This guide includes everything you need for sig making and basic photoediting
<--lol chaos...wuts with the smilies? u always use em
<--i whouldn't talk
oops
oops again
...u get the picture
ahhhhh!
Note>This guide is meant to just give you ideas on how to use the effects. It is not intended that u do exactly what it says to make your sigs! Always be unique!!!
EDIT>>I fixed all the images and uploaded them to angelfire so they should usually be working
Getting Started
Before you do anything, your going to have to buy your program! Some good programs to use are
adobe photoshop 7
You can download the 30 day free trial
here
im not sure if the trial includes ALL the features
another one is
Paint Shop Pro 8
i started with this, and i reccomend you do to, it will teach you a lot of stuff you sould know for photoshop, and it is a 60day trial instead of 30, and you dont want to waste your photoshop trial, lol
the 60 day free trial can be downloaded
here
Animation Programs and advanced programs
bryce 5 no trial available

but it is used for 3-D grapX and stuff, but i don't know much about it so im not gonna teach you how to use it until i really learn
download animation programs
here they are all pretty general except swish, i reccomend ulead or coffecup, use both trials first
and two quotes that hedgehog sent me
hedgehog wrote:
chatmasta wrote:
congrats on becoming a mod
i was wonderin wut program u use to make ur pics, and could u give me some details bout wut it can do?
i would especially like a wesite to purchase it from and the price
ty, mjrpbplayer
i use a variety of programs to do my stuff..
paintshop pro costs about $80 i think, and you can get a free trial from the website that lasts for 30 or 60 days, i forget..
it's similar to photoshop which costs about $600, but has a few less features.
you can do almost anything with paintshop pro..
also,
macromedia fireworks is a good one..
particularly for doing text and making cool borders to go around things.
but i only have the trial version of that..
looks like it costs about $300
also
Ulead photo express, which came with my digital camera..
looks like it only costs #13 or so, and it has some similar features to paintshop pro but
much more limited.
as well as
Ulead cool 3D for some 3D text stuff..
it does other things too.
you can find a free trial of that at their website but it doesn't last long.
it's what i used to make all the text on my website.
GIMP, which is free, is a pretty good program with lots of effects.
i think it's almost as good as paintshop pro, but i've just recently started using it.
i seem to make it crash alot though
sometimes i use
pixia, which is free as well and does lots of stuff.
not too familiar with it yet.
another free one is called
reptile.
well, i think it's free anyway.. or maybe shareware now..
i see a price of $19.95 on the site
i use it to make backgrounds sometimes.
i made the background for my website with it.
and one i just started using is called
blender, which i think is sort of like bryce, which is the 3D program hiker uses to make the fancy images for his posters and stuff.
i haven't really figured out how to do anything with it yet though
i think blender is free..
bryce is about $80
and i use a free program called
irfanview to do a lot of basic stuff like cropping and resizing and a few minor special effects, and it's what i paste all my screenshots into.
they're all pretty good programs, each with a few things that the others don't have..
if i could afford photoshop, i'd probably just use that.
i hear it's really good.
you might try posting a topic in the sigmakers guild as well, since there's some really good graphics people in there that use some other stuff.
hope that helps a little.
hedgehog wrote:
chatmasta wrote:
wut program should i use to put different pics together so they make an animation?
well, i've really only used one, and that's this:
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/gifcon.htmli know there's a few others people use as well..
you might want to ask in the sigmakers guild too

How to Download GimpOhNoRunItsTrask wrote:
Henzy couldn't help you, but I can!
First off, this "walkthrough" is for windows only. You can download it for Mac, Linux, and whatever else there is, but this is for windows only.
Installation-Click
here to download GTK+(needed to use GIMP)
-Unzip that(you need WinZip[trial version at
http://www.winzip.com]), and double-click the GTK+ icon. Go through all the steps and install it.
-After GTK+ is installed, click
here to download GIMP.
-Unzip and install that.
Features*taken from gimp.org*"The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. This site contains information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing the GIMP. This site also serves as a distribution point for the latest releases, patches, plugins, and scripts. We also try to provide as much information about the GIMP community and related projects as possible"
Tutorials-
GIMP User Group-
Tutorial Pointer____________________________
You can also contact me on AIM if you have questions not covered, or if you would like further help.

Trask
ok, im gonna show you how to use photoshop 7 (ps7)
__________________________________________________________
Using Photoshop 7__________________________________________________________
The first thing you want to do in photoshop is open up a new document, and keep it under the sig siaze limits (i reccomend 312x94)

make sure it is set to PIXELS!!!!!
now, wen u click ok ur probably wondering wut the heydiddlediddle (chaos 49) al those buttons and filters and layers do
notice the things outlined in red r important, the ones in blue r kinda important
i censored a lot of things cus i wanted to try that lol
o, and under the image tab, wuts kind of important is the adjustments, particuarly hue+saturation
filters are basically different effects like find edges, glowing edges, ripple, swirl, pinch, neon glow, accented brush strokes, etc.
they will change your image so it wont just look like a painted image, for example wen i have a white bg and the foreground color is black and the background color white(those two boxes over each other in the colors box) and i do
filter>render>clouds then i get this

if after that i do
filter>render>difference clouds then i will get this

that doesnt look to good, so i'll invert it (
image>adjustments>invert[b] or [b]ctrl>I) and i get this

inverting basically changes the colors to their opposites-it still doesnt look so good so lets go to
image>adjustments>hue/saturation or
ctrl+uthen change it to a color that looks good, make sure you have colorize selected

it looks better, but its too light, so using the history tab im going to delete the action after '
clouds' by selecting it and clicking the trash can like shown

now we have this again

that looks cool, but u might like a different color. so wut do we do? we press '
ctrl+u' wut else?!
now make sure colorize is selected and u can set it to a color u like. i lke blue for this type of stuff

u could of also done that same thing, but kept the difference clouds
and dont forget, those arent the only filters that you can use!! they are just 2 out of many..and you can purchase the KTP Collection by
corel, install it in ur ps7 plug-ins folder and use it with photoshop for xtra filters!
now, i think you got that down, but before i go over the layers, let me go over the tools.

things outlined in blue r things you dont really need to worry about for sig making puposes
selection tool You can select parts of your drawing with this and then copy them by pressing
ctrl+c or cut them by pressing
ctrl+x you can then paste them with
ctrl+v somewhere else.
crop toolselect something, and then only that becomes the image
move tool select something, then click and drag it with this tool to move it
slice tool dont worry about it.
magic wand selection tool if there's a solid coor with a solid out line (sometimes a different color can be inside) click on it with this tool to select it.
healing brush not to sure what this does, click on it and do wut it says on the bottom, pretty cool
paint tool paint with this lol
clone tool forgot to say, dont worry about it.
history brush dont worry about that either
paint bucket fill in one area with one color/pattern by selecting this tool and clicking somewhere on the image (change to color or pattern at top)
filter tools these tools do the filters dodge, burn, sponge, blur, sharpen, and smudge in one area instead of the whole image--you can use the selection tool, select something then use a filter on just that area if you want to--
tex tool create text with this
shape tool create different shapes with this (click and drag)
navigational tools navigate around the image with these zoom and move tools
eyedropper tool i forgot to point this out, but you can select a color with this anywhere on the image then have that color as your foreground/background
colors shows your selected colors
jump to image ready imageready is a program that comes with ps7, and helps with animation, i dont use it much tho so i dont no much about it
now we can finally learn what layers do!
layers are basically 2 different images on top of each other, but u can make them see through or blend them together and all kinds of stuff! layers play a HUGE part in sig making the first thing you will need to know is how to create a layer. to do this go to
layers>new>layer or press
ctrl+shift+nyou start out with one layer: your background, you can see that in your layer box
now, lets try blending a layer, make two images, i will use this

and this

the first thing i do is create a new layer and put the second image on it then i right click on the layer and select blending options
this will come up:

what we need for our prupose is outlined in red, it will blend the layers together jusdging by color, in my case i used blue, u can mess around with those tabs till u like wut u see
i got this

it looks kinda demented, so over in the layer box in the lower left im going to adjust the fill, this is wut it does if i set 'layer 1's fill to 38%
[img]http://www.angelfire.com/ab7/miles/filladjust38.gif[img]
i cant exactly explain wut fill does, but i can explain opacity
wut opacity (right above fill) does is if you have a layer over another one, you can lower the opacity to make the layer that you are changing the opacity of see through, but still visible like i could go from this

to this

the layer under the green was this

and that pull down menu where it says normal, those are the layer modes, some i suggest are duplicating a layer twice, and making the duplicates 'overlay'
another you might want to try is screen, i promise you will like the results
i think that about covers it for ps7, I'll give you some tutorials too tho
TUTORIALSdata wrote:
Step One
•Create document 250x250 pixels.
•Fill it with 50/50 Grey.
•Create a new layer.
•Select rectangular marquee tool.
•Make a rectangle 20 pixels wide and 250 pixels high.
•Fill the selection with Black.
Step Two
•Create a new layer.
•Still using the selection from above.
•Fill it with White.
Step Three
•Now apply Gaussian Filter with radius 4
••Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur
•Merge both layers.
Step Four
•Now all we have to do is triangulate it.
••Edit>Transform>Distort.
•Select right-bottom corner and press SHIFT+ALT
•Move the right-bottom corner to the bottom-center. (Make it come to a point)
•Do it the same with right-top corner but move it to the right. (Make it wider than it was before)
Step Five
•Shearing.
••Filter>Distort>Shear.
•Try anything here, try different curves to add variety
Step Six
•Add Plastic Wrap.
••Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap.
•••Settings:
••••Highlight Strength : 9
••••Detail : 9
••••Smoothness : 2
•This part varies depending on what size the tentacle is…play with the settings on a larger one.
Step Seven
•Add some shadows.
••Layer Style>Drop Shadow
•••Settings:
••••Blend Mode: Normal
••••Color: Black
••••Opacity: 30 %
••••Angle: 90
••••Distance: 2
••••Spread: 0
••••Size: 5
dr dave wrote:
Hopefully you won't accidentally hit the prune button again guys
Here i go again. current amount of tuts: 8
-Installing Brushes and Fonts
-Making a Grunge masterpiece
-Transparency
-Background Effect
-Cutting out of background
-Crystal Effect
-Abstract Flare
-Colorizing a pictureInstalling Brushes and Fonts:
Program: Photoshop 7

This tutorial will teach you how to install Brushes and Fonts for photoshop 7. The fonts can also be used in other programs such as WordPad or MS Word.
-=-=Brushes=-=-
Download some brushes from the net. here are 3 of my favorite brush sites:
http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.angryblue.com
http://www.veredgf.fredfarm.com/vbrush/main.html
I downloaded mine of angryblue. I also downloaded angryblue's fonts, which are pretty good for grunge pictures.
Once you've downloaded it, open the .zip file and select the .abr file(s). Extract the .abr files to any file that is easy to locate. Sometimes i put it on my desktop, other times I put it in my brush folder (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Presets\Brushes\Adobe Photoshop Only or something).
Here is how to install the brushes onto photoshop:
-Choose the Brush Tool
-Right click your document
-A new window will pop up. Click the arrow (with a circle around it) at the top right of this new window
-Choose Load Brushes
-Look for your .abr file(s) in whatever folder you extracted them to.
-Choose them. If you have multiple, repeat until you have loaded all of your new brushes
-Right click the document and scroll down in the new window. You should notice new brushes. Always use the Brush tool when using grunge brushes, because the Pencil tool will make things choppy. The pencil tool is good if you are making pixel art or something like it.
-=-=Fonts=-=-
Find a good font site and download your favorite fonts.
Run the .zip file. Unzip or Extract (select your .ttf file(s) and press Extract or Unzip) the .ttf file(s) to your fonts folder. Your fonts folder should be located in:
C:\WINDOWS\FONTS (or something similar to that)
Once you have unzipped or extracted all of your fonts, go to the font folder (C:\WINDOWS\FONTS) and double click your new fonts. This should "refresh" it so all your fonts are loaded onto photoshop. You only need to do this to one or two of your new fonts.
______________________________________________________Grunge tutorial:
Program: Photoshop 7

This tutorial will teach you a thing or two about grunge. You can use grunge to create sigs, banners, wallapapers, site templates and many other things.
First thing's first. Check out my Installing Brushes tutorial if you don't know how, you don't know where to get brushes or you don't have any.
Grunge is extremely easy, though it may look hard at first sight. Just follow along and i'm sure you will have a sweet sig in no time. it takes 5 to 30 minutes for a basic grunge sig.
1. Open a new document, whatever size you want. I normally do 300x100 but in this one i did 275x69.
2. Make a background colour. I used a nice blood red.
3. Make a new layer and take out your new brushes. Look at my "Installing Brushes" tutorial if you do not know how.
4. Make a new layer (if you want you can name it something such as "main spatter"). If you have bloody-ish brushes, such as the ones from angryblue, then pick a nice blood spatter brush. Do not make it so cramped that you can barely see anything. Use my picture for reference. See how i only have a few shades of colour? There is the bright red for a background, then the darker red, then the faded yet darker red and then the grey. Right now we are making the faded yet darker red.
5. Set your foreground colour as black and set your brush opacity to 100%. Start single clicking the brushes. *single clicking* is the key. If you drag it it will look horrid.
6. After a few nice splatters here and there (try not to make it look repetitive, it doesn't look as good if it looks like you used one brush multiple times). I used linear, circular and explosive splatters for this one.
7. Set your LAYER opacity to 50% or so.
8. Make a new layer, this time make it UNDER your 'main spatter' layer.
9. Do the same for your main spatter layer except dont 'spatter' as much. I used circular kind of splatters for this one
10. Lower its opacity to 75%. this is the darker red layer
11. Make your final layer between Main Spatter and Darker Red Layer. (i don't think layer order really matters). Draw about 2 spatters on this one. Make them big linear type of spatters. Not too big or else it will look weird.
12. Change the layer mode of this to Colour.
13. With a few touch ups you can end up with this!

Please do not use exactly what i just taught you to make yourself a sig, or to make someone else a sig. Try fooling around on your own, now that you know how to do it try making something totally different. try linear light instead of Colour (layer modes) or different coloured brushes. ______________________________________________________Damaged Grid with BloodDrops:
Program: Photoshop 7

This tutorial will explain some of the basic tools of photoshop and will help you learn about patterns.
1. Make a new document, RGB colour, transparent background, and 4x4 pixels. Maximize your document. Fill it with a black background.
2. Now open the info pallet (window > info). Right click the cross on the bottom right part of the pallet, and choose pixels if it’s not already chosen. Now open navigator (its best if you have the 2 pallets in tab format, to do that drag the tab part of one pallet beside the tab part of another pallet) and zoom up to full. Now open the info pallet, take out the rectangular marquee tool and select a rectangle that is 1 pixel in W and 4 pixels in H. check the info pallet to make sure you have the right size. Now hold shift and make another 1x4 rectangle, and start the rectangle on the bottom part of the first one you made (its rather hard to explain). It should make an L, like the picture below. Fill your L with a grey colour (I used 8E8C8C)

3. Hold Ctrl+A then go to edit > define pattern. Name your pattern. This will create your grid pattern.
4. Close that document, you don’t need to save it unless you want to. Make a new one with your current settings, except change the size to 300x300. Now go Edit > Fill. Set ‘use’ to pattern, then select the pattern you just created. Press ok
6. Create a new layer, change your foreground colour to a dark red (I used 910E0E) and select the brush tool. Go to the brush pallet (window > brushes). Select Brush Presets and scroll down until you see one like so:

7. So now with that brush set, look at the top bar for tool setting thing. Make sure your opacity is set to 100%. Now splatter sum blood stains here and there, don’t overdue it, but make sure you have enough. Now you can fool around with your layers opacity, and change the layer mode. The layer modes that I think look the best are (in order):
Vivid Light
Hard Light
Darken
Linear Light
Overlay
Soft Light (for minor blood drops)
8. Now your done! Make new layers, set the lower ones to lower opacity, and make the other ones brighter, fool around with everything.

But: continue for extra part of this tutorial, to make a damaged grid.
9. This is the extra part, so if you haven’t done steps 1-8 do so. Now, select your grid layer. Take out an eraser, go to brush pallet, select the brush you were using for bloodstains and set the brushes opacity to 42% or so. Make a new layer, fill it with black and move it down to the very bottom. Now get your eraser tool again, and start erasing parts of the Grid Layer, very lightly. It should make it look damaged. If you want a clearer look at your grid layer, select the Eye in your blood layer(s) which will make the layer invisible. Now you can create working on your grid, changing the opacity of the eraser if you want, or even changing the brush. Good luck! To make the layer visible again click on the spot the eye used to be and it will appear.
Here is a sig I made with this nice effect:

Note: If you are doing this on another piece of work, a sig for example, and you have to set the grid layer to a low opacity, then you should lower all the opacities of your blood layers and maybe even your eraser. Fool around with the information I just told you, I hope it will come in handy. And remember, this is a tutorial, so don’t go showing off what u just made saying you did it all yourself with no help from anyone else.______________________________________________________Transparency:
Program: Photoshop 7

This tutorial will explain the basics of creating a transparent .gif or .png 
To make a picture transparent, you have to make sure the places you want transparent have nothing on them, thus are checkered because checkers is the default background for "empty space". If there is white on your image, try getting rid of it by deleting the background layer or zooming up close. If the white or parts you want transparent have been merged with the picture itself (merged in layers i mean) then you will probably have a very tough time getting it out without deforming your picture.
Once the transparent areas are all ready (you can see the white and grey checkerboard thing) go File > Save for Web. Under format, choose .GIF or .PNG. .gif (or .GIF) is a rather low quality format, which is normally very small in size (bytes). Somtimes, even when set to its highest quality (256 colour), there will be some colour loss (there are over 3 trillon colours or something.. so 256 isn't very much). If this happens you may need to resort to a .png (or .PNG). These result in super high quality pictures, but huge in size (bytes). Also, some web browsers do not support .png pictures (so they cannot be seen) and some uploaders won't allow it. But i personally think using a different uploader is much better than having a large blob of colour and junk (.gif).
Make sure you can see the checker things in the preview too, if you can't, look for a checkbox with Transparency written beside it.
Choose your quality and other settings, and press Save! Transparency only works with .png and .gif (i think)
I have had some odd things happening with .png things, i am still not all to sure how to fix them.
Here is a little icon i made with transparency. if you go to the URL, you will notice that it's background changes to white, instead of the background of the forums.
Enjoy
______________________________________________________Background Tutorial:
Program: Photoshop 7

I will teach you how to make a funky background, it is pretty much how i made that cool sig above [Fire Whip]
1. Create a new document, 400x400 (you will crop it later)
2. Right click the paint bucket tool and choose the Gradient tool.
3. Once you select the gradient tool, a horizontal bar at the top will appear.
4. There will be 5 different types of gradient in a row. Choose the first one, linear.
5. Change the mode to difference
6. Start to make TONS of gradients. You will need to make ALOT! Don't make them too small, or it will look very odd since it will be so thin. Place them randomly around the document, make sure you don't leave parts of it out.
It should look like this:

7. Copy the layer by pressing ctrl J
8. Go Filter > Wave > Distort. Use these settings:
Generators: 5 or 6, depending on document size
Wavelength: 10, 120
Amplitude: 5, 48
Scale: 100%, 100%
(change them around if you want)
Press randomize until you get something nice. Don't make it too crazy, try to find something smooth and calm.
9. Immediately go to Edit > Fade Wave (this will be avalible after most actions, such as filters, brushing, inverting etc..). If you can't click it it means you've done an action after the filter. You will need to back up and re-filter it (ctrl F to do last filter)
10. Fool around. i usually use 50% opacity and Hard Light mode, though it really depends on your gradient placement (in step 6) and the filter you used (in step
.
11. Repeat steps 8 to 10 as many times as needed, using a different (press randomize) wave effect each time and changing the fade wave settings a bunch.
12. Once you find something nice, use my Colorizing Tutorial to put in some colour. Crop your picture in a good area and put on the final touches. Heres what i ended up with:
______________________________________________________Cutting A Picture out of a Background:
Program: Photoshop 7

I cut my character out of its runescape background, I'll teach you how to do that in my tut below.
Here is what i started with:

Ugly, eh? I think it would look nicer if i took the character out of the background, don't you?
I'll teach you how with the following tut.
Note: This tutorial is rather confusing, and very hard to write. If your confused, PM me and I will try my best to give you a more detailed explanation of how to do it.
If you have just taken a screenshot of a picture (prt screen b utton), or have right clicked the picture and pressed Copy:
Open a new document or the sig/picture you plan on putting the picture into. Press ctrl V to paste your picture. If its too big, you can (optional) go image > canvas size to make the size of the document bigger without editing the sig itself. We will put it back to normal size after we are done cutting it out.
If you have the picture saved as a .jpg, .png, .gif etc..:
Simply open the document with the picture you want in it and drag the layer into the sig you want the picture in. If the layer is locked, double click it and press enter or OK. Enlarge the canvas size (image > canvas size) like i mentioned above (optional).
Cutting it out:
Now for the actual tutorial. You should have your image (i used an anime face) on the top layer, seperate from your background layer.
Zoom in (either by holding ctrl and pressing plus [+] a bunch, or using the Navigator Pallet. If you don't have the navigator pallet go to Windows > Navigator) alot, i used 700% to 800%.
Now, locate the Quick Mask tool (picture below). The one on the left is Standard mode, the one on the right is the Quick mask mode. Double click the Standard mode button and change the settings to what i have below:

I have circled the quick mask mode/standard mode buttons. After you double click the one on the left, the settings will appear. Change them so they look like mine (the colour doesn't matter, as long as its bright and stands out. I normally use a bright red, but this picture contained alot of pinkish red colour and it wouldn't have stood out).
Press B on the keyboard to switch to your brush tool. Right click it and choose Pencil, if its not already selected. change the size of the pencil to 1 px by right clicking the document.
Now enter Quick Mask Mode (click the button on the right in the circled area). This will set your colours to Black (foreground) and White (background). Make sure the right layer is selected, and start drawin'! I want you to draw an outline of the face/object you want to KEEP! That means do not draw ON the face/object. If you make a mistake, press X to switch colours and draw with white to erase the masked area.
Once you have made a full outline of your object, while still in quick mask mode, take out the paint bucket. Fill the ugly background you want to cut out. If part of the face/object gets filled in, press Ctrl Z to backup (or use the history pallet). If that happens, it could be that you didn't connect the lines out-lining the face/object. PM me if your having trouble with that part.
Once the background is filled with red (or whatever colour you chose) press the button to the left of Quick Mask Mode (press Standard Mode button. It is circled in the picture above). This will exit quick mask mode. You can enter it again by pressing the button on the right.
Now, if done correctly, press the Delete button. this should delete your background, leaving you with only what you want.

______________________________________________________Crystal Effect on Photoshop:
Program: Photoshop 7

[larger version]
Make some AWSOME crystals on photoshop! Not those cheap ones youd find on cheesy sites. This is the real thing 
First off, Press D and then go to gradient tool (right click paint bucket).
Set mode to difference and use the linear gradient. Now make tons and tons of gradients all over the place. Dont every make your line too thin, or it will look odd. And also, make it so there is no plain looking places. do something kinda like this:

Copy your selected layer (the gradient one) by dragging your layer to the 'new layer' button (or pressing ctrl+J)
Now, on your top layer (the one you just copied), go Filter > Distort > Wave. this is a cool effect for lots of things. Use these settings:
Type: Sine
Undefined Areas: Repeat Edge Pixels
Generators: 2
Wavelength; Min: 38 , Max: 449
Amplitude; Min: 6 , Max: 225
Scale; Horiz: 100% Vert: 100%It should look like this:

if it doesn't, click randomize untill it looks similar.
Now go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome. Put both detail and smoothness to 10.
Now, select your bottem layer and press ctrl+f. that will get your bottem layer chromey too.
Heres the amazing part: Select your top layer and go to Filter > Stylize > Emboss. Use these settings:
-107
height: 66
Amount: 67Now set the top layer's mode to Lighten.
Cool huh? It gets better: Press ctrl+u to go to Hue/Sat. Check colorize and colour your layer. Do the same with your other layer.
(remember, if u choose you do not like the colour you have chosen and want to change it, press ctrl+shift+u first,
then colorize)[/color]
______________________________________________________Wavey Flare:
Program: Photoshop 7

Flares like the bright stuff in the picture above. Its great for abstracts or fantasy wallpapers.
This is probably one of the easiest tutorials you will ever see. Well, easy enough. If you have any problems please contact me (Private Messaging).

Open a new document with any size. I used 300x100 pixels.
Open the Layers Pallet (Windows > Layers).
Unlock the background layer (Double click it and press OK) if its locked and fill it with black. Change its mode to Linear Dodge
It should look like this:


Go Filter > Render > Lense Flare. Set the size to whatever you want (I used 100) and use 105mm Prime (if you don't, it won't look good at all). Immediately after that go Edit > Fade Lense Flare (or Ctrl+Shift+F). Change the Mode to Hard Light and keep the Opacity at 100%. Now all those annoying specs of orange and white should be gone, leaving you with just the flare itself.
Time for another filter, this time its distorting it! Go Filter > Distort > Wave. Change the settings so they are similar to the picture below. You may want to fool around yourself and press the Randomize button untill you find something that looks really nice.

Mine ended up like this:


[this part is optional. if you happy with your result so far, you do not need to do this]
Now we just need to add the final touches. Take out the smudge tool (Hotkey: R) and change the brush to something similar to the following (These brushes should come with Photoshop. If you can't find them, PM me and I'll show you how to get them):

Start smudgin'
I sometimes copy the layer I'm about to smudge (Hotkey: Ctrl+J) so if I mess up I won't need to do steps one and two all over again.
Just lightly smudge the flares so they aren't so raggidy taggidy. Smooth them out, and if you find your current brush to be to sharp change it to a softer one (try to keep the same size though). It doesn't do much, but thats why they call them "Details".
Put it on a background and Voila! Here is a sig i made with this effect:
______________________________________________________Colorizing a Picture:
Program: Photoshop 7

Is the gray, black and white too dull? Are you sick and tired of seeing grayscale? Here is a small tut on how you add colour (or change it) to your pictures!
Before anything, go Image > Mode > RGB Colour (make sure its checked). Press Don't flatten if it asks you.
Now, open the picture you want to colourize. Name the layer(s) you want colorized "Picture".
Here are 3 different ways to add colour to your picture.
[a]You can select the Picture layer and press Ctrl+U (it should bring up Hue/Saturation) and check the Colorize box, then fool around with Hue/Sat. If you do this on a picture that already has colour in it, it will automatically desaturate it when you press "Colorize". This is good so it won't get too bright or saturated.
[b] You can press Ctrl+B (should bring up Color Balance) while your Picture layer is selected. Fool around with those settings, this will change the colour slightly. If your picture already has colour, it will not automatically desaturate it like in method [a].
[c] You can make a new layer and change its mode to Color or Hue (Hue only works if your Picture layer has colour in it) and fill it in with any colour. Make sure the colour has some saturation in it. If your layer mode is set to Hue, the amount of saturation doesn't matter. If its set to Color it will affect the colour of the Picture layer.
If your choosing this way of colorizing, here is a picture that may help you. This is what my colour picker looks like when my layer mode is set to Hue. The horizontal bar changes the hue, the large box (with all the colours in it) changes the saturation/brightness and the little radio buttons changes the Picker's mode. I normally use Hue.

If your confused please contact me via Private Messaging.[dr] and some good sites...dr dave wrote:
killcanon wrote:
ok iv decided to help all of you new sig makers who are making over sized or ..... well horrible (no offence) sigs. So here i go, ill start with a few pointers:

A good size for a sig is 300-350 px wide and 75-100 px high

All ways be creative, if all your sigs are the same nobody will want them

Be your own critic, if you dont like it the odds are others wont either

Make sigs even when they are not ordered by people, every sig makes you better
Im going to show you a simple tutorial for a warped space sig:

Create a new document that is 298*98 in size (its so we can add a border later)

Go Filters >> Render >> Clouds and Differance Clouds (twice)

Go Filters >> Sketch >> Water Paper and use these settings: 50/60/80

Ctrl + B and choose your colour (iv used blue but its up to you)

Filters >> Distort >> Wave settings: No Generators 15, Wavelength (min)10 (max) 120, Amplitude (min) 5 (max) 52, Scale (both 100%) and Wrap Around. (mess with the randomise button til u find one u like)

At this point you have your background, this is mine so far:

Now we add the text, The font is up to you and the font im using you may not have

Add for the name a size 14 font in the bottem left corner (colour up to you)

Now across the top either add stats or a quote in size 10-12 font

Now your text is done you can add the last thing which is the border, go Image >> Canvas Size and make the PIXEL settings to 300*100 while making sure your background is white.

and your done, thats mine below yours should look along those lines, but if you want to mess around with differant settings to get differant effects you can get good sigs.

Ok that is a very basic but effective sig and its easy to make.
~kill
(ill add more other tuts and edit this post when i can think of more easy ones)[/list]
How to make a transparent Sig in ps7
1.When you go to make a new document, click transparent on the bottom left.
2.When you want to cut a part out, simply select that part and press delete on all the leyers
3.There is no step 3! its that easy!
anything he says to pm to him, you can pm to him or me, just if u pm him, tell him it's this topic
[quote="Chaos1313"]
If you have a tutorial here that has images that don't work, please re-upload them onto another site and re-submit them to me and I will fix them. You DO NOT need to re-submit the whole tutorial again, just the images that don't work.
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How to crop by Humbledragon
Alright this has been a major problem for me, so im going to describe how you crop screenshots in paint. With pictures!
First thing is first, print screen using the prnt scrn key. Paste it (im sure you know how to do that) into paint.
Now, using the Marquee tool:
Encircle the Runescape playing screen. Now right click and say COPY.
(incase u dont know ill show a pic)
Now go to Atributes:
And set them to be:
Now paste! succses! u have cropped the image. Mods if u can, please make this a sticky.
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Good programs for making sigs: Thanks to r c 69 for prices.
Paint Shop Pro 8, $84-93 depending weather u download or buy in the box (or free 30 day trial) (PSP7)
Adobe Photoshop 7, $600 (PS7 or APS7
Bryce5, $80 (for advanced users, usually used to export graphics)
Flash, $500 (or free 30 day trial) (for advanced users)
Fonts
http://www.acidfonts.com thanks opivy6
http://www.1001freefonts.com thanks opivy 6
http://www.larabiefonts.com/fonts/z.html
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PhotoShop 7 background tutorial by OhNoRunItsTrask
1. Make a new image, it can be any size
2. Fill the background with whatever color you want(i like black)
3. Select the brush and a color of your choice that *should* go good with the background color(i like white)
4. Use the brush and make zig-zags from the TOP LEFT corner to the BOTTOM RIGHT corner
5. Repeart step 4 EXCEPT go from TOP RIGHT to BOTTOM LEFT
6. Use waves as many times as you want with whatever settings you want(i like using waves 2 times with default settings)
7. Use glowing edges and use the default settings
8. Now you can invert the colors IF YOU WANT, you don't have to, but it may look better if you do, or if you don't
9. Use colorize and select any color you want
And then you have a pretty cool looking background for a sig
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PhotoShop 7 BackGround Tutorial by Data
1)
•Filter > Render > Clouds OR
•Start off with any picture you want
2)
•Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic
3)
•Change cell size (10-15 Recommended)
4)
•Filter > Blur > Radial Blur
5)
•Blur Method : Zoom
•Quality: Best (if your computer can handle it)
6)
•Filter > Brush Strokes > Accented Edges
7)
•Change Edge width (2-5 Recommended)
•Change Edge Brightness (40-50 Recommended)
•Smoothness
••5 if you want corners
••15 if you want curves
•Filter > Stylize > Find Edges
you can continue, and add more, or leave it like that
9)
•Press CRTL + I OR
•Image > Adjustments > Invert
Now you are finished!
____________________
Fire Tutorial located in rc 69's post
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Photoshop 7 Background by Ace2cool
1. start a new image. suggested size: 320x130
2. color the background black then use a color and randomly color over
it. i suggest white or gold looks kinda cool too( remember keep brushes opacity at 100%, and paint brush suggested size is 19
3. now go to the option above filter> scrool down to pixalite> then go to mosaic> the recomended cell size is 12-15 prdo that and then press ok ur screen
should look something like this
4. now you once again go to filter at the top of the screen> then chose stylize> then glowing edges. heres what is should look like
5.Now add ur own writeing or anything you want .. oh and when u save it be sure to chose option save for web
2nd Photoshop Background by Ace2cool
1.start a new image suggested size: 320x150
2. make the background all black... then start adding the color u want randomly onto the black... in this case i chose blue...
3. Then you go to the option on the top of the xscreen filter> then select liquify at the top of the list> just randomly swirl it but be sure to keep in
enough blue, and enough black. heres an example
4. After you have done this once again chose the filter option> then select pixalite> then go to crystalize, make the cell size about 12-15, i use 15...
heres what you should have
continued in my other post...running out of room