Post by Maria on Mar 26, 2012 11:26:52 GMT -5
in this tutorial, you'll learn how to take these photos and turn them into a signature. this is my first tutorial i've made so it probably sucks and has a few kinks, and if that is so and you run into one, PM me, post here, or flag me down in the cbox and i will gladly straighten it out.
So first, you'll drag the background photo into your photoshop file or whatever. If you want to mute it a little to make it a bit less noticeable, go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options and do your thing. (aka, lower the Opacity.)
Next is the fun part. Create a new layer (for you photoshop newbies, that's Layer > New > Layer > OK; you don't have to name it) and take your first photo you're going to use in the blend, and somehow get it into your file. If it's around 500px wide, you should copy and paste it in. If it's way larger, drag-and-drop is fine. In our case, since the picture is only 500px wide, we're going to copy and paste. Got that? Good. Paste the photo into your new layer. (Note that you shouldn't paste the URL, but paste the actual photo itself.) Lower the Opacity (I did mine to 30%). If it looks better, Lasso away some parts of the background (in this case, the black wall/door behind her) but only if it looks good and non-obvious. Now, again, create a new layer. Repeat with the other photo. Try dragging and dropping this time. (I lowered this image's Opacity to 33%).
Now, sometimes you want to add embellishments. I like simple black-and-white things with solid backgrounds that you can easily clip with the Magic Wand. If you plan on using the magic wand, you can drag and drop things smaller than the image you're making itself. Clip away all the white background crap with the Magic Wand, then lower the Opacity. You know the drill. (mine was down to 27%).
Now you're done with the blending part, but if you're new to Photoshop and don't know how to do fancy awesome things with text, I'm going to do that too. So, let's just say the character's name was Lucy Stanton. Pick a cute cursive font that you have (I used Pea Gretchie) and write Lucy Stanton in 36-point. Pick a color for her name to be in (I used a neutral gray) and lower the Opacity of the text layer. I lowered mine to 29%. If you're feeling fancy, add an Outer Glow to the text, 'cause it looks cool.
Now go to Edit > Transform > Rotate, and rotate the text so it's crooked. Because that looks cool and stuff.
That's a solid signature, but if you still want to add more to a signature that's already this busy, go for short lyrics. Because I'm obsessed with the song Paradise, I'm going to go with "She dreamed of paradise." Yep, that's it. Use whatever font you want and stuff. You're the boss. As for me, I used the font Times, and the color white.
And now, you can save it and upload it. File > Save as. And now you name the file and save it as a JPEG. Woot!
Mine turned out like so:
Post your variations of the signature here!(:
