Photo Shop Work

[carnageX]

Photoshop is the industry standard for image editing. Most powerful tool out there.

Agreed on that one.

 

[Luke]

Maybe that's why. I've never used Elements. I started out with CS2, and am now using CS4.

I'd like to get cs4, but it is pretty expensive, and I'm doing alright with elements 5.0 right . My sister already had it, so i did not even have to buy it.

 

[Spit-wad]

So I didn't read through the pages of comments, but I'm assuming you actually want critique and can handle it, so here goes.

1. Everyone has a different style and different taste, so you can disagree with me (and any other critique) all you want. After all... it is your product, and it represents you.

2. I do not by any means consider myself a photoshop expert... but I feel that I have a firm grasp of the basics in graphic design.

The "Stalker" one is completely different than the rest, so these first comments do not apply to it:
Text can make or break an image. The text on those sigs is simply abysmal, but the red and black one is at least bearable. Bezel and Emboss is used way too often on text... it gives it a cheap and childish look that makes it all about flare. While flare might be what you're going for, bezel and emboss and drop shadow are simply overused. Spend more time finding a good font (dafont.com is a great site) and less time making it bulge. Strokes, gradients, and glows are your friend. Never use the default yellowish color on glows - it looks tacky to anyone who knows photoshop. Make sure your strokes aren't too big.

Don't get too creative with "custom backgrounds" until you've learned the basics. Your 1st and 4th sigs are good examples of this. Even though the 2nd sig has a more basic background that you didn't make, it makes a much cleaner and professional image. My own sig is a pretty good example of this. Although I believe the background of mine is constructed better than yours, I think it is a bit sloppy and could definitely be improved. I encourage you to play around with random designs on a [large] separate canvas, and throw part of it into the background once you've made something that looks amazing.

Find ways to blend your renders better. Feather is an easy way, but can sometimes look tacky. Using emboss on a render can often look good, especially if you make it very subtle (both renders in my sig have a slight emboss). Make renders bigger and go off the canvas to fill the image more.

Borders are all personal preference and may take some experimenting to find what you like. My taste in borders change all the time, but right now I really like the "sunken" feel that I have in my current sig (two black boxes, inner one has an inner shadow).


I really like the Stalker sig... everything just works well together. It's clean and simple, yet not boring. I feel like the renders could pop a bit more... try adjusting them using Curves to get more vibrant images.


Sorry if I was a bit harsh... I'm not the best with photoshop, but I can diagnose problems. Once you get the basics, creativity can carry an image (great example is carnage's sig... i probably would have changed the spec text, but it doesn't look terrible, but i absolutely love how the whole image flows together and the "carnage" text works beautifully with it, and the border is hot).

 

[carnageX]

Find ways to blend your renders better. Feather is an easy way, but can sometimes look tacky. Using emboss on a render can often look good, especially if you make it very subtle (both renders in my sig have a slight emboss). Make renders bigger and go off the canvas to fill the image more.

Easiest way I find to blend renders, is duplicate it twice. Put 1 on top, and 1 on bottom of the original render. Do a gaussian blur (about 4.0 is nice) on both top/bottom duplicates. Then set the top duplicate to Overlay, and then adjust the Brightness/contrast on the original render. It also gives it some nice depth if done right. I'll also duplicate my original render about 5 times, and use a smudge brush, and smudge it all around the background, and then set those duplicates to different blending modes (overlay, hard light, etc), on top of a radial gradient that has a color from the render, fading to black for the edges. Gives me a nice skeleton to work with, and then I go from there.

(great example is carnage's sig... i probably would have changed the spec text, but it doesn't look terrible, but i absolutely love how the whole image flows together and the "carnage" text works beautifully with it, and the border is hot).

Heh, thanks . Couldn't really decide on a font to use, but I wanted something different from my username on there; and I wanted a italicized look with thin lettering...and that was the best font I had that I liked anyway.

 

[Luke]

So I didn't read through the pages of comments, but I'm assuming you actually want critique and can handle it, so here goes.

1. Everyone has a different style and different taste, so you can disagree with me (and any other critique) all you want. After all... it is your product, and it represents you.

2. I do not by any means consider myself a photoshop expert... but I feel that I have a firm grasp of the basics in graphic design.

The "Stalker" one is completely different than the rest, so these first comments do not apply to it:
Text can make or break an image. The text on those sigs is simply abysmal, but the red and black one is at least bearable. Bezel and Emboss is used way too often on text... it gives it a cheap and childish look that makes it all about flare. While flare might be what you're going for, bezel and emboss and drop shadow are simply overused. Spend more time finding a good font (dafont.com is a great site) and less time making it bulge. Strokes, gradients, and glows are your friend. Never use the default yellowish color on glows - it looks tacky to anyone who knows photoshop. Make sure your strokes aren't too big.

Don't get too creative with "custom backgrounds" until you've learned the basics. Your 1st and 4th sigs are good examples of this. Even though the 2nd sig has a more basic background that you didn't make, it makes a much cleaner and professional image. My own sig is a pretty good example of this. Although I believe the background of mine is constructed better than yours, I think it is a bit sloppy and could definitely be improved. I encourage you to play around with random designs on a [large] separate canvas, and throw part of it into the background once you've made something that looks amazing.

Find ways to blend your renders better. Feather is an easy way, but can sometimes look tacky. Using emboss on a render can often look good, especially if you make it very subtle (both renders in my sig have a slight emboss). Make renders bigger and go off the canvas to fill the image more.

Borders are all personal preference and may take some experimenting to find what you like. My taste in borders change all the time, but right now I really like the "sunken" feel that I have in my current sig (two black boxes, inner one has an inner shadow).


I really like the Stalker sig... everything just works well together. It's clean and simple, yet not boring. I feel like the renders could pop a bit more... try adjusting them using Curves to get more vibrant images.


Sorry if I was a bit harsh... I'm not the best with photoshop, but I can diagnose problems. Once you get the basics, creativity can carry an image (great example is carnage's sig... i probably would have changed the spec text, but it doesn't look terrible, but i absolutely love how the whole image flows together and the "carnage" text works beautifully with it, and the border is hot).

Thanks mate, i want the critique...i don't pretend to know what I'm doing. I have not learned how to use some stuff yet, so thats why most of my sigs use similar things. Not harsh at all mate. I thanks you for the pointers. What did you think specifically about the stalker and crysis ones though, i think they are pretty good....

For the record, i am using bevel and drop shadow a lot because with out it, the fonts look like crap, i guess i should have just downloaded new fonts....

 

[Spit-wad]

Thanks mate, i want the critique...i don't pretend to know what I'm doing. I have not learned how to use some stuff yet, so thats why most of my sigs use similar things. Not harsh at all mate. I thanks you for the pointers. What did you think specifically about the stalker and crysis ones though, i think they are pretty good....

For the record, i am using bevel and drop shadow a lot because with out it, the fonts look like crap, i guess i should have just downloaded new fonts....

The stalker one is good. I don't know what you were going for, but it's clean and simple, which I like. Only thing I can say it try to make it pop a bit more... make the colors more vibrant or get creative.

Which one is the crysis one?

Text takes practice. Starting out with a more exciting font helps a lot, but you can make Arial look good if you take the time. You might think a font looks boring without a drop shadow or emboss, but boring is better than overdone. I see text holding back the image much more often than being the best part... for this reason, I would focus on making the text decent and just not ruining everything else. Once you improve your use of renders you can start experimenting with text... but overdone text ruins a lot of images. I've seen it way too often on "professional web design" advertisements... their banner ads just have awful text and look like crap, which makes me question how good their actual services are.


Edit: I didn't notice this at first, but here's something you can improve with the stalker sig. It looks like you were going for the "pop-out" look. Step 1 is to remove the background (make it transparent) and save it as a png. Then you won't see that white box behind it. Step 2 is to make the render on the left look like it's popping out... this is hard to accomplish with the sides cut off. I don't know what render you used, but when an image is popping out, it shouldn't be cut-off, unless it is coming out of part of the sig.
For example, the banner I made for this website: Barry Stern Mediation
(side note on that website banner... good example of boring text that doesn't take away from the image, but doesn't make it look better. the peace logo looks bad, but that part wasn't my choice)
The kids come out of the bottom of the banner, but go above the top to create the 3D feel.
Here's another example of that:

Don't know how well I explained that... you kinda get what I'm sayin?

 

[Luke]

Only thing I can say it try to make it pop a bit more... make the colors more vibrant or get creative.

how do i make it pop a bit more? also, the game is not about vibrant colours, thats why i made it grey. So vibrant colours would make it look very strange if you have played the game. The crysis one is, the one with the nano suit's, 2nd one in the OP.

 

[Spit-wad]

how do i make it pop a bit more? also, the game is not about vibrant colours, thats why i made it grey. So vibrant colours would make it look very strange if you have played the game. The crysis one is, the one with the nano suit's, 2nd one in the OP.

Yeah... I don't know much about the game, so maybe that's the vibe you were going for. Mess around with "Curves" in photoshop... see if you can get something you like.

I also made an edit to my post before yours... you probably didn't see it.


Edit: The crysis one has the same deal with the pop out look... the top of the render gets cut off when you're making it seem like the sig ended below it. That background definitely needs some work with the curves panel. The border is meh... it's not bad, but I'm sure you could improve it. I think that text could be improved a lot with just a different font.

Edit2: Read this... short and worthwhile: 12 Common Photoshop Mistakes, Misuses and Abuses | The Design Cubicle

 

[Luke]

I can't seem to find a curve, or curve panel (what ever it is), where is it?

I'l do some work on the crysis one, i did that in 15 mins, so i could probably do it better

 

[Spit-wad]

Don't have photoshop on the comp I'm on right now... pretty sure it's Edit -> Adjustments -> Curves

It can be an advanced tool, but it can help a lot with basic use. You can usually get a better picture by dragging the middle of the line down just a bit (to make a U shape) or drag it down about 1/3 of the way, and drag it up about 2/3 of the way. I gotta run right now so I won't go into detail about how it works, but it's basically adjusting the lights and the darks on your image. Play around with it.