Beginner's Guide to making a simple forum signature using photoshop!

Welcome to my Beginner's Guide to making a simple forum signature!​

Hello, In this guide I will be teaching you guys how to make a simple signature in photoshop. Photoshop may seem pretty intimidating at first, but trust me it isn't that hard. After using this guide you will be able to make a good looking, basic signature.


Step One:
Find a render! A render is an image that you can use to make a signature with. One of the best sites to find these renders from is http://planetrenders.net/. Here they have thousands of renders to choose from. When looking for a render find something that you like, say that you are really into the game MW2? Put MW2 in the search bar and find a render that you like.

Step Two:
After downloading the render that you like you will need to open Photoshop, go to file, and then new like I have done here:


Step Three:
After doing step two a little box should come up that looks like this:

A good size for a forum signature is 400x130 like I have above, also make sure that beside the width, and height the little drop down box is set to pixels. If you dont do this the signature will not turn out well.

Step Four
If you did step three right you should have see an empty white rectangle show up on your screen. This is where your signature is going to be. In this step we are going to put a simple background in the rectangle. To do this look at your render and find some of the main colors. My render has mostly white and black colors, so I'm going to look on my toolbar on the right hand side, click on the two squares that a colored and click on the like this:


Step Five
After clicking on this tool you should be greeted with a color picker box. Here you should find and pick the main colors that you have on your render so you can have a background that goes with it. In my case I will pick black and white like this:


Step Six
Now that you have the two main colors picked out you need to go to Filter->Render->Clouds. Doing this should create a nice looking cloud background with the colors that you picked.


Step Seven:
Now that you have your background made you need to open up the render and get it ready to go onto your signature. To do this go to File->Open-> and then find your render that you saved and open it. Don't worry if you think that your signature went away! It is just in the other tab just like on the internet you have different tabs for different web pages.


Step Eight
Now that you have your render you need to get rid of the background of the render so that it looks better in your signature. If you don't have a background on your render you can just skip this step. To get rid of the background go to the eraser button on the toolbar, back-click the eraser tab, and go to Magic eraser tool like this:

Now use this magic eraser tool to erase the background. Just simply click on the background until it all is turned to a grey and white checkerboard pattern like this:

Now that you have done this you can move the the main thing in the render without moving the background with it.

Step Nine
Now that we have the main image from the render we need to move it into out signature. to do this all you need to do is click and drag the tab with the render into the tab with the signature like this:


Step Ten
After you have both your signature with clouds in it, and your render on the same page all you need to do is drag the render and put it on the signature. When doing this make sure you have the move tool on (the first tool on the right hand side). After you have done this put the render in a spot that you like. I have chosen the right side, but you can put it anywhere you want. After doing this my signature now looks like this:


Step Eleven
In this step we are going to use some brushes to make the signature look cool. To get some cool brushes try going to a site like http://www.brusheezy.com/ and download a good set of brushes that you like. This part of the tutorial you really cannot teach. You need to experiment with the brushes and try putting the in different places and see how they look. If you don't like something that you did just go to your history (the box to the left of the signature) back click, and then press delete. After using some brushes it should look something like this:



Step Twelve
In this step we will be adding text to the signature. If you do not want to add any text that's fine, and your done with your signature! If you do want to add text all you need to do is go to the text button (The big T) drag out a box, and type in what you want. You can change the color, font and size at the top. After you have the text you want all you need to do is click on the move button and move your text to where you want it to be. After you have done this congratulations you have made your first forum signature! Here is the end product of my signature after adding text:



If you have any questions at all on how to make a signature of your own just send me a pm or comment below, an I will try to help you the best that I can

 

Pretty good guide. I really liked your pictures but there was just something about that font I did not like. Also you have a coding error where you have

I am not a big gfx guy but overall good guide.

 

Thanks, im going to purchase photo-shop cs5 soon
can't waitt
thnx for the tips

 

Guide is explained well and provides the basic knowledge. Perhaps you should make another guide explaining overlay, lighting, etc.