How To Make A Simple, Yet Lovely Signature

[Seven]

First Off, before we start you have to think of what kind of signature do you want? Well today, we will be making the traditional pretty signature that is simple to make if you know your way around Photoshop relatively well. The theme will be a love, kiss signature, this ist he renderI will be using: http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8026/kiss3oviw9.png

Now before we even open up Photoshop let me tell you that I am using Photoshop CS2 so where things are may be different. Also, before we start let me tell you how I start, I find a song I really like, and it influences me in how the sig will be. In this case, I will be using M-Flo Feat. Melody and Ryohei : Miss You. What I do is I listen to one song while making my signature and repeat it over and over, and I really like this song, so I saw when you are reading this signature listen to it.

Now Photoshop should be open. Go to File > New > Set it to 300x150. This is the standard size I work with. So Now at this point you should have a blank. relatively clear canvas to work with, should be as such right now:

Alright now, you should move your render, *the kitty kissing girl* into this blank canvas, you shoudl resize it because its going to be really big for some odd reason. So Press Cntrl+T and then move the borders and position it till you see fit. I got this:

Now let me emphasize something, Its called LIGHTING, what is that? Well look at thep citure, notice hwo the light seems to appear from the bottom right, and then arc < that way. it wil be important to know this is any image you make, because the composition of how you make it depends on lighting to properly blend background and picture.

So with that said, you are going to lay down the foundation of your background.

Pink: Ok Get the Pink tool that I am pointing on, its called like Eyedropper Tool, and then move it to the stock and find a nice color that you like. Whut color? well I decided with a murky purple, it shoudl come from the stock. And then from that you move up to the gradiant tool, (Right click and change it from the bucket if you have the bucket active) The Gradiant tool is the purple arrow pointing one. Now your graidant should be set to something like this:

It should be set witht hat color, and the button pressed should be the circly one, not the right to left dither thing one. The Circly one. Now, what you do is you graidiant your background layer, take note it should go from purple > Black, and it should look something like this:

Next thing you do, you should be on the backgrond layer, whatever it is named, and then go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and then position a Lens flare directly so it makes it look like the light is making them blow from the lends flare, this might take a few times to position correctly. THis is what I got, notice I did two lens flares one in the middle of them almost and htne one slightly skewed off center, it came out thusly:

Now there we have it, our basic stock and basic render set. Now time to get to work, if you haven't made it to this step and are supremely confused, I would suggest figuring out PS more. So, now this is where its fun, we think, and we think, "What kind of sig is this, what hsould I be doign next?" Well, I said to myself, "Well Seven its simple, since we don't want to confuse anyone we are goignt o use brushes." So I took out my random brush set, called "AbstractvsGrunge2" Not sure where I got it, don't ask. I think Deviantart. And then made a new layer, directly under the stock, and then set the layer setting to "Soft Light" and started. brushing now what I was trying to accomplish was a exploding look, like it was going out and the light was beign distorted and changing. I set my brush to white for this, so after some brushing I got this.

See, now you get a little mystique mysty look coming out. It looks better. Now, what to do next? I want the color to be paler, to match the bg more, the color of the stock that is. So what I did was take the sponge tool and lightly brush over everything.

Small difference, but it counts. Now we do the text, I think this is most imporant because if the text doesnt' fit the whole signature is ruined. So... text, find a nice one and then write somethign witty. I wrote in white Century Gothic "Love You", and set opacity to 64% this is what I got:

Ugly, well thats because we aren't done with this. Get the Single Type tool its...

its called the Single Row Marquee Tool, and then make a new layer, and place a bar under the text, and then right click and press fill in, choose the color white. After that you take your eraser, set it to brush and make it so that it fades, not abruptly cuts, and then slowly fade in the white row and make it look like an underline. Set opacitiy to 64%, this is what I got:

It looks better! Now for the final edit in text, you shall write something under that line, somethign meaninful? Iono, I decided to write "Miss You" because we are listining to that song, right? Again same font, set opacitiy to 64% and make it nice, place it nicely, this is what I got:

Annnd, we should be done. This was very very simple and the outcome is relatively nice. So the final touch is to create a new layer, press Cntrl+A, right click, and press stroke. Set stroke to 1px, color = black. Press ok, enjoy end product.

Now go out and learn new things! Note: I didn't put my name on it, but you can, try to put it in creatively, replace miss you with your name if you want. Do not rip this and claim you made it, etc. Seven loves you, and now he taught you how to make a basic nice sig. =3

[Takius]

Seven, I always love your tuts. T-T

Thank you for posting this! I'll be sure to edit this post/post back here to show my results.

edit;

Here it is! xD;

Edited August 20, 2007 by Takius

[Seven]

Yay!

[shizuki]

Tak: I feel like there's a good bit of rack emphasis in there.

[Seven]

Notice: This is probably the most bare bones essential you can do for a signature.

[Rhapsody]

WOWLOL.

THIS TURNED INTO SUCH A FAIL FEST BY THE END.