How to create a sig pic tutorial
05-24-2007, 10:34 AM
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Tutorial- How to create a sig pic How to make a signature pic using Adobe Photoshop
I’ve recently heard a few people in the forums asking for a tutorial for making sig pictures. I started learning how to create them by simply fooling around with the program. I’ll illustrate some techniques I’ve learned here so that anyone with some patience and a little talent can put one together themselves using Photoshop.
I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS2, but as most current versions of Photoshop are quite similar; there will not be much deviation if you are using an older version. I’ll go over basic steps for a sig creation, but the more advanced editing features will have to be learned by simply experimenting with the program.
Your first step should be collecting your images. Take some good high-resolution photos of your ride using a digital camera. (A great photography tutorial written by Josh99TA is stickied at the top of the multimedia section.)
Next, think of a theme you would like to use. For instance in my example, I want to express the image of speed and horsepower. Therefore I want to get some images that convey that. (Example: a speedometer, checkered flag, mechanical drawings, racetrack, etc.) gather some other images you would like to use in your sig. You don’t have to use all of them, just go to Google images, and search for images you think would look good and relate to your theme.
Okay, I’ve gathered a pic of my car:
And a few found using Google images:
Now that I’ve got the images I want to use, lets fire up Photoshop and create a blank canvas with the prescribed LS1Tech.com dimensions of 500 pixels wide by 150 pixels high. Go to File>New and set your dimensions:
Clicking “OK” will give you a 500 x 150 white blank canvas. Now, we’ll drag the car picture into the canvas for the first layer. Click File>Open and browse to your car picture. You should now see your pic open in a separate window over your blank canvas:
With the move tool
selected, drag your image into the blank canvas. If your car image is high resolution (bigger than 500 x 150) only a portion of your pic will be visible in the window. Click Edit>Transform>Scale A box with nodes along it’s corners and sides will appear. Grab a corner node and hold down the shift button. (the shift button keeps the image in proportion) Drag the image down to a smaller size, so that your car is positioned where you want it within the window:
I’ve recently heard a few people in the forums asking for a tutorial for making sig pictures. I started learning how to create them by simply fooling around with the program. I’ll illustrate some techniques I’ve learned here so that anyone with some patience and a little talent can put one together themselves using Photoshop.
I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS2, but as most current versions of Photoshop are quite similar; there will not be much deviation if you are using an older version. I’ll go over basic steps for a sig creation, but the more advanced editing features will have to be learned by simply experimenting with the program.
Your first step should be collecting your images. Take some good high-resolution photos of your ride using a digital camera. (A great photography tutorial written by Josh99TA is stickied at the top of the multimedia section.)
Next, think of a theme you would like to use. For instance in my example, I want to express the image of speed and horsepower. Therefore I want to get some images that convey that. (Example: a speedometer, checkered flag, mechanical drawings, racetrack, etc.) gather some other images you would like to use in your sig. You don’t have to use all of them, just go to Google images, and search for images you think would look good and relate to your theme.
Okay, I’ve gathered a pic of my car:
And a few found using Google images:
Now that I’ve got the images I want to use, lets fire up Photoshop and create a blank canvas with the prescribed LS1Tech.com dimensions of 500 pixels wide by 150 pixels high. Go to File>New and set your dimensions:
Clicking “OK” will give you a 500 x 150 white blank canvas. Now, we’ll drag the car picture into the canvas for the first layer. Click File>Open and browse to your car picture. You should now see your pic open in a separate window over your blank canvas:
With the move tool
selected, drag your image into the blank canvas. If your car image is high resolution (bigger than 500 x 150) only a portion of your pic will be visible in the window. Click Edit>Transform>Scale A box with nodes along it’s corners and sides will appear. Grab a corner node and hold down the shift button. (the shift button keeps the image in proportion) Drag the image down to a smaller size, so that your car is positioned where you want it within the window: Last edited by Snootch; 05-24-2007 at 05:26 PM.
05-24-2007, 10:40 AM
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Click on the move tool, and a dialog box will pop up asking if you want to apply the transformation. Click the “apply” button. Now I want to give my car the look as if it’s speeding down the road. To do this, we will select just the car out of the image using the polygon lasso tool, then apply a motion blur to the rest of the picture. To do this:
Select the “polygonal lasso” tool
by clicking and holding on the lasso tool button:
Now we will use the poly lasso tool to select just the car in the image. Click the tool along the edge of the car, enveloping the entire car, connecting the ends together. Once the ends are connected, the selected path will have a dotted line moving along it, showing the car is selected: (At this point, you could select the move tool and remove the car from this image by dragging it into a different image. This is how you can use just the car in a different background.)
Now that the car is selected, we want to select everything other than the car, by clicking on Select>Inverse. This will select all the areas outside the car (where we want to apply the blur effect).
To apply the blur effect , click on Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Set the effect for a distance of 30 pixels. Click ok. Now, the area outside the car will have a motion blur effect to it. To complete the effect, we need to make it look like the wheels are spinning as well. Select the elliptical marquee tool
by clicking and holding down on the rectangular marquee button:
And drag the circular marquee over the front rim, selecting the rim only:
Now we want to add the illusion of a spinning wheel by adding a radial blur to the rim itself. Click on Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. Select a spin effect, best quality, and dial in an effect of 20 pixels. The effect is apparent:
Repeat the process for the rear wheel.
Next, we will start adding the other image elements to the car. Open one of the other images you got from Google:
Select the “polygonal lasso” tool
by clicking and holding on the lasso tool button:Now we will use the poly lasso tool to select just the car in the image. Click the tool along the edge of the car, enveloping the entire car, connecting the ends together. Once the ends are connected, the selected path will have a dotted line moving along it, showing the car is selected: (At this point, you could select the move tool and remove the car from this image by dragging it into a different image. This is how you can use just the car in a different background.)
Now that the car is selected, we want to select everything other than the car, by clicking on Select>Inverse. This will select all the areas outside the car (where we want to apply the blur effect).
To apply the blur effect , click on Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Set the effect for a distance of 30 pixels. Click ok. Now, the area outside the car will have a motion blur effect to it. To complete the effect, we need to make it look like the wheels are spinning as well. Select the elliptical marquee tool
by clicking and holding down on the rectangular marquee button:And drag the circular marquee over the front rim, selecting the rim only:
Now we want to add the illusion of a spinning wheel by adding a radial blur to the rim itself. Click on Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. Select a spin effect, best quality, and dial in an effect of 20 pixels. The effect is apparent:
Repeat the process for the rear wheel.
Next, we will start adding the other image elements to the car. Open one of the other images you got from Google:
Last edited by Snootch; 05-24-2007 at 05:13 PM.
05-24-2007, 10:44 AM
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Select the move tool, and drag it into the car picture, Edit>Transform>Scale it into position until the position and size are acceptable. Here I have moved the speedometer image into place:
The problem is, I don’t like the color blue in this image. I feel it just clashes too much with the pewter car. Let’s change it to a warmer color, maybe red to match the TA’s gauges. Click on Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, and move the Hue slider around until you get a color you like. If the color is too bright, the Saturation slider can increase or decrease the intensity of the color. I changed the color of the speedometer to a reddish color, and decreased the intensity a bit with the saturation control:
Next, I want to blend the speedometer image into that of the car. I’ll use the eraser tool
to fade the edge of the speedometer pic into the car, and also get rid of the ugly white border at the edge of that image. Select the eraser tool. Change it’s properties to have an opacity of 20%, and the size and hardness of the brush to 0% as shown in the picture:
This will give the eraser brush a very soft edge allowing you to gradually “fade” one layer, allowing the layer below to be seen. After gradually erasing the edge of the speedometer, I was able to “fade” it into the car image:
Now I’ll use the same technique to fade the checkered flag image into the right side of the pic:
I felt the flag was a little too bright, so I reduced its opacity by clicking Layer>Layer Style>Blending options. At the top there is an opacity slider, This will make the selected layer more or less transparent.
Next I am going to add some text using the text button.
I’ll put my screen name there, as well as a little info about my car. Adobe Photoshop comes with a great selection of fonts, but more freeware fonts can be found using a quick Google search. Drag and drop your new downloaded .TTF or .FON font files into your C:>WINDOWS>Fonts folder. Then they will be accessible through Photoshop. Once your text is laid out, the color and other effects can be performed by going to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. A Drop shadow was put on all text, and the colors were changed through the blending options menu. I highly suggest playing around with the settings in this menu, as they can give some interesting effects.
There are all kinds of effects that can be done using Adobe Photoshop, but I will not get into them here, as there are many free photoshop tutorials on the ‘net. Here's a few links to some:
http://www.photoshop101.com/
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/1
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials.htm
As stated before, I highly suggest playing with settings, and see what all the tools can do for you.
Once you have a completed sig, you will want to save it in two different formats, one .JPG, and one .PSD file. The reason for the .PSD (Photoshop) file, is the encoding of the file allows you to keep your layered structure, allowing for easy modifications later on. (Such as changing your name or mods) Save your .PSD file somewhere for safe keeping, and upload your .JPG file to a free image host like Imageshack or Photobucket. Copy and paste the images URL into your signature area in your LS1Tech profile, and you’re set!
The problem is, I don’t like the color blue in this image. I feel it just clashes too much with the pewter car. Let’s change it to a warmer color, maybe red to match the TA’s gauges. Click on Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, and move the Hue slider around until you get a color you like. If the color is too bright, the Saturation slider can increase or decrease the intensity of the color. I changed the color of the speedometer to a reddish color, and decreased the intensity a bit with the saturation control:
Next, I want to blend the speedometer image into that of the car. I’ll use the eraser tool
to fade the edge of the speedometer pic into the car, and also get rid of the ugly white border at the edge of that image. Select the eraser tool. Change it’s properties to have an opacity of 20%, and the size and hardness of the brush to 0% as shown in the picture:This will give the eraser brush a very soft edge allowing you to gradually “fade” one layer, allowing the layer below to be seen. After gradually erasing the edge of the speedometer, I was able to “fade” it into the car image:
Now I’ll use the same technique to fade the checkered flag image into the right side of the pic:
I felt the flag was a little too bright, so I reduced its opacity by clicking Layer>Layer Style>Blending options. At the top there is an opacity slider, This will make the selected layer more or less transparent.
Next I am going to add some text using the text button.
I’ll put my screen name there, as well as a little info about my car. Adobe Photoshop comes with a great selection of fonts, but more freeware fonts can be found using a quick Google search. Drag and drop your new downloaded .TTF or .FON font files into your C:>WINDOWS>Fonts folder. Then they will be accessible through Photoshop. Once your text is laid out, the color and other effects can be performed by going to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. A Drop shadow was put on all text, and the colors were changed through the blending options menu. I highly suggest playing around with the settings in this menu, as they can give some interesting effects.There are all kinds of effects that can be done using Adobe Photoshop, but I will not get into them here, as there are many free photoshop tutorials on the ‘net. Here's a few links to some:
http://www.photoshop101.com/
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/1
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials.htm
As stated before, I highly suggest playing with settings, and see what all the tools can do for you.
Once you have a completed sig, you will want to save it in two different formats, one .JPG, and one .PSD file. The reason for the .PSD (Photoshop) file, is the encoding of the file allows you to keep your layered structure, allowing for easy modifications later on. (Such as changing your name or mods) Save your .PSD file somewhere for safe keeping, and upload your .JPG file to a free image host like Imageshack or Photobucket. Copy and paste the images URL into your signature area in your LS1Tech profile, and you’re set!
Last edited by Snootch; 05-24-2007 at 05:21 PM.
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05-24-2007, 04:35 PM
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Originally Posted by tylerdj
Sticky - awesome write up!!! 
Originally Posted by tylerdj
If I knew how to make a sig I would help ya out. Anyone have any tutorials or anything to make a nice sig pic?
05-24-2007, 05:45 PM
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finally, someone has taught me how to make a sig.... not bad for first time making one and being a complete dumbass to computers..... thanks man and it has to be a sticky
05-24-2007, 06:54 PM
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Photoshop is not freeware, but can be found online if you know where to look. 
However Gimp is a free program: http://www.gimp.org/
However Gimp is a free program: http://www.gimp.org/
05-27-2007, 09:17 PM
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Very good write up!! My buddie is gonna give me a copy of Photoshop so I dont have it write now. I have a dumb question though, how do I make a picture the normal size a sig would be just using window paint?
