[TUT] Making a good sig

Programs

First you need to get yourself some sort of image editing program. The best program to make a sig is Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is a very expensive program but there are ways to get it for free. They also have a 30 day free trail on their website. Another program that I hear was good and very comparable to Photoshop is a program called Paint.NET. No thats not a website its what the program is called. I have never tried it so I dont know anything about it. But im pretty sure you get the whole program for free.

30 day free trial of Photoshop...
http://www.download.com/Adobe-Photoshop/...11172.html

Pain.NET...
http://www.download.com/Paint-NET/3003-2...38146.html


Renders

Now that you got yourself a program to make a sig. You need to get a picture you want to be in your sig. The picture you use in your sig must have no background. You can any picture and cut the background out. To do that just get your eraser tool and start erasing the background. Then once the background is all gone you have yourself whats called a render. Now save that as a .Png file. It must be a .Png file. If its not the backround will be replaced with white. You an also download pre made renders from websites listed below.

Pre made renders...
http://www.planetrenders.net/
http://www.gamerenders.com/
http://www.clantemplates.com/

Backgrounds

This is a MAJOR part in making a cool sig. There a thousands ways to make a cool background and there is really no right or wrong way to make one. Just experiment and make some cool stuff. Here is the tutorial on how to make one type of background. I did not make this tutorial. I found it on another forum...

This tutorial is designed to help even the noobiest noob out there be able to make a signature background from start to finish in Adobe Photoshop CS.

What you need:
400x150 Document in Adobe Photoshop
Default colors (Black and White. Hit the D key)
Abstract brushes, grunge brushes, whatever kind of brushes you would like to use. You can download brushes at places such as Deviant Art. This is actually the best place to get brush's. (http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/a...&limit=24)

Installing Brushes:
Once you download some brushes to your desktop, all you have to do is unzip any zip files you have and select all the brush files together and right click -> cut. (downloading brushes does not consist of saving the picture of them on deviantart. You actually have to click a download button). Now open windows explorer and follow the following path C:\program files\adobe\photoshop cs\presets\brushes and paste the files into this folder. Now your brushes are installed (note: you cannot install brushes while photoshop is opened. They will not show up if you try to load them).

Loading Brushes in Photoshop:
To load a brush in photoshop once you have it installed, you must open up the program. Then click on the brush tool.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...h-Tool.gif
Now in the upper left hand corner please click the brush selection menu.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...n-Menu.gif
Now click on the little arrow.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-arrow.gif
Now go to the “load brushes” option. Click this and select a set of brushes. They will be located in the brush selection menu.

Congratulations. You have loaded a set of brushes.

Make sure you have a new 400 wide x 150 high pixel document ready for work (It should have a transparent background). Set your colors to black and white by hitting the D key on your keyboard.

To start, fill your current layer with black using the fill tool.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...l-tool.gif
Next, create a new layer by clicking on the new layer button.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...button.gif
Now select a brush (using the brush tool), any grunge or abstract brush will do for the purpose of this tutorial. Now click on the flow option. This adjusts the speed at which the color comes out of the brush. Set your flow to around 50% for the first part.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...option.gif
Reverse the colors by hitting the X key now. Now you are using the color white, instead of black. Now take your brush and click on the sig background (make sure you are brushing on layer 2). Only make 2-3 clicks in different spots. Your sig should look something like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
Of course you are probably using a different brush than I am, so it will look different.

Now create a new layer by clicking the layer button again. Select a different brush the same way we did before. This time reduce the flow of the brush to around 30-45%. Now make sure you are drawing on layer three and click a few more times over this layer. Feel free to click on top of your previous brush strokes. Do whatever looks good to you (remember you can undo anything in photoshop by hitting the keys ctrl+alt+z).

Ok. Now that that is done, you should have something that looks like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
Now make another layer. Do the exact same brushing procedure as we have been using on the past layers. Select a new brush and reduce the flow by 5% this time however. Click a few more times here and there and you should have an interesting looking design something like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
Good, you are done with the brushing part!

Now what we have to do next is click on Layer 4. Now click on Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Brightness/Contrast.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...justme.gif
Click ok, then adjust the levels so they read Brightness:20 Contrast: 40 (or whatever settings look the best and hit ok. Now your image will look something like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
In the next step, we click on layer 4 again. Now go back and click Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> this time click on Color Balance.

Now create a new layer by clicking the layer button again. Select a different brush the same way we did before. This time reduce the flow of the brush to around 30-45%. Now make sure you are drawing on layer three and click a few more times over this layer. Feel free to click on top of your previous brush strokes. Do whatever looks good to you (remember you can undo anything in photoshop by hitting the keys ctrl+alt+z).

Ok. Now that that is done, you should have something that looks like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
Now make another layer. Do the exact same brushing procedure as we have been using on the past layers. Select a new brush and reduce the flow by 5% this time however. Click a few more times here and there and you should have an interesting looking design something like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
Good, you are done with the brushing part!

Now what we have to do next is click on Layer 4. Now click on Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Brightness/Contrast.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...justme.gif
Click ok, then adjust the levels so they read Brightness:20 Contrast: 40 (or whatever settings look the best and hit ok. Now your image will look something like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...-layer.gif
In the next step, we click on layer 4 again. Now go back and click Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> this time click on Color Balance.

Click ok. Now mess around with the sliders until your sig bg becomes an interesting color that you would like.

Now that you have a nice colored sig BG it is done. It should look something like this now:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...olored.gif
(optional): You can add more colors to your BG by adding more of the Color Balance layers (One over each of your brushed layers. This will result in each of your brushed layers being a different color.) In order to do this, all you have to do is repeat the color balance layer step, but place one over each of your individual brushed layers. If you do it correctly, you could create something like this:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/A...tional.gif
You will notice that there are three different colors on the signature. You can add more if you wish as well.

You can do what you would like with it now, add a picture, add some more effects or whatever you can think of.

Text

This can sometimes make or break a sig. I depends on how it makes the sig flow. You dont want it to be in a awkward position. You dont want it to be too big but not too small. Text is a hard to get to look good. Just experiment and do something that you like and thinks looks good. There are alot of texts to use and alot of things you can do to it. You could even animatte it and make it flash or fade or even move. Here are some good sites that you can get free texts from...

http://www.1001fonts.com/
http://www.fontfreak.com/
http://www.dafont.com/

here is a basic tutorials on some text...
http://www.sigretreat.com/index.php?showtopic=18

Tips

When I first started making sigs I found it to be REALLY helpful to use tutorials. Tutorials can help you learn alot of new techniques and ways to do new stuff. Another thing that really helped me was video tutorials. These are usually easier to follow becasue you can actually watch the person do the stuff. Here are some sites to find some good tuts. You will probably have to register but its worth it...

thanks shad0w, really helpful

... good job! I don't use those methods, but they still work