Photoshop & Sigs Help?

G'day, photogorks.

I've been having a play around in PS CS3 and have managed to create a few cool things using some brushes and effects, but I'd like some help creating more complicated, better-looking stuff. Main inspiration here is Shyne's sig for Fireworm which I think looks freakin' sweet!

If anyone could give me any pointers about using PS and creating these kinds of effects (and backgrounds, can't make a decent one for the life of me!) or link me to any good tutorials then there will be invisible rep points a-plenty thanks!

Are you looking to make something with a painted look like the Earthworm Jim character background, or just how to make an interesting background to go behind something in focus. Just quickly, I'd play around with images of textures, and play around layering them, and changing layer blend options, colour gradients and masking layers. I know that's not much help in the way of a tutorial but some things to look into perhaps.

I learn by goggle-ing photoshop sig tutorials, then either copy them or pick a few steps from each and use it in one piece.

With Fireworm's sig, which I love too thanks , it was one of those rare bits of work that just felt right from the start. In that pic I used layer effects wixed with modification layers (gradient overlay, photo filter etc), mixed with some layer manipulation (merging, duplicating), and the result came out pretty well. As a tip for this just open up an image, mess around with the filters or try Brightness/Contrast, Gradient Overlay, or Hue/Saturation on a duplicated layer of the image, then play with the layer style (Soft Light, Overlay etc), then you get an idea of what turns out well.


I also have been using Liquify a lot lately as it can be excellent, these are some of the tutorials I took ideas from when making the last 4-5 sigs I've done.

http://www.sigtutorials.com/tutorial...-tutorial.html

http://www.sigtutorials.com/tutorial...uify-tool.html



It's good because when you remember a cool combination from a few tutorials, you can combine them to make something pretty damn epic.

I have far to many brushes now to look for more, but I used to get msot of them from DeviantArt, and Fonts from DaFont.

Thanks guys. Those tutorials are great, Shyne, very helpful on the background side of things as I had no clue where to start and the whole flow thing is very good too.

And Panzer, I see what you're getting at so thanks I'll give it a go when I have some time/can be bothered.

Out of interest, how long does it take you guys on average to make a decent sig?

Well, my first attempt is down there in my sig now. Took roughly 45 mins of messing around and experimenting and then another half an hour of putting it all together.

Any advice/tips on that one?

Looks awesome for a first sig!

Spidey is cut out pretty good, still a few white jaggys, a quick tip for getting good cuts is when you have it cut like that, control click it's layer pic to select the render, go Select, Modfiy, Contract, use 1 pixel and it should remove the remaining background, you can also feather this selection to blend it more if you wish.

The light on the left, is that a large soft brush? I'd just move it further left to cover where it fades in the top corner, then use a lighting setting like Soft Light to help it blend, if that makes it too light just lower the opacity a little. This is just so you can see the brushwork beneath it.

The brushes and background are great, awesome flow behind Spidey, gives good direction and movement. One final touch, new layer, on that layer, Control+A to select the whole area, select your Marquee selection tool, right click in the selection, Stroke, 1 pixel or so, black, just top it off with a border to contrast the light colours.