how to make a signature ..xD

[Nathaniel]

I noticed that lately there are a lot of signature requests, and there's even a
thread dedicated to it from quiet a while now. I don't want to say, that requesting is a bad thing, but I still think that a sig is better if you make it yourself, and I believe
that most people don't even try to make their owns or try but fail, because they never used Photoshop before. So therefore a tutorial with the basic steps of making a sig was necessary. It's not the ultimate way of how to do a sig, it's just how I do it. Hope it helps some people :)
Step 1. - Finding a picture

Spoiler

So first of all you need to find a picture you want to use for your sig. I mostly

use high resolution pictures, 'cos they aren't blurry, so it's easy to work with

them. An other important thing is to look for a pic with possibily solid

background, 'cos it's easier to make a render from... but about that later.

Anyway, the pic should be bigger then the sig.

Here are some sites, where you can find good pictures:
http://konachan.com/
http://danbooru.donmai.us/
If you never made a render before, but you would want to use one, I advise to look for one at
http://planetrenders.net/
OR
http://animerender.com/

Step 2. - Make a render

Spoiler

pic used here
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...da536a7c0a0f95
But I only want to use the guy on the left, so in Photoshop I make a selection
with the rectangular marque tool
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/01.png
and select the part of him I wanna use for the sig naturally it will be his face

in most cases
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/02.png
I copy the selected part with Ctrl+C. Then I open a new document
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/03.png
And paste the pic in it. (You can close the original picture.)

Now I want to separate the guy from the background, so I can make a nice custom

background myself. First I will use the Magic Wand Too
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/04.png
I can use it, because the background is mostly gray. So I click on the gray part

to select it

And then cut it out with Ctrl+X

But as you can see, not all grey parts were cut out. They are some areas which

have the background color, but you might not notice it first. So it good to make

a new layer

move the layer under the layer with the character, and fill it with some dark

color. Now we can see clearly where we have to cut parts out.

Oh and btw, you can select more then one area with the magic wand, if you hold

down the Shift key.

So I did cut out the rest, but there are still tiny bits of grey which we must

get rid of, to make our render look cool.

We can cut these out while zooming in

Now we are almost ready with the render, we only have to get rid of the other

guy's arm. (Actually we could use the pic already as it is, but if we do that I

won't be able to show how to make render in a different way :P) Zooming in again,

and this time we will use the Freeform Pen Tool

With the Freeform Pen Tool we carefully trace along the arm of our character, to

get something like this:

After that you go around the other guy's arm too, inculding the edges of the

picutre.

Now make a right click, and choose "Make Selection"After that you go around the

other guy's arm too, inculding the edges of the picutre.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/14.png
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/15.png
Cut out selection, and we have a completely clean render now.

If you think your render is not perfectly clean, you can trace along the edges

with the eraser tool, I do that most of the time.

I have to say that making a render is most of the time not as easy as this one

was. You have to practice with the pen tool quite a lot till you get the hang of

it, but I think it's worth the time.

Step 3. - Making background

Spoiler

First I have to make sure which part of the render I want to use. Since the sig's

height can be max 140 pixel, I select the face, neck and part of the hair.

There's no need to have his whole head in the sig.

I copy the selected part and make a new document, and paste (just like before)

Now I go to the Image menu, and click on Image size, cause we have to resize the

pic to fit in the sig, so I set the height to 140 px.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/18.png
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/19.png
Now, since I'm too lazy to make a new document for the signature itself, I go to

Image menu again, and click on Canvas size this time. Here we can resize or work

area. Since the max size is 600*140, I set the width to 600 px.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/20.png
Now we have something like this:

Since the guy is facing left I move him to the right side of the sig, and the

updates will be on the left side. Then I make a new layer, and put it under the

layer with the guy on it, this will be our first layer to make a background on.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/22.png
Now fill the Background 1 layer with the color of your choice (Select color, then

go Edit>Fill and fill with foreground color). I want the sig to be blue, so I

fill it with #16426d
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/23.png
But plain bakcground is boring, so we will use textures, but not the once

included in Photoshop, cos they are lame. Everyone can find nice textures at

Deviantart. Why to use textures? Because they are easier to use then brushes, and

look cool. I most of the time use at least one or two texture layers for the

background.

I decided to use a music sheet texture first (cos the guy is listening to music).

So I open the music sheet pic in Photoshop, and resize it. I mostly resize

texture to 600 px width, but this time I will use a width of 750 px, 'cos the

sides of the sheet are compeletly black, and I don't neet that black. So after

resizing it, I select the whole pic, and copy it.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/24.png
Then I go back to the sig and paste it beyond Background 1.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/26.png
But as I said, I want the sig to be blue, so I play around with the blending

option.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/27.png
If you want to know more about the blending options here ya go
http://www.northlite.net/ps/blend.htm. I most of the

time try all of them out to see which one I like the best. This time I will use

Color Dodge, which will make the sig look like this:

Nice huh? But we are not ready yet. I want to add another texture too, this
(resized preview).
So I open it in Photoshop, and just like before, resize it, copy it, paste it
(this time beyond Background 2), and change belending mode... This time I use
Overlay:

I'm not ready with this layer (Background 3) yet. I want the music notes to be more visible, so I lower Background 3's opacity to 70%

But now the pattern on Background 3 are a bit too light for my taste, so I go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness/Contrast, and ad more contrast to it.

Now we have a pretty nice background, but I want it to be even nicer, so I will use a couple of brushes to put stains on the music sheet. For that I make a new layer, select white as foreground color, and click on the brush tool. Then I use several of my stain brushes (you can find brushes at deviantart). In the end it will look like this:

Of course I don't want it to be white, so I set the layer with the brushes to Soft Light

Now I go to the guys layer, right click and select Belending Options. I want to add a nice glow to him, so I go to Outer Glow. I set the color to one of the darker colors from the background, and make the size of the glow a bit bigger, and also make it spread a bit more, and lower the opacity of the glow, and make sure it's set to Screen.
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/35.png
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...utorial/36.png
Looks nice right? ^^

ya may ad text and other stuff as per ur wish ..xD

Spoiler

**ps note all credit for this thread can not be taken by me alone :P

[Hamara-chan]

@Ban-kun:

Great Ban-kun!!!! Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu...
It is to great help - Wonderful ^^

Keep up this great work Ban-kun =D
And I'll work on my Sig making and Photoshop skills.....

Ki wo tsukete, Ja ne

[Djbubber]

I would say sweet that you are using your time on this :D
Too help people as me trying too understand Photoshop as anything else than just a useless program :D
But I must admit the doing pics never been my cop of coffee nor tee :D
But well thanks anyway :D cuz I'll try to do it ^^

[Sen-Chan]

good work Ban :)
Not that I need to follow these, but this is a great help to those who are learning to use photoshop
Im gonna give you some rep for this, because your kind enough to help out other members

Not saying other people dont help just that this is the first tut ive seen for along time here xD

Good work!

[chup1n]

wow, nice work!
*needs photoshop*

[Nathaniel]

thnks peeps ;D

[bukx_24]

thanx ban
great tips 4 beginner like me
waiting for another tips from you
keep it on!!!

[Nathaniel]

anytime my friend lemme know what topic ya need help on and if i could i would definately provide assistance on the same :D

[elliejelly]

Great basic tutorial :D I just finished my sig using the tut. Now I just gotta figure out how to make it show up xD

[Nathaniel]

Originally Posted by elliejelly

Great basic tutorial :D I just finished my sig using the tut. Now I just gotta figure out how to make it show up xD

glad to know the tutorial was helpful to ya ..xD
umm.. what do ya intend by "show up" ? srry didn't quiet get ya there
I think i might be of some assistance..