Can someone make background tutorial?

This is kind of a request. In alot people's case, backgrounds is a huge problem when making sigs (especially me). So I was wondering if someone can find or make a background tutorial to help me and other members how to make better backgrounds.Thanks.

 

what I do sometimes is that on the 1st layer use just a plain black bg. then the next few layers just use the gradient tool and mess around with the opacity and maybe with the blendings on it. Then use like the shapes tool use the circles,boxes and mess around with the same things.And try using gradients maps,curves,photofilter,colourbalance things like that.Using stocks are a good way to make a nice bg, again do the same thing.

 

What exactly are stocks?

 

stocks are just images that add colour,texture or lighting ect to a bg eg a skyline

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kingjamez @ Nov 7 2006, 12:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>What exactly are stocks?</div>Putting a picture over your background... niall2doc explained it well.

 

where would one go about finding these so called stocks? lol

 

imageafter.com or http://www.surrealdesignz.com/stocks.php

 

that was jmurphs tut- dont make repetitive sigs though, I post it so some of you guys can learn from it because he does a great job step-by-step

 

My backgrounds consist of lots of stocks, some brushing ever once in a while, gradient maps, color balances, curves, levels, and sometimes gradients.

 

if your going to use alot of stocks use the mask tool.

 

another good way to bring in lighting the bg if you are a new, take the line tool on various widths, then gaussian blur them a bit depending on how much you want and set on overlay/soft light. try it with different colors as well.