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Layers...
Blending the render in is often a hard thing to do. A lot of people skip over this and slap the render on top hoping it looks okay. Don't be that person. There's almost always a way to make it fit.
»Make 2 copies of your render untouched. Make the 2nd one invisible. On the 1st one go to filter blur gaussian blur at 2.3. Now unhide the 2nd one, and go to overlay as it's blending option. Then go filter sharpen sharpen. Should blend a little now.
»Select the marquee tool, hold control and click the little box next to the layers name. It should be selected now. Now go select inverse. Then right click on the sig and hit feather. Hit OK. Then hit delete about 1 or 2 times. Don't do this too much or it doesn't look good.
»After blending the render in, sometimes colors don't match. Add a gradient map of black and white and select Dither. Make it 20-50% opacity. Then go Invert. Set it to 20% opacity and Hue. Then make a brightness and contrast layer and mess with it and the opacity. Then make a photofilter layer finally, and select what color you want your sig to be based around.
Smudging...
Often people take smudging as a "click here and drag everywhere until it looks smudged". No. You need pattern or flow to follow. It's hard to teach flow and smudging through text. But all I can say is to try to follow a specific movement of your hand in each smudge. Make sure you smudge outwards on both sides of the render, or smudge in one direction. Never (almost never) randomly smudge, it looks bad.
Borders...
Easiest thing to do yet people fail at putting one on. If you feel it looks too bland you can even fix that.
»Making double pixel borders are nice. Select a darker color FROM THE SIG and select a second color but pick a lighter one. Now make a new layer and go Image > Apply Image. Then selecting that new layer hit CTRL+A. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the light color, at 2PX inside. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the dark color, do inside at 1PX. A border is made
»Want the border to show up but blend every time? This is how I make my borders. Make a new layer. Do Image> Apply Image. Hit CTRL+A on that layer. Go Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 3PX. Then Edit> Stroke> and do White, inside, at 2PX. Then do Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 1PX. Then set that layer to overlay. It blends the border and makes the sig darker. Mess with the opacity if you'd like.
Text...
People often think their text needs to be big and fancy. In fact, when you make sigs, you want your viewer to see the designs of the sig, not the text. Which is why you try to blend the text as much as possible.
»Placement. Try to follow the 4 dot rule. Thats what I call it. There are 4 specific places where you can almost always place your text and it will look good.
Pick a dot that is away from the render preferably.
Find a line, possibly straighter than others, and rotate your text to the same angle.
»Color. This is easy. Depending on where you place your text, pick a distinct color from its background. Not too distinct though
. After you have selected it, lower the opacity a bit, to make it less distracting.
»Font. Often people think that font needs to be fancy and standing out. Incorrect. Try to pick the most basic font that fits your style of sig. Since mine is fancy-ish, I picked a stock cursive. I often use Arial and it's settings mixed up a bit or even Courier. Font does not (always) need to be fancy. If you decide to pick a fancy text, don't make it too fancy or it tends to look bad small.
Blending the render in is often a hard thing to do. A lot of people skip over this and slap the render on top hoping it looks okay. Don't be that person. There's almost always a way to make it fit.
»Make 2 copies of your render untouched. Make the 2nd one invisible. On the 1st one go to filter blur gaussian blur at 2.3. Now unhide the 2nd one, and go to overlay as it's blending option. Then go filter sharpen sharpen. Should blend a little now.
»Select the marquee tool, hold control and click the little box next to the layers name. It should be selected now. Now go select inverse. Then right click on the sig and hit feather. Hit OK. Then hit delete about 1 or 2 times. Don't do this too much or it doesn't look good.
»After blending the render in, sometimes colors don't match. Add a gradient map of black and white and select Dither. Make it 20-50% opacity. Then go Invert. Set it to 20% opacity and Hue. Then make a brightness and contrast layer and mess with it and the opacity. Then make a photofilter layer finally, and select what color you want your sig to be based around.
Smudging...
Often people take smudging as a "click here and drag everywhere until it looks smudged". No. You need pattern or flow to follow. It's hard to teach flow and smudging through text. But all I can say is to try to follow a specific movement of your hand in each smudge. Make sure you smudge outwards on both sides of the render, or smudge in one direction. Never (almost never) randomly smudge, it looks bad.
Borders...
Easiest thing to do yet people fail at putting one on. If you feel it looks too bland you can even fix that.
»Making double pixel borders are nice. Select a darker color FROM THE SIG and select a second color but pick a lighter one. Now make a new layer and go Image > Apply Image. Then selecting that new layer hit CTRL+A. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the light color, at 2PX inside. Then go Edit> Stroke and select the dark color, do inside at 1PX. A border is made
»Want the border to show up but blend every time? This is how I make my borders. Make a new layer. Do Image> Apply Image. Hit CTRL+A on that layer. Go Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 3PX. Then Edit> Stroke> and do White, inside, at 2PX. Then do Edit> Stroke> and do Black, inside, at 1PX. Then set that layer to overlay. It blends the border and makes the sig darker. Mess with the opacity if you'd like.
Text...
People often think their text needs to be big and fancy. In fact, when you make sigs, you want your viewer to see the designs of the sig, not the text. Which is why you try to blend the text as much as possible.
»Placement. Try to follow the 4 dot rule. Thats what I call it. There are 4 specific places where you can almost always place your text and it will look good.
Pick a dot that is away from the render preferably.
Find a line, possibly straighter than others, and rotate your text to the same angle.
»Color. This is easy. Depending on where you place your text, pick a distinct color from its background. Not too distinct though
. After you have selected it, lower the opacity a bit, to make it less distracting.»Font. Often people think that font needs to be fancy and standing out. Incorrect. Try to pick the most basic font that fits your style of sig. Since mine is fancy-ish, I picked a stock cursive. I often use Arial and it's settings mixed up a bit or even Courier. Font does not (always) need to be fancy. If you decide to pick a fancy text, don't make it too fancy or it tends to look bad small.
