getting to grips with graphics
Well first of all you should only be reading this if you've barely used photoshop software, this is to help you make some good descisions, remember you can only say its your first try once. :doh:
Right now you've just obtained photoshop, lets assume legally. and your thinking "great, now i can be just as good as these other guys" well your wrong. first thing you should not do, is make a sig completely free style, there are plenty tutorials out there and they sure as hell aren't exclusively for the people who have used photoshop for a long time. check our tutorial section for anything with full sig in the title, that should get you learning what some of the features in photoshop are.
Next only ever choose a render thats from an official site, bad cuts make for bad sigs. Don't forget that. So choose a sig from one of the sites listed in stickies or other threads. Next thing to do is to think about how your using that render, don't resize it to be the same height as the signature,make it big enough to fill most of the sig, space on sigs is bad as your not skilled enough to fill it well.
Backgrounds should be basic but well made, maybe just a gradient and lens flare below the render always works for me. They also shouldn't be to large as it draws attention to them and we can't have them seeing how big it is.
Font shouldn't be worried about this too much, just use a very basic font with a stroke. don't try and make it fancy or match the sig. A universal fon't such as "agency FB" or "visitor" should work fine with any sig sure you won't get max points but it won't ruin the sig either.
Now i move onto style, everyone follows a simmilar route as they move through their graphics career e.g. grunge>abstract>vector(very short)>basic>filter and thats as far as i am, so i really can't tell you whats next. so basically start off with grunge, sure you'll be common and you want get any major rep but at least you won't fail and get disrespect for any future work.
Resources can be found in anyone of the stickies on the forum. Remember that you can only say its your first sig once.
