A Basic Signature Guide [Photoshop]

Hey there! This is going to be a guide to making basic signatures on Photoshop. Some of these things I do may not be available on earlier versions. Just to let you know I'm using the latest.

Step 1:

Open up Photoshop, obviously! Make a new canvas. My recommended size is 400 width and 200 height! (I always do all of mine in exactly the same size, but I highly recommend trying out different sizes too!)

So, now you want to chose a Pokémon for this signature! We'll start off with... Deoxys! Now, we're going to need a good image of this Pokémon, so let's go find one! Finding an image is as simple as searching Deoxys render on google images! Pick out the best one, and make sure it's a PNG image too, with a transparent background! Now, place your Pokémon in to the canvas like so:




Step 2:

Now we need a background! Deoxys is a space Pokémon, so we'll find a good space background for him! Again, it's as simple as googling "Space background" or "Space stock"

Here, this one looks pretty good! Make sure you align it just right to look good with your render!



Step 3:

It's looking good, but a bit bare! I think we could add some effects. A lot of signature makers use stuff like C4Ds, these little 3D thingies, but since this is a simple tutorial, I'll teach you how to add fractals!

Fractals are like these cool little effects you can place on your image to really make it come to life, and to blend your character in with the background, to make it look like a real scene! Let's find some. Finding fractals isn't exactly easy though, well, it is but you need to know where to look. Click here if you want a ton of resources for making signatures, including fractals!

Now, I have put my fractal in place, and I've made sure it's on top of my render too....but wait! It's got a black background, and it's blue!



Okay, there's an easy fix to this! First of all, click Control + F. This will bring up the Hue/Saturation for the layer. Do not mess with the saturation. We're going to mess around with the hue, so it'll match my background color. For example, my background is orange, so we'll make this fractal orange.



Bingo! It matches perfectly now! But we still have that black background... Don't worry! There's an easy fix to that. Above the layer, you'll see something which says "Normal", click on that and change it to "Linear Dodge (Add)" and BOOM!



It looks much better! But it's still covering up the main body of our render! We should fix that! Simply get your eraser tool, make it A LOT smaller and erase around the main body of the render! If possible, leave some of the fractal around the edges, to make it blend! This sounds pretty tricky, but it's actually really easy, like so:



I know you're thinking it looks not much different, but it's a lot more clearer now! Anyways, we're done with fractals for now. Remember add as many fractals as you like! Though there's no need to over do it. Just follow the same steps. If your fractal doesn't cover the whole body, like for example one of these fractals:





Then don't worry about erasing it! Just move it in place so it looks good and doesn't overlap your render too much.

Step 4:

Now we need to add lighting! I'm AWFUL at lighting, but there's plenty of good tutorials out there for this. Click here for one. If you need more, just search on Deviantart!

Final Step:

Add some adjustments to bring your image to life now!



There's plenty of complex tutorials out there and on DeviantArt for these, so look some up! I'll teach you the one I use the most when making signatures.



Levels! This can help make your image super bright or super dark, but the dark is the best! It'll help your image pop out a lot more. Simply mess around with those levers to make your image a bit darker, like so:





This has helped pop it out a bit more! Make sure to adjust it to match your signature and the feel of it.

Optional Step:

You may want to add text, to make sure other people don't use your work or just to make it your own! Click here for a great tutorial on text!

Anyways, I hope you found this useful! Thanks for reading.

 

It's actually really good for a beginner, but isn't the text just ripped off the one Satix made for you? O.o

 

Ah, I see...Well, good work anyways!