Umm... aiight as promised heres the little photoshop sig making guide...
I really dunno where to start so umm... I'll just talk you through while I make a new sig
1.) First thing you need as with all sigs, is pictures. I usually spend a really long time on this step (about 1-2 hours to get the right angles I want, yes im nit picky)
- If you have a character in mind, get some pics that you like and find some neat angles. Also try to keep the quality to same for best looks.
- Next pic you should look for is a background. Try to find a background that will go with your pic. For 3d or graphical backgroudns you can find them on various sites on the internet, or you can make your own with 3d studio max (can't help you with that because I still haven't found a working version of 3d studio max, yes I'm too broke to buy it.)
- I'm gonna make a sig with Haku since I have some good pics for him already
- For a background I'll be using this because it looks icy (My theme will be a light blue icy feel)
- The next pics I THINK i'll be using (just get a bunch so you can arrange them later for the best angles and looks)
(Note these pics were scaled down just so that it would load faster)
2.) Once you get all the pics you need its time to go to photoshop.
- First pick a part of your BG that you really like (if its verticle then you can easily make it horizontal by going to edit -> transform -> and change it accordingly)
- Remember that the dimensions must remain 400x80 (but getting the BG doesn'e have to be that size, do a free transform to get the right size.)
- Next chop out off the images you plan to use or think would fit well. Also arrange it so that it would look somewhat like the way you want your finished product to be.
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3.) Now to make the pics look more alike (as you can see, some pics of Haku are brighter/darker than others.)
- If you want to get the pics brighter, select layers that are darker then go to image -> adjustments -> levels and mess around with it until you get the right shade. You can also try any of those stuff under adjustments. The easiest thing to use is color overlay under layers -> layer styles.
- Heres what it looks like after I adjusted everything to fit closely
4.) Now for the beauty of it all. Basically, you want your colors to match some sort of theme. Since im using a light blue/blue theme im going to make the pics have some tint of blue in them. Again you can go to adjust and adjust the colors but this is where i mainly use color overlay just because I'm usually really tired at this point lol.
- I decided to make the Haku face shots on the left lighter than the body pics on the right mainly because there is more dark spots on the right side than the left.
- Also decided to keep the middle Haku face and middle body darker than the rest because I want those to stick out more. You have have more things stick out just don't go overboard or else people won't focus on one point of the pic.
- Also mess around with the layer styles. Especially Opacity which I really love. Makes those transparent pictures that gives moody pics a nice touch.
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- You might also want to give your main pic an outer glow to make it stand out, try to make it blend with the other pics though.
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- A note, you might also want to edit a pic to fit your needs, I edited Haku's face a bit, kinda want him clean instead of those small battle cuts he has on his cheeks.
5.) Any finishing touches such as text or small pics to increase a feel in the sig.
- I'll just keep it simple and add some text
- Give the Text some effects to go alone with the theme. Since it fits the icey feel, I can use Pattern Overlay on teh text to make it look like its made of ice. I can rarely use layer style mainly because it never fit into any of my work, cept this one.
- Also changed the full Haku's body color overlay a bit to fit with the face. I used gradient overlay to fade 2 colors together.
- Also any extra effects (like the hardly noticeable points near my name on my Sasuke sig) makes it neat
- You really need to experiment on your own and play around with the tools. So far I have shown you how to basically compile pics together. But advanced choppers and create their own effects and do crazy things all with photoshop. Also for 3d designs just use 3d studio max... photoshop is mainly for 2d although experts can create 3d designs on it. (Or you can just follow some online tutorials ^_^)
- Here is my old sig for the forum which I made when I was bored, you can probably come up with something like this:
- Something a little more advanced, this was what got me back into photoshop again (this was made before that sexy no jutsu sig, I didn't really put much thought or effort into my works if I keep creating things constantly so sexy no jutsu turned out crappier than this.)
- And finally, here is the finished product:
::Edit:: Forgot to tell you that I used most of these techniques on my wallpapers too and umm... have fun! ^_^v
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