Signature Making Guide

[shisehise]

Here we are, a signature making guide from the Hypocritical 8 graphics shop. In this guide we'll be teaching you how to make your own signature. We will cover everything from the simple tools of photoshop to the advanced graphic designing.

This guide will be made mostly by Flodian, Blarfles and I but will be part of the Hyprocritical 8.

Here you go, Lesson 1

Renders

The tools of render extraction

1. The polygonal lasso tool

Pros : Flexible, Easy to Control

Cons : Time comsuming

Example



As you can see, the render seems to blend into the background and is hard to extract with the magnetic lasso tool and the magic wand tool.



I go around the main render with my polygonal lasso tool, clicking and making checkpoints around the render. (Don't worry if you make a mistake press the backspace button to go back to the previous checkpoint)

I inverse the selection to the background, and presto, the background is now selected
(Shortcut : Shift + Ctrl + I)



Now I just press the backspace button, and the background is gone. The render is now transparent and ready for use.



You may notice the edges of the render are choppy and not smooth. We will be using the blur tool to fix that.

Blur the edges of the render. As you can see, the dark lines from the background that weren't cropped out was removed.



Difficulty of tool : 7/10

2. The magic wand tool

Pros : Easy to Use, Fast and "Noob" Friendly

Cons : Selective renders only

Example



Use the magic wand tool and drag around the border. It will be selected like this



Just hit the backspace button to remove it, and you will be left with something like this



Once again blur out the edges to make it look more natural and less choppy



There you go, you have your render. Ready for sig use

Difficulty of tool : 2/10

3. Magnetic Lasso Tool

Pros : Flexible, Easy to Use

Cons : Selective renders only, Time Consuming

Example



As you can see, this render doesn't blend into the background but it still going to be hard to take out with both the magic wand tool and the polygonal lasso tool. This time, we use the magnetic lasso tool. This tool sets checkpoints around the image based on colour and shade. However, you can still set checkpoints manually by clicking. As always, you may press backspace if you need to redo a checkpoint.

End result



Inverse the selection (Shift +Ctrl + I) then press backspace. You now have a transparent render ready for sig making use.



As you can see, the render is perfect and has no bits of the original background. A high quality render ready for action. However, if you want, you can blur the edges to make it look more realistic.



Difficulty of tool : 5/10

Application



Played around with a fire background, gradiant maps, wind text and wind renders

Minilesson : Photoshop Toolbar

Here's a look at the main parts of our toorbar



1. The move tool: Move around your images with mouse or arrow keys

2. The Marquee tool: Selects an area. You can either fill the area or stroke the area

3. The Lasso tool: Selects an area in more depth.

4. Magic Wand Tool: Selects patches of the same colour

5. Crop Tool: Crops a part of the image.

6. Slice Tool: No need to go into depth about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

7. Healing Tool : No need to go into depth about it.

8. The Pencil/Brush Tool : Your free style tool. Draw around with it, create custom brushes

9. The Pattern/Clone Stamp Tool : Makes a pattern across your image. Creat custom patterns

10. The History Brush Tool : No need to go into depth about it.

11. Eraser Tool : Erases a part of the image

12. PaintBucket/Gradiant Tool : Fills in a part of a image or creates a design from one end of the image to another

13. Blur/Sharpen/Smudge Tool : Blur the image

14. Dodge Tool : No need to go into depth about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

15. Pen Tool : No need to go into depth about it.

16. Text Tool : Creates a new text layer which you can type onto

17. Selection Tool : No need to go into depth about it.

18. Shape Tool : No need to go into depth about it.

Lesson 3 : Background Design



Hey, look. A good background for my next sig. How do we make it even more better?

step 1. Brighten / Darken



What's this? To Brighten/Darken the image of course! Found under the Image > Adjustments > Curves menu, or just shortcut (Ctrl + M) Also available in the layers palette. I decided to lower the curve. You can do it by changing the output/input or dragging the black line. Here's the result



Step 2. Increasing colour

The blue stands out too much and there isn't enough green. What to do? Our friend, the curves menu helps us again!



Currently under the red menu. Also available are the green blue, and RGB menu, which is the black line you saw earlier. Since we want to bring out the green and lessen the blue, we will move the green line up and the blue line down, something like this



The new background now looks like this



I want to colour the spaces between the trees a little more paler. I've decided to use the brush tool set to about 15 pixels. The foreground colour is white and the opacity is about 10 percent.



I have also brushed the streaks of sunlight to make them seem a little more brighter. Set the layer Opacity to 50% and it'll look even nicer



Adding a "sun" into the background. We now go to the Filter > Render > Lens Flare menu and set the lens flare to 75 percent in the top right corner. Set it to 105mm Prime



The result :



Next, open a new 450x150 document. Flatten your current background into one layer and drag it (move tool) onto the 450x150 document. Resize the image with Free Transform (Ctrl + T)



I feel this background will look better darkened just a little. It will also look better with the trees standing out better. Now we change the brightness and contrasts to something like this.



Final Product



Application :

Lesson 4 : Simple Animation Tweening

What is animation? What is tweening?

Animation : A dynamic/moving image that is normally static/still

Tweening : Creating a smooth change between two frames

Example



As you can see the text in this image appears and disappears. We will be learning how to do that using Photoshop

Step 1. Create a new photoshop document (Ctrl + N) Size 150x150 for avatars and 450x150 for signatures



For simplicity of this guide, we will be using a normal white background. We will be showing you how to animate using photoshop.

Step 2. Making the animation menu visible. Go to Window > Animation



Here is a look at your animation menu.



To the bottom right corner, you can toggle between the Frame and Timeline options. I prefer the Frame since it gives versability and is easier to use.

In your new document, use the text tool and write what you want to say on your signature/avatar.



Create a new frame in your animation menu.



Remember you animate three things : Position, Opacity and Effects

For example, in the second frame, I'll move the text down and lower the opacity to 25%. I will also add a simple stroke, red of 2 pixels.

Here's what it looks like now



Here's what our animation menu currently looks like



We will now tween the two frames, to make the transformation look fluid. Click on the chain of circles in your animation menu

Here is the menu that pop's up



I decided to insert 10 frames between the two.

Set the frame delay to 0.1 seconds. This is what your animation menu will look like.



Save your image ready for web and devices (Under the File menu, Shortcut : Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S)

Here is your final product!



Fluid motion between two frames... perfect!

The most important thing about animation and tweening is to try and experiment with all the different effects you can do.

Here are some more examples of animation and tweening

Blurring



Stroking



Good luck and have fun with animation tweening!

Minilesson : Borders

Creating a nice and attractive border for your sig

Create a new empty layer on top of all the other layers.



Select everything in the layer with the rectangle marquee tool.



Right click stroke and then imput the following settings. You may change the width depending on how wide you want your border to be. I recommend no greating than 2 pixels. Pick the colour of your border and select the stroke to be inside the selection.



Final Product :



Note*Yes, I know I used this sig as an example with a border before, but the concept is relatively easy

Lesson 5 : Custom Text

Here's a sample of my amazing bloody text.

Step 1. Created a new photoshop document, size 400x350

Type in what you want with Ghoulish Fright text, you can find it at dafonts.com. Make it a nice and bloody red colour



Next, use various sized brushes from 4-6 pixels to create straight lines dropping down from the text. Hold down the shift key for a straight line.



Next, open up the Liquify option under Filter. The menu should look something like this.



Select the pucker tool and then set the brush size to 20, the brush density to 25, the brush pressure to 25 and the brush rate to 28. Then, go down the lines we drew waving your brush back and forth slightly. Once your finished, it should look something like this.



Now, we use the bloat tool and then, using the same settings, click and hold the brush to the end of your lines, for about a second. Do this to everyone and it should look like this.



To spice up the blood and make it more convincing, add a drop shadow and bevel and emboss it. Open up your layer styles menu, found under layers. Imput these settings



The blood still looks a little bland so we will bevel and emboss it. Imput these settings



This is what your final product should look like. Just drag onto your signature and resize it!



Up next, flame text!

Flodian, Blarfles and I will try to update this as many times as possible. Have fun sigmaking!

Don't be afraid to try making your own sigs and posting them on this thread!

*Guide Intended for DotaStrategy.com and WCWorld.tk only*

You want me to post mine here?

^.^

We all want a master's advice Sensei-Shise ^_^

Okay there... updated

^.^

I should get a promotion for this

OMG THANKS FOR THE GUIDDE!!!!

Excellent! Thanks for teh guide!

Should I put my basic sig guide here?

Yes, you must ^_^

yeah put it! so i can make a better sig!

@crash and burn

Just pm it to me and I'll add it to the first post

Yeah!more tips means better sig!

All hail graphic masters!

Hail the Graphics Masters!*Bows down*

How do we create a shadow again?

@sopas

Drop shadow, in the fx menu

Or under layers

Riight. Okay thanks.