PlaneShift
Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: WiseKran on August 17, 2004, 06:24:27 pm
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I just got adobe Photoshop CS, that really expensive one... err... well
and i was wondering how you guys make those fantastic signatures, maybe this thread could turn into a sig making tutorial!?!
post your best sigs here, and ... stuff tell how you made em,.. and err... stufff
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One thing I do, is get a base colour (and or background image) and font, and an image (icon etc) to represent myself and/or the group I\'m involved with, although I usually end up altering the image to some degree.
Playing with the filters, fills (the list goes on) and layer effects is a good bit of fun. If you create a few layers of the same image, with slightly different effects applied to them, play with them, hide others... etc. (have exclusion over an overlay and so on).
Sometimes you\'ll find the perfect visual! and sometimes you won\'t, it\'s some trail and error to get what you want and for it to say, blam!
You never know, you might end up changing it again later on.
Good luck though ^^
[size=-2]Take a peek around the forum to get a good look at those other signatures as well - though I\'m sure you know that ;)[/size]
Oh yeah! Vectors! learn how to use and control those puppies..they s\'wonderful!
(don\'t use my banner as an example, it\'s really makeshift right now)
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You can just simply do something! Push some buttons, add some filters, experiment with saturation, shadows and stuff. IMHO thats the best way for a newbie to make a sig :) Thats the way i do stuff.
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I agree with Andor. Some effects are better to combine than others, so just start with an effect you think looks cool and then try others. Then when your done with that you can always try some lighting effects ;)
Thats about what I did...
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Indeed..RedMonk and you created a really nice sig! not to mention Crj (fellow before).
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RedMonk did you make that sig with Photoshop cs?!? thats incredible!!!
how did you get those lighting effects?
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Once you learn what different blending effects, filters, brush presets etc. do, it\'s just a matter of combining them together effectively.
Keep in mind these basic guidelines while creating a sig:
1. The background is, just that: the background. Make it unobtrusive and uncluttered. A busy background ruins any foreground effects.
2. Foreground is still one layer down from text in most cases. Foreground can be busy, but make sure you have a plan of action to get the text seen clearly and readable.
3. Text should fit with the style and colourscheme of the background primarily and the foreground secondarily. This gives it contrast and helps readability. Place it somewhere that makes sense- don\'t obscure important features of the sig. It\'s a good idea to place text in the most unoccupied area, this helps readability, but also draws the eye to a more central view (as opposed to perhaps looking at things at the left of the sig and neglecting the bare space at the right of it).
4. Choose colours that work well with eachother. Try not to use more than 3 different colours (note colours, not shades; many shades is, of course, acceptable). This isn\'t as important to stick to, but it helps to keep the picture looking uniform and neat. \"Rainbow sigs\" rarely look good.
5. Lastly, your sig is all about you. If you\'re an evil SOB with an attitude, blacks and reds and sinister fonts are obvious statements to anyone who views the sig. If you\'re bouncy and fun loving, lighter colours and more childlike fonts convey those feelings nicely. :)
I was gonna give a tutorial on combining filters and using layer blending, but... meh. *goes to sleep instead*
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You can go to sites like this (http://www.n-sane.net/tutorials.php ) which have a ton of step-by-step tutorials for cool abstract backgrounds for sigs. Then just type your name in and play around with the blending options.
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Originally posted by Mogura
5. Lastly, your sig is all about you. If you\'re an evil SOB with an attitude, blacks and reds and sinister fonts are obvious statements to anyone who views the sig. If you\'re bouncy and fun loving, lighter colours and more childlike fonts convey those feelings nicely. :)
People have stereotyped Red and black to be evil colours. :d I defy your stereotypes!* Pulls out blue and white*.
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I just found a background picture I liked, added a border, spray painted red and black over it to make it look more evil, and then blended it all together. Last step was yo add the text. Came out pretty good, I think.
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Well luckily my favourite game of all time has really awesome pictures, every single sig I have made was made using a picture asosciated with the legend of dragoon
the one I have noe was taken from this picture for example :pic: (http://artwork.lod-squared.net/10.jpg)
Just try and find a picture that suits you, the sig I\'m using suits my character perfectly
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Originally posted by Mogura
I was gonna give a tutorial on combining filters and using layer blending, but... meh. *goes to sleep instead*
im sure looking forward to it, if you get the time. thats the kinda stuff i need to learn
oh and, where do you guys get all those cool evil fonts and stuff? i only have like 75 fonts and there not very much different
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go to google type fonts
be amazed
ect....
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personally i use DaFONT (http://www.dafont.com/en/) its the shizzle baby :D
but you can always google/yahoo/alt vista for more
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Ok I did a really quick thing. These tutorials are hard work... o.o
Okay, so, this is just an introduction to some of the effects we can use. Bare in mind I have Photoshop 7, not PS-CS, so yours might very well have more functionality than mine and perhaps a different layout... I don\'t know.
Anyways, make a new image. It\'s gonna be cloudy today, so use Filters > Clouds with your foreground/background colours set to white/black respectively. The thing with this filter is, it uses the colours you currently have selected; you don\'t get to select them in some \"filter preset\" window or anything. So keep that in mind.
Okies, I\'m gonna make these more stormy by going to Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels. That brings them out a bit eh? But it just needs a bit more... so, Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and drag the Contrast slider into the +70\'s. That\'s better.
Image 1 (http://www.seperot.com/moogie/sigtut/1.gif)
There\'s what we have right now. A bit boring on it\'s own eh? Make a new layer and use the Flood Fill tool with any colour you like. Now I\'m gonna use a special brush shape by choosing it from the list of brush tips in the little box in the top left. It looks like some stems of grass... cool I guess. Anyways, we can make it alot more interesting than just a funky shape; look at these two pics.
Image 2 (http://www.seperot.com/moogie/sigtut/2_1.gif)
Image 3 (http://www.seperot.com/moogie/sigtut/2_2.gif)
These are showing you my settings in the Brush Presets window. You should find that as a tab in the top right (if not, it can\'t be that hard to find). Shape Dynamics controls the shape/size/angle jitter (or randomness) of the brush strokes. So basically, random = more interesting.
The second pic shows Colour Dynamics, which can make all the difference in a picture. I\'ve got the jitter slider all the way to the max for Foreground/Background, so the colours chosen as I\'m painting will be in the range between my currently selected foreground, and my currently selected background. And the colours I have right now are quite different... light blue and cream... this is gonna be interesting. ;)
Right then, wave the brush all over the place a few times, and we end up with a pretty...... thing. Right now I\'m thinking, \"multicolour = good, shapes = not so\"... so I\'m gonna try and smooth it out a bit. Use a weak Gaussian Blur filter, an Auto Levels, and some repeats of the Gaussian Blur (you can repeat the last filter+settings you used by pressing the shortcut key Ctrl+F). Now I\'ve got this:
Image 3 (http://www.seperot.com/moogie/sigtut/3.gif)
And now comes experimentation with layer effects. We\'ve done all this on a layer above the stormclouds, right? Well now we can combine them in interesting ways. In the layers window there\'s a little dropdown box that says \"Normal\" at first. Normal is boring! :P
Here\'s what you get by changing the multicolour layer\'s blending to Overlay.
Multicolour (http://www.seperot.com/moogie/sigtut/4.gif) clouds
Or what if we change the order of the layers, place the clouds above the colours, and try something else... hmm... ah, here\'s a good example, Multiply.
Clouds Multiplied (http://www.seperot.com/moogie/sigtut/5.gif)
This is cool because you can have a layer of line work, or shadows, and use it Multiplied above layers of colour to kinda blend it down into the colour, erasing any light bits of colour from the Multiplied layer and instead making all the colour underneath seen instead. I use this alot in my artwork to preserve outlines.
Note on changing the layer order: At first you might think \"wtf? I can\'t change the order, this storm layer is stuck\". That\'s because it\'s the default Background layer, and as such, is \"locked\" from doing many things a normal layer can do. To resolve this, drag the layer onto the little \"new layer\" button and it will be duplicated. Then simply delete the locked layer; you don\'t need it anyway.
That\'s about it... sorry for the quality, they are gif images. :P Hope it teaches some useful basics.
(Hah, I fixed the brokedness of it all... hurray!)
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Originally posted by seperot
go to google type fonts
be amazed
ect....
i faund some font files i like, but where do i put them so they work in photoshop? im real slo
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C:\\Windows\\Fonts
or however your windows folder is called..
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but it dont show up in Photoshop... its a tt file, true type font er something like that, like al the others, but its not in photoshop.... !?!? do i have to import or something?
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Quit Photoshop.
Copy the font into the folder.
OPEN the folder, this forces any uninstalled fonts to install themselves.
Load Photoshop.
The fonts will all be listed.
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HA! it actually worked, thanks mogura (im not even going to ask how all you people know these things)
except one dint load, but thats ok all the rest did, may have been corrupted or sumthin
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Hows this one? i just made it, i used a tutorial on how to get that water effect and then i just went with it,
i know its a little crowded but its nice to look at, and a real eye catcher so i think that makes up for it
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Great for a start put-to-gether, just a bit too much eye-candy.. action going on!
Pro and cons to that, but it certainly calls for attention ;D
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were can i bring up a lighting options menu? or edit the lighting?
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It\'s nice, but it\'s too big. :) Please read the rules in the General forum and size it down.
(For nice resizing, make sure you use anti-aliasing, it should be ON by default anyway)
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i got a new one anyways, this one is for Rubies of Eventide forums i made, i hope its small enough
pretty simple, i shudnt have any truble