.

Text...

People often think their text needs to be big and fancy. In fact, when you make sigs, you want your viewer to see the designs of the sig, not the text. Which is why you try to blend the text as much as possible.

»Placement. Try to follow the 4 dot rule. Thats what I call it. There are 4 specific places where you can almost always place your text and it will look good. Here:



Pick a dot that is away from the render preferably.

Or you could follow the flow of the render, as I did:

[IMG]https://i441.photobucke*****m/albums/qq136/SignatureFreek/Signatures/Lineage2Freeksig.png[/IMG]

Find a line, possibly straighter than others, and rotate your text to the same angle.

»Color. This is easy. Depending on where you place your text, pick a distinct color from its background. Not too distinct though :P. After you have selected it, lower the opacity a bit, to make it less distracting.

»Font. Often people think that font needs to be fancy and standing out. Incorrect. Try to pick the most basic font that fits your style of sig. Since mine is fancy-ish, I picked a stock cursive. I often use Arial and it's settings mixed up a bit or even Courier. Font does not (always) need to be fancy. If you decide to pick a fancy text, don't make it too fancy or it tends to look bad small.

If anyone needs anything else added, I will add it. Just post here! Thank me!

Very nice man.

Wow,
this is great,

CRUEL BITCH STICK IT NOW!

[Iwin]

WOW!! Thanks Freek! I think Cruel should sticky/put in resource thread immediately.

[lethalhuman8]

Wow, very good tutorial freek, very good indeed X_X lmao, i could even use that my newest cs3 sig is in my name its my 3rd ever sig made with cs3 lol

[.Amnesia]

This is soo helpfull for those who want to get started !

[Slatz]

woot now i know how to do borders xD (never knew be4.....>.>)

[mucholoco100]

hey lethalhuman8 would you mind making me a sig..i couldnt do it even if i tried..no questions asked..just wondering if u can make me something having to do with war, like a combat arms headshot type thing would be awesome..thanks..=/

[Candlejack101]

something you should add is render placement, dont forget to mention the rule of thirds :>

[b16hatch94]

cool shiet doode.... very very good

[Willitend]

i will keep this thread in mind. thanks bud

[KingReptar]

cool.. ty for the tips

[Sharpcut]

what do you mean by the marquee tool? :S
*edit* nvm i just found what it is lol. But i don't understand what is "Add a gradient map of black and white and select Dither. Make it 20-50% opacity". What do you mean by a gradient map?? you mean the back ground or the render?

[.Amnesia]

O my god, You don't even know what a gradient map is?
Go to image-->Adjustment Layer-->Gradient map
choose black and white, click the ''dither'' box, and then lower the opacity to 20-50.

[Sharpcut]

O my god, You don't even know what a gradient map is?
Go to image-->Adjustment Layer-->Gradient map
choose black and white, click the ''dither'' box, and then lower the opacity to 20-50.

ehm...didn't you see my edit??...this isn't my question but anyway thanks for the reply...(and if i'm in the tutorial section do you think that i'm pro??....)

[baconxx14]

Great guide, mad props for you