[Tutorial] Background and Border effect techniques

Discussion in 'Signatures' started by ARCHIVED-SG_01, Jul 19, 2007.

  1. ARCHIVED-SG_01 Guest

    Well, today I'm going to show you some techniques for getting a good background, or some nice effects in place for your signature. There are a lot of ways to make backgrounds, so don't take this one and fixate on it, but rather experiment with the filters, use your own base, and try different stuff to generate completely different effects.
    Personally, I like to use clouds as my base, as they're always nice and random. If you think the clouds are making things too bright, there's the difference clouds as well to make some completely different clouds out of your current pattern. The difference clouds need a base image, if there's nothing on the screen, it won't produce any results. Clouds are best as base when they're grayscale, so be sure to have a black/white combination in your pallet when rendering them. Both of these options are under Filters->Render in the menu of Photoshop.
    Today I'll start using this as my base:
    [IMG]
    A good practice is to clone your base layer and produce using that. That way, if the filters go bad, you can always go back to your base. You can do this using Layer->Duplicate Layer in the menu. A "Copy" should appear in your layer list.
    The next step I'm going to take is a mezzotint on this copied layer. This will produce a black/white image and can be found under Filters->Pixelerize. I used Short Strokes to get this result:
    [IMG]
    Now you may be thinking, hey this isn't pretty at all! Well, you're right. But, we arn't done yet. The next step I'm taking is a radial blur, in Filters->Blur. Settings: Amount: 100, Zoom, Best Quality.
    [IMG]
    It kind of looks like we're going through a warp tunnel. Now, I'm going to play with the layer settings. Changing the blending method of the Copy layer to Lighten or Screen, and turning down the opacity. This last because the result this time is very bright.
    [IMG]
    Now, it already looks like a rainy sky, doesn't it? In it's current form, it won't even distract from the image too much, since it's mostly gray. However, most of the time we want to give our sigs more color in the background.
    Once again I make a copy of my base layer, and select it. Now I hit Image->Adjustments->Hue/Satuation. The shortcut for this is CTRL+U. Select colorize, and move around the sliders to give the background a general color. For instance: Hue: 185, Sat: 25, Lightness: -26. This will give the signature a blueish hue. Since the "rain" layer is gray, it'll kind of blend in with the blueness of the background.
    [IMG]
    With just a couple of simple effects, we've made a rainy sky, and gave it color. There are however a lot more filters and options in photoshop, so improvize with them, and see what you can create.
    Borders
    With a lot of signatures you'll want a border. There are a lot of ways to create them, and here is one.
    First make a new layer, place it over your background layer(s), and draw a rectangle on it using the Fill Pixels mode.
    [IMG]
    Now clean out the inside of your border using a selection tool.
    [IMG]
    With this pocess done, we have a basic border. Though black isn't an exactly good color here, and it doesn't look very good. Soo, first let's change the color. You could've just made it the right color from the start, but hey, you might want to try out different colors. Soo, just fill it to the right color.
    [IMG]
    Well, didn't get too much better. But here's the trick: Borders like these look best when they're in the overlay blend mode. Ofcource you can try something else also, and maybe you'll find what you want! What I do want to give as hint, cut the border away at parts where you use other images. This way you can change the blending mode on those images and not have the border be in the way.
    [IMG]
    Soo, have fun trying out some of the filters. Here is at least the base to getting a rainy sig. If you have any cool effects for sigs you wish to share, feel free to do so here as well :)
  2. ARCHIVED-Seraphias Guest

    Great tutorial! This is sure to be a resource used by many.
  3. ARCHIVED-SG_01 Guest

    [align=left]Thank you, Seraph :) [align=left]Anyhow, here's some sigs I based the background off of filters to give you some inspiration. (I don't recall which filters, and which order, for most of them, but for the ones I know I'll add it) [align=left][IMG] Clouds and Lens Flare [align=left][IMG] Clouds, Fibers, Crosshatch [align=left][IMG] Clouds, Crosshatch [IMG] Clouds. Border is a bevel effect. Extra butterflies use Saturation layer style.[/align][IMG] Don't recall, based on clouds.[/align][IMG] This one actually uses a background image, and a couple of layer styles.[/align][IMG] Background image, blur, desaturate, colorize. Border is a filled inverse selection.[/align][/align]
  4. ARCHIVED-Tainda Guest

    SG_01 wrote:
    That is such an awesome sig :D
  5. ARCHIVED-SG_01 Guest

  6. ARCHIVED-Tainda Guest

    Hehehe :D
  7. ARCHIVED-Metafour Guest

    All of the pictures appear to be broken links now :(

    Would it be possible to get this thread repaired? It was a good one.
  8. ARCHIVED-FireDragonFish Guest

    Metafour wrote:
    Aye pls fix the thread, I wanna learn this stuff! :D
  9. ARCHIVED-Nimero Guest

    Tezz@Splitpaw wrote:
    I think the site that the images are hosted on ( http://angel.sg01.net ) is down.
  10. ARCHIVED-SG_01 Guest

    They should be back up again :)
  11. ARCHIVED-PRALLIC Guest

    I still don't see any images...
  12. ARCHIVED-Eveningsong Guest

    That's because the site hosting the photos is down...

    Server Down

    Unfortunately the original server at this web address had a hardware failure, and the site will be down until further notice.