Tutorial Photoshop Mastering 1# {All Things You Should Know}

[RafaQQ]

Photoshop mastering 1# {All things you should know}

 

Wellcome to this first guide from my series called Photoshop mastering. This guide is unique, cause I made it only for MaxCheaters. In this guide I will tell you every important things you need to knnow before you start doing anything in Photoshop. You will find this informations usefull in every piece of graphics, not only in signatures :-)

 

Photoshop Mastering:

• 1# All things you should know  ◄
  
• 2# My PSD pack for your inspiration
  
• 3# Comming soon...
  

 

Part 1 - Basics (This girl below is One of my older sigs :-))

 

 

▼ Signature

 

This term refers to your identity. In our case, signature is little picture with dimensions about 500x200 px (but can be even bigger). With signature you can show others how good you are with Photoshop (basicly its really great way to learn Photoshop, so doing signatures will boost your skill and ego rapidly) or you can show them what do you like, what do you do, your nick designed with imba effects. It should "catch" your eye with its colors, effects, etc...

 

 

 

▼ Stock

 

Basicly, stock is every picture with background. It can be gaming wallpaper, your fav. character, car, flower, cat, photo of your grandmother, everything. Stock is the picture you are starting with.

 

 

 

▼ Render

 

Render is a picture without background. It is easier to work with render, anyway you will have to create or find good background for it. Render must be saved as .png (or .gif, not suggested), or it will lose transparent background.  You can make your own render, or you can find tons on the internet. http://planetrenders.net/

 

 

 

Part 2 - Terminology. Your future signature should have this:

 

Composition

 

Composition is a placement of your image in signature. It is important to make good composition on the beginning, because it can be really hard to change it later.

 

▼ The best think you can do is to place it somewhere in the middle. This will also become your focus point.

 

 

 

▼ Or, you can place it in to 2/3 of signature, on the left or right side. It depends on your character's chest - there should be more place in front of the chest. In this case it is harder to fill the space. F3rd4 used sharped C4D renders here and it looks great :-)

 

 

 

 

Focal point

 

This is very important. It is the point your eye will catch. It should be light, text (typography = typo) or character itself.

 

▼ This is great focal point made with little light

 

 

▼ This is bad. There are many lights = many focal points. Character is also lost in effects

 

 

▼ No lights. Three figures side by side. Not like this :-(

 

 

 

Light

 

It is really hard to create good light in signature. It should have sensible direction, intense and color. You can create great focal point with light.

 

 

▼ Logically placed light can make your signature amazing

 

 

▼ Too much light. Overheated

 

 

 

Depth

 

In my opinion its the most important part of signature. Depth can help users to see what objects are on the same level as character, what objects are in front of char and behind him. Take camera, go outside and make a picture of apple on the tree. Apple will be focused, tree will be blurred. This is depth.

 

▼ There is good depth used by bluring objects (Filter > Blur > Gausian blur). One of my older sigs :-)

 

 

▼ Blurred ground, focused character. Great job.

 

 

 

Flow

 

It means flow of effects. Effects should have good direction (basicly from the front to the back of character). Imagine your hair under the hard wind. Thats flow

 

▼ Great flow. Watch this car going by one direction same as effects (lightning). Typo (logo) is also in that direction

 

 

▼ He is falling down - effects are going up. He is also smudged. One of my older sigs :-)

 

 

 

Blending

 

Same as depth, blending is very important thing to make good focal poin. Blending means connection of background and your stock/render. Blending is usualy done with effects.

 

▼ I used C4D renders in this effects to meake ultra super great blending. It looks that character is part of the background. One of my older sigs :-)

 

 

▼ Great blending by To.per. Such blend. Much beauty. Wow

 

 

Effects

 

This is main part of signature. Effects can bring your sig to the bigger level. There are tons of effects you can apply. Tons of tutorials. Tons of inspirations. Use everything you want - C4D renders, brushes, colors, smudging, filters.. Everything. Remember - "more is less". Don't overstuff your sig with brainless effects. Later, you will find YOUR OWN UNIQUE STYLE, which will take you to the top of sigmaking :-)

 

▼ I used many effects in this work :-)

 

 

▼ Smudge effects

 

 

▼ Brushes, smudging

 

 

 

Typography (this is hell)

 

Typo is the hardest part of signature. Nobody knows where to place it, what color, what font... Basicly - typo should be close to your focal point, because your eye should see it easily (if you want to show it, I'm not talking about "watermark"). Typo should be in same color as your sig or in black/white. There are also many things you can do with typo.

 

▼ Text close to focal point. Is readable, looks good, looks like part of signature. Please get inspired by this :-) Don't create bluffs

 

 

 

 

▼ One of best typography works I have ever seen :-)

 

 

Colors

 

Have on your mind that signature is not a jungle. Don't make combinations of various colors. Stay with your stock/render, edit it a little bit with gradients/color balance, but don't go far. 

 

▼ Orrange, purple, red, white. Nothing more is needed here :-)

 

 

▼ Stay blue... sig by F3RD4

 

 

 

▼ If you chose black/white stock, you can color it with effects. One of my older sigs :-)

 

 

▼ Monotoing is not bad too. One of my older sigs :-)

 

 

▼ If you are lost with colors, try to go for black/white, edit levels and highlights. You can get amazing result

 

 

 

Borders

 

You don't even need borders... Anyway, if you want one, try to do classical black "cinema" borders. You can't get bad with cinema borders.

 

 

 

I hope this tutorial was usefull for you. Feel free to comment and commend 

 

Pictures © to lefiath, Devil, ferda, nobody, Simi, To.per and Me :-)

Edited November 23, 2014 by RafaQQ

[Strain]

Really nice tutorial, contains everything about signatures and definitions. - Stickied

[`iAndre]

What you've done here is great.
I really admire your signatures , they are freakin' awesome and so unique.

 

Plus, the way you "merge" the background with the c4d renders and your main render is so beautiful.
KIU mate and congrats. ;)

[MeVsYou]

Great!

 

You have done a great tutorial.

Keep it up!

[Sido]

Very good. First tut i read. worth it !

[PAC]

Great tut, this might help me to get started with ps :) Thanks!

[N1nj4Styl3]

Here's an upvote for you. You deserve it.

[seasoned]

awesome tutorial. specially for noobs like me :D