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Λύσις · #4 [ ] 04-01-2007, 07:35 PM

Now for Paint Signatures. It's pretty easy, my sig was made in Paint and was done in around ten minutes.

First off, you need some kind of image. For the best results, the image's background should be either a color that matches what you want as your sig's background, or it should be an entirely solid color that you can fill in to any other color (in other words, it can't be jpeg'd!). Or it could be a rectangular image with no background anyway.

This image is jpeg'd! Unless you want your sig to have a white background, don't use it!

Watch what happens when you try to change the background color.

Well what in the world is with that? Unless you think you can remove all of that white using the eraser or paintbrush (good luck my friend) you might just not want to use that image.

Instead, search around some more, until you find one that works. Like this one. It matches the color that I would have my sig's background be anyway (I almost exclusively have black sig's)

Although it's probably just as badly jpeg'd as the other one, it doesn't matter because I'm not going to change the background color.

Now clearly this image is waaay to big for a signature. Select the part of the image your going to use, and resize it so that it fits the sig limit. (Which is like 400 by 150 or something. Ask the rules, not me.)

Hey, look at that, we're halfway there already. Now we need text of some sort. Remember, use the text tool, then draw a box where you want the text to be. Pick a cool font, and a color that matches the image. (It doesn't necessarily have to match, but make sure it doesn't clash. For instance, in my example, lime green would be a bad idea.)

Using the eyedropper tool I was able to select a color that was in the image already. Now, this just has the main text on it. You might want to add subtext.

To add subtext do the obvious. Pick another color, a smaller size, and type it on. It can be the same font or a different font. It also doesn't necessarily need to be smaller. It can also be the same color. As you can see, I picked a really dark color (that I eyedropped from the image) and a really small size font.

Well, would you look at that? As far as I'm concerned, that's a completed signature! But what if you want more effects to it? Maybe a border?

There's a simple one pixel gray line, one pixel away from the edge. I also added four small squares one pixel apart up in the corner, as I've seen to be popular in signatures.

But wait! I forgot something!

Forgot something? Meant to add another image? Well, in most cases...your screwed. Paint can only undo to the last three moves. You could start over...or you could get into serious editing mode. In this one all I did was find another image, and added it underneath the existing text. How? First, I cut out part of the text, the part that I put the new image in. Then I put the image in, filled in the white areas left over with black, and then I put the text back on (in not-opaque mode)

Hey, it's a bit choppy, but that's what happens when you make a last-minute edit.

Like anyone else I'm sure, I like special effects!

Wow! How did you do that with Paint, ShadowVaati? I got that last technique from Dog Dog 123. Overlaying Images/Changing backgrounds with Solid Images (MSP + Word)

That's all for now! Next time I will explain how to do Sprite Comics! (Super easy, trust me!)

AH! Post-Script!:
(P.S.)
Remember when I said that a jpeg'd image was a lost cause? Well, they're not entirely impossible to fix. After an irritating thirty minutes, I was able to change this-

Into this-
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/6605/tuttwoqc4.jpg (click to view, stupid image limit!)

Yes, it's really choppy (especially the sword), which is why it's best to find an image that already works for you, instead of trying to recolor an image like that.