Re: The Lymp's guide to sig making Well, this isn't a normal tutorial, cause for the moment I don't have my comp that has ps, but I thought I could help people by making a more abstract tut.So I will kinda give a step by step on how I make my sigs.STep One....Find you pic. Alot of people take this step for granted, but trust me it is prolly the most important step in this entire process. Some tips to find good pics. Search on google, but set the size filter to large. Look for pic's the show alot of emotion, make sure your pic isn't grainy. I am sure there are many more, but I am gonna move on.Step 2: The Start!This is usualy the hardest part for me in my sigs. There are many way's to start, however my favorite is starting with a filter, render, clouds. Next put your pic in ( obviously cut or somethin like that) I ignore my pic for a little now. I actually turn the eyeball of on it. I like to start my bg now. I use Stcok images, found on imageafter, or google. Try searching google for like rusty Metal ( if you wanna go grunge) exploision ( if you are going abstract.... ect. Now make sure to blend these in very well. I usualy desautrate them and overlay/ soft light with lowered opacity. Next I liek to add some abstract shapes. Simply search for abstract shape, on google, or deviant art. add these in, and desaturate them if they are ugly colors, or if they are matching team colors leave them in. Blend these in well also. Now don't go way overboard on these, just make sure to add alot of depth, and a cool looking start to the bg.Step 2: The Pic Effect, and Lighting effects, and prolly the hardest part of any sig ( besides text) the coloring.Now that we have our base bg, it's time to make our pic visible again. We are now gonna put the basic pic effect on the pic. Duplicate the pic effect, desaturate the bottom one, and overlay/ soft light the top. Now add filter render lighting effects on both layers. Your pic may not be very well blended, and if it isn't fool with layuer masks, erasing softly to blend the pic in. now that we have our pic effect, I like too color the sig. I really like using photo filters ( even though i can't anymore without my trial of cs2 ) to put tints of color in the sig. FOr example if yur are doing a player on the panthers, use a blue photo filter. Use different shades of blue. Lower the opacity on all o them. If need be add a few color balances with clouds slapped on on lowered oapcity's. After you have the base down, DO ADD GRADIENT MAPS ( under the place where you get colro balances). Black to white gradients maps, on multiply at 60 opacity or whatever, can do wonders for a sig. Makes the colors so much more complex and nice looking. Now ot's time to focalise ( best word ever) the pic. first make a new layer and fill it with white.Go to filter render lighting effects ( put the light where the pic is) and set it to overlay.lower opacity if nedded, erase the very black parts, if needed. Next put the brush opacity on 60 percent, take out the 45 px soft brush ( or any soft brush) and brush with the flow of the pic on overlay on a new layer. FOr example where you want the light coming frim. Now brush with black on the outsides of your light to make the pic focalised even more. ( in needed make anew layer and do this) kepp fooling around with this untill it looks good.This is all for now, but I will write a part two sometime today.Hope this helped some people learn some things.
Re: The Lymp's guide to sig making Good semi-tutorial. I'm gonna try making my first tut sooner or later on how to make a sports signature that's good. Gradient maps are key but make sure you reverse them or else it messes up the sig. And you also know all the google image stuff you talked about like for stocks and shapes you can do on PS by downloading some patterns and stuff.
