My first attempt at the Sig. in Photoshop

[ontos]

Sounds great, I'll play with it some more and see what happens. Just learning this curling (Distorting) thing. Thanks great advice.

 

[Marcel]

I would not use the film, it doesn't fit into the pic and it makes it too crowded. Further more, I think you shouldn't use the GIF format, as it doesn't work with shadows. As you can see the shadow is solid black.

 

[Gnomey]

Agree with all the above comments. For shadows .png works best.

 

[ontos]

I've been playing around with the lettering etc., I just can't get it to look right. It does look better without the film. I tried with the transparent lettering but it didn't look good with the drop shadow etc. OOps wrong color on the background. Will correct. I think I did something wrong when I added the Sepia look.

 

[GrauGeist]

you're getting there...definately!

To re-create the forum's background, you'll have to "tile" the background image until you have filled an area that's the size of your sig. Otherwise, to take the little background tile and stretch it to fit, it becomes distorted, much like what you have going on...

As far as the font, I like it although the color of the letters is getting lost in the recon photo. Perhaps try a color that's close to the cloud-gray of the P-38's or maybe an olive drab...something that'll seperate it from the image it's "floating" over.

As far as using a .PNG file for transparencies, you may have some success, but keep in mind that a good number of browsers don't recognize the .PNG transparency and will use the image file's BGcolor as the default. A .GIF is the standard for all browsers and image transparencies, but a .GIF file can only show limited amounts of colors, so you lose alot of quality as a result.

The workaround to this, is to create the illusion that your image has transparency, such as shadows falling across the forum BG. As an example, look up to post #17 where Marcel posted one of his earlier sigs. It is a great example of this illusion!

Here's a couple examples that show the difference between a .GIF with shadowing, and a .JPG with shadowing...the .GIF is transparent, the .JPG is using the forum BG...

 

[ontos]

Thank you sir, I'll tile the background and play with the lettering. I like the .jpg it seems allot crisper and clear. On your shadow effect do you use a little Blur? When I did the tile background I noticed that the Sepia is in it. I'll have to redo that on the recon photo only.

 

[GrauGeist]

I do...but I use a plugin called Eye Candy, and it has a tool called Shadowlab, which gives me complete control over the light source, height, opacity and perspective.

If You don't have all the nifty plugins, you can still "work" the blur by using the Gaussian Blur feature.

 

[ontos]

I tried to get eye candy but could not find it. Well, I did find some but there are about four different plugins. I think the one I was looking for was eye candy 1000 or something. It was recommended by Kamikuza.

 

[GrauGeist]

I have Eye Candy 4000. It's by Alien Skin

 

[Thorlifter]

It's looking good Ontos. Your first try is better than my first try was.

 

[Marcel]

In paintshop you can set the blurr of the drop shadow. That's what I use.

 

[GrauGeist]

Ahh, I forgot about the Image/Effects/Drop Shadow feature in Paintshop...

I don't use Paintshop as much as Photoshop these days, so I've forgotten some of that

Thanks for the refresher, Marcel!

 

[ontos]

Thanks mates, I appreciate the support. I use Photoshop CS3, my wife got it for me last Christmas and said "Learn to Use it", well I'm trying. So much to learn when you haven't had formal training in digital art. Is Eye Candy 4000 one program? When I looked at Alien Skin before it had about three different programs. Which one would be best or buy all?

 

[ontos]

I changed the lettering color to a blue, and redid the Sepia look. Should I darken or change the drop shadow more? Sorry for Asking the same things on the shadow. I also tiled the background, I hope it works

 

[Wurger]

Looking very nice. But these letters aren't readable rather.The rule is that if you have the background dark, letters should be light or lightened.And vice versa if the backround is light.

 

[Marcel]

Looking very nice. But these letters aren't readable rather.The rule is that if you have the background dark, letters should be light or lightened.And vice versa if the backround is light.

For me, the text is most difficult, read the first few p[ages of my "practising" thread Wurger and others gave some good advice, I recommend it to you to read.

 

[Gnomey]

Yeah, I would agree with Wurger. Light text works much better on a dark background and vice versa. Otherwise it looks good.

 

[ontos]

I tried to do that clear text thing in the "Practicing" thread that Wurger wrote, for some reason I just could not get it to work right for me. I followed the direction laid out, but I'm doing something wrong. Should I take the aerial photo layer with the Sepia layer and then do my text, or do the text with the photo filter layer only. I guess you can tell I don't know much about the finer points of photoshop. Should I have merged my photo filter layer with my recon picture, then tried the text ? Below is what I have, maybe this will help to show what I'm talking about.

 

[ontos]

While I'm trying to figure out this transparent lettering I thought I would see what I could do with this concept.

 

[Njaco]

Great idea. try stretching it across to about 500 px and you have a winner.