HOW-TO: Design a sig in Photoshop

[Matthew]

Ok, everyone seems to like my sigs for some reason, so I figured I would do a little HOW-TO when I did my next sig. It happens to be for GoBlues...well, here goes...

i started off with this picture

next, i cropped it by selecting the marquee tool (top left button) and selected the area i wanted to use...

next, i resized it to make it usable - i changed the height to 150...if you have constrain purportions checked it will automatically scale the image to the proper size, so you dont have some silly looking picture.

next i changed the canvas size by making it 500 pixels wider...using the little arrow graphics you can make sure the original picture stays to the left of the canvas. make sure you choose pixels from the drop down menu because the default is INCHES lol. then i would choose to view actual pixels by pressing ALT+CTL+0...this just makes it easier to work with.

next thing im going to do is go to File->Open and choose the St. Louis Blues logo to add into the sig. next resize the logo to the same height as the sig, so in this case, 150. next select the blues logo image and hit CTL+A (select all) and then CTL+C (copy). click on the sig picture and click CTL+V (paste) to paste the logo into the sig.

move the logo over flush with the original picture by using the arrow looking tool (upper right hand corner of the toolbar)...if you need to make fine tuned adjustments, use the keyboard arrow keys. something else i did was, if you notice in the last picture how the blues logo got a bit grainy as we sized it? well i used the eyedropper tool (second tool up on the right from the color selector on the toolbar) and selected the exact blue. then i used the paintbucket tool to re-paint that area to clear up the blurryness...dont paint too much or it will start to spill over into the outline...if you screw up, you can hit CTL+ALT+Z (step backwards, kinda like undo) as many times as you need to get back to where you need to be before you screwed up. you can go ahead and close the blues logo because we wont need it anymore.

 

[Matthew]

next thing were gonna do is open the second picture. were going to do the same open, and copy as the blues logo, combined with the same crop-resize option that we did with the first picture...then were gonna move it flush with the blues logo like we did with the blues logo itself.

notice how the canvas is showing on the right? thats because when i resized the canvas to 500 it was just a guess as to how much space i would need. so now im going to use the marquee tool again and crop the image to get rid of the whitespace. now i go to Image->Image Size and check the width of the image...the image is currently 714x150...i dont like to make people's sigs longer than 640, so i change the width to 640 and it automatically changes the height to 134 to keep the aspect ratio...so thats going to be our new height...its not much of a difference. now we are going to right-click on the background layer in the layer window and choose duplicate layer...hit ok to create the layer entitled background copy. the reason we do this, is because initially the background layer is locked, which means we can do cool stuff like emboss it, or other things...by making a duplicate layer and then deleting the original background, we can accomplish this...you dont really need to delete the original background, but we do because it frees up valuable sig space (you dont want a 100k sig).

now we have GoBlues' basic sig completed. at this point i save the psd file just in case i ever need to change my work...the psd saves all the layers, where the jpg or gif does not. next thing is, we need to decide what kind of background we are going to use. now normally i use some neat background i create using filters and whatnot, but since GoBlues obviously likes the St. Louis Blues hockey team, i went searching on hotbot.com for some pictures of the blues in action. i got pictures of Keith Tkachuk, Chris Pronger, Pavol Demitra, and Brent Johnston, and others. You have to resize and copy paste every one. Its a bit time consuming. Line them all up, and you wont be able to see the original sig...dont worry, this is the desired effect - for now. this is what my finished product looked like with all the hockey players covering the sig.

Now layers background copy-3 should be pictures of the car and the blues logo, and layers 3-8 should be hockey players. start by clickin on layer 8 in the layer window (it will highlight blue) and hitting CTL+E (merge down) until you have only 4 layers left...they will be background copy, 1, 2, 3. The 3rd layer will be your players. this just makes it easier to work with, so you only have to apply the changes to one layer...youll see what i mean, we are going to make the hockey player layer a watermark of sorts.

 

[Matthew]

Next were gonna start working with the watermark...click on the hockey player layer in the layer window, and in the right hand corner of the window change the opacity to 60%...you can see the black background of the blues logo too much, so change the layer opacity to 25% by clicking on the blues logo layer and changing the opacity.

now it looks kinda messy, but were gonna fix that real soon.
ok, now we have to bring out the pictures of the car and the blues logo. remember, the important thing here is that photoshop deals with layers almost exclusively. so if you have the hockey player layer selected and you select the eraser tool and want to erase part of one of the cars, its going to erase the hockey players instead. keep that in mind while we do this step...the idea is to select the basic outline of the cars and blues logo, and bring them to the front, while keeping the rest of the picture faded...to do this, you need to use the Lasso tool, found the second icon down on the left on the toolbar. select the background copy layer (first picture of the car) and hold down the left mouse button while getting as close to the outline of the car as possible...remember, as soon as you let go of the mouse button, you are going to finish selecting, whether you are done or not, and photoshop will connect the lines...if you let go before you are finished, you will have some ****** up looking selection and have to start over again. since we have the hockey players blocking most of the car pictures it might help to zoom in to do the selecting.

next with the car still selected hit CTL+C (copy) and CTL+V (paste). you will automatically create another layer of just the selected car. the selection line will disappear and nothing will look different..:wtf: dont worry, its there...see it? its called layer 4 and one layer above the original background copy. drag the layer 4 in the layer window to the top of the list...this is what it will look like.

next you need to get rid of the crap that surrounds the car, so select the eraser tool from the toolbar and begin to work around the car, zoomed in...if you mess up and accidently erase parts of the car because your hand is not steady, just hit CTL+ALT+Z (step backward). afterwards, i made the layer opacity 75% so you can see some of the hockey players through the car, and so it doesnt looked so "removed" and "in your face".

repeat this step for the blues logo and the second picture of his car.

 

[Matthew]

next youre going to go and apply a drop shadow with 100 percent opacity in the Layer->Layer Style menu...then apply a bevel and emboss.

now right click on the blues logo layer and hit copy style, and right click on the other two car layers (the extracted ones) and hit paste style.

next flatten the image as shown in the picture below, merging all the layers into one...note: DO NOT save the PSD file after this step!

duplicate the background layer, and delete the original like we did earlier. now apply a bevel and emboss in the layer style menu again to the new layer...

Last step! Choose save as from the file menu and save your PSD file as a JPG. Now open up ImageReady (included with photoshop) and open your JPG...now click Save Optimized As from the file menu, and replace the old JPG! Upload and have fun!!! If you need photoshop PM me ill send it to you for 20 bucks!

 

[Matthew]

Here are all the sigs ive done so far:

 

[Matthew]

A few more:

 

[alexlitov]

Good job!!!

 

[SpicyMchaggis]

sigs are fun

 

[Matthew]

Good job!!!

thanks, it takes forever to do a HOW-TO

 

[Esteban Toledo]

Well done!(thumb)

 

[Marc93lx]

Very cool, I've been looking for something like this. (thumb)

 

[InitialDMP5]

good job man. Explaining how to do something in photoshop has a certain degree of dificulty because there are so many ways to do everything. It really is great of you to do something like this for the mazda community. Peace Out


--Luis

 

[azeli73]

Very Well Done! (thumb) Do you do this type of work for a living?

 

[MikeBlueP5]

hey thanks for the time to do that, now you dont have a job on here anymore, lol. I just downloaded the trial of ps7. that file is huge, now i gotta get a unlock key.

 

[Matthew]

Do you do this type of work for a living?

Nope just taught myself over a little time.
IM me today and i might be able to help you mike...

good job man. Explaining how to do something in photoshop has a certain degree of dificulty because there are so many ways to do everything. It really is great of you to do something like this for the mazda community. Peace Out

Thanks a lot!

 

[Togan]

i cant see the pics!!!! :O

 

[chuyler1]

Ditto...all red-x's

 

[Vulcanon]

mad red x alert

 

[derrick1623]

mad red x alert

what he said, get on it matthew!