Improving and Enhancing Signatures

Sometimes your making a sig and for some reason it doesnt feel right, well in this tutorial I am gonning to show you a few tips and tricks to make your signatures much better. This is for newbies and advanced sig makers.

1. Brushing

Brushing is the main part of the sig but can be very easy if you know how but there are many people that do it wrong. Firtly go get some brushes, I suggest you go to devianART. So the first thing to do is to make a new document I suggest sigs should be no bigger than 350x130 pixels. Go to-->Filter-->Render-->Clouds.

Make sure the clouds are even, just keep hiting Ctrl+F until you get an even set:

Good

Bad

Ok, now select some brushes and the brush tool and lightly brush onto the layer, DO NOT OVER BRUSH and use black white and some of the greys, then make a new layer render clouds again and brush over again (use a different brush set if you want) Then set this layer to overlay or soft light (which ever looks better). Then repeat this for a few more layer until your happy. Then its time to add color. If your brushing becomes to dark try adding a few layers of light clouds on overlay above and in between brushed layers.

2. Color

Ok color in a sig can be really easy or really hard. So here are some tips. NEVER use a colorised hue/saturation layer. Instead use color balances. Color balances are one of the easiest and best ways to add color to or sig. To use a color balance go to layer-->new adjustment layer-->color balance. Then a window should pop-up move the sliders and find the color you want, remeber to go onto shadows and higlights not just midtones, this will add more deph to your sigs. The problem is sometimes a plain colour balance can be boring so try adjusting the blending options the best one to use is overlay, it creates more deph to your sigs.

Blending Option: Normal

Blending Option: Overlay

Another way to multi color sigs is to create on color balance, then duplicate this layer then double click the layer and change the color (make sure the first layer is not visable, click the little eye) to make it different from the first but make sure that it does not clash with the first color. The two layers together should lokk bad and very bright. So click on the top color balance layer and select the layer mask, now with some brushes (make sure color is set to black) brush lightly onto the layer mask this should make your sig mlti colored.

Clashing Colors

Complimentry Colors

Another way to colour your sigs is when you are brushing use the colors you want but set each layer down to 50-70% opacity and then build up layers. This works for some but i personal do not like it because it is more work and can be harder.

3. Renders and Blending

So now you need to get a render, try these links to find one you like a fits your sig. GameRenders, Planet Renders, and Game Wallpapers (you will have to cut the background off these yourself using the polygonal lasso tool)

Right so save the render you want to use and open it in photoshop, go to-->image-->image size and re-size the render so it will fit in your sig. I sugest you goto-->image-->apply image and fiddle with the settings this can make your render look better. Then copy and paste the render into your sig. It should look like this.

Without Apply Image

With Apply Image

One simple way to blend your renders is to get the polygonal lasso tool and roughly go around the edge of the render, then right click and feather about 10-15 pixels. Then press ctrl+shift+i to invert the selection and then delete. then fiddle with opacity of the layer until it looks blended well. this is very basic and will only work with very simple renders. The way i use is to duplicate the layer contain the render until you have three layers with it on. Make all the render layers invisable apart from the top most. Then get a the eraser to and using a small round brush with hardness set a 0% erase around the edge of the render. Then turn this top layer off and the next on down on, and repeat but erase less of the outline. Make all the layers viable and set the top two an opacity of 50%. then on the bottom most layer do goto-->filter-->blur-->gaussain blur and set it to 4.6 pixels. Your render should now be blended. Create a new layer and just brush lightly around the render and set this layer to overlay or softlight. Your sig should now look somthing like this:

4. Text

Ok, text is the hardest part of a sig. Im not going to go to talk about effects just tips on how to make sure your text is good. ( I many expand this section at a later date) Keep your text small and plain and simple, fancy fonts will not fit many sigs. If your unsure what font to us just use the good old trusty pixel font at size 8 in a color the matches your render and background. Make sure your text does not sand-out to much (by this a mean that it detracts from the rest of the sig) but is not hard to read. Stay AWAY from Bevel and Emboss it can make text look weird or hard to read.

5. Borders

Nearly finished, right the best borders you can put on a sig are 1 px borders or 3 pixel borders, both are really easy. For the 1 pixel boder, create a new layer and select it using the marque tool then goto-->edit-->stroke and set it to 1 pixel and the color of your choice (usually black). For a 3 px border creat a new layer and do the same as above but make the stroke 3 pixels and white. then set the blending options on this layer to softlight. Create a new layer and do a 1 pixel border on that using the steps above. STAY AWAY from tech borders often the look bad and take up to much space.

6. Make or Break

This can make a sig look excellent or rubbish. On top of all the layers add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer and set both of the settings between 10-20. This can make your sig look really good or it can ruin it so choose which looks best with or without.

Without

With

Finished

Now your sig should be finsihed and should look really good.