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[How to] Make a trendy-looking sig


Guest beemarin

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Guest beemarin

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Trendy Tutorial - Voidix

In this tutorial I skim over the surface of some easy techniques for created fun and flashy sigs.

sig_18.jpg

We will only be using photoshop during this tutorial, so all of or images are going to be photos, not objects generated in 3d programs. Start off be getting a nice cityscape, you can use the one I found below, which I came across with an easy search of "city" at http://www.sxc.hu/ You can see I have adjusted the brightness and contrast, it may look strange now, but we wont some contrast in our sig.

sig_1.jpg

Lets distort this image a bit. Duplicate your cityscape photo, and choose Filter > Distort > Wave with a type of triangle. Adjust the settings until you have something similar to mine.

sig_2.jpg

Change your layer mode the Overlay.

sig_3.jpg

Now lets tone things down a bit, and get rid of all these crazy colors. Make a new layer above your other to, and change the layer mode to "color." Use the gradient tool to create a linear gradient with 2 colors that you would like your image to be.

sig_4.jpg

Next a used the rectangle tool to border my image with 2 black horizontal lines, I also darkened the top and bottom of the image with a gradient of dark gray - transparent.

sig_5.jpg

Use the rectangle selection tool to create some white lines. Once you have created something similar to the ones shown below, duplicate the layer and blur the original layer with a gaussian blur by choosing Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

sig_6.jpg

Change the layer mode of your un blurred lines to overlay. Next I added by title, and used the same technique that we just used on the white bars. Duplicate your text layer and blur the original with a gaussian blur to make your text "glow."

sig_7.jpg

Next and clicked back to our original cityscape layer, and used the burn tool to darken key areas.

sig_8.jpg

Now we need a little something to "futurize" our image. Since we are current in the present, we are going to have to turn a normal photo into something special. I did a search for "machine" and grabbed this car engine, and copied and pasted it into the corner of my sig. You can use the same image here.

sig_9.jpg

Use your eraser tool to get rid of the extra parts of our engine that we done need, and brighten things up a bit by increasing the brightness and the contrast.

sig_10.jpg

Now lets turn this thing into a laser-shooting, flying space-craft from the future. Create a new layer below your engine photo, and use your paintbrush tool to make some white lines and blotches. Next take your smudge tool and smudge the blotches into something a little more interested, as shown below.

sig_11.jpg

Create a new layer above your engine layer and use the same technique to envelope your engine in light-waves. I also used a small brush to add some star-like dots. Once you have your light-waves complete, give them some color by creating a new layer above your two light-wave layers. Change the mode to color, and Ctrl+Click your light wave layers to give you a selection. Fill your selection with whatever color you want your light to be.

sig_12.jpg

navigate back your your original layer (your cityscape/distorted cityscape) and make a selection similar to the one below. Feather your selection by choosing Select > Feather, and entering a value of 20. Apply an ocean ripple filter by choosing Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple. You should have something similar to mine.

sig_13.jpg

Go ahead of flatten your image now, by choosing Layer > Flatten Image. Take out your dodge tool and start brightening your image. You can compare the image below and the image above to see where I have applied dodge.

sig_14.jpg

Now I don't know about you, but to me that flying engine still looks a little like a flying engine. Lets apply a neon glow to it. Use your ellipse tool to select the top-left corner of your image. Feather your selection again by choosing Select > Feather, and inputting a value of 20. Now choose Filter > Artistic > Neon Glow.

sig_15.jpg

Apply your filter and you should have something similar to mine.

sig_16.jpg

I kind of like the way the ocean ripple effect we applied outward it "exploding." How about we emphasize that by implying a little motion using blurs. Duplicate your layer, and choose Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Choose a quality of "best" and type = zoom.

sig_17.jpg

We really only want a part of this zoom effect, so take out your eraser tool with a large brush size and erase all of it except the center. You can see below what I have chosen to leave in. Finish up your title with whatever other text you would like to add, and your done! Here is how mine turned out.

sig_18.jpg

PS. This was just posted on digg, so the images might be gone!

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