Core GFX

I’ve noticed that I haven’t posted any tutorial about how to make a signature, so I’ve decided to put one up. This is just a basic tutorial on making and abstract signature. It’s quite simple so there should be no problems. Anyway, this is an example on what we’re going to make in this tutorial:

Let’s begin now, shall we?

First open up a new document size 300×100 and fill it up with white color althrough you can use any color and any size you want.

Now press “D” on your keyboard (which select your colors to black and white) and grab your “Gradient Tool” (). Leave the gradient options normal except the following:

Mode: Difference; Opacity:100%; Reverse: Yes; Dither: Yes; Transparency: Yes.

Now do a bit of gradienting but don’t go to crazy cause it won’t turn out so good. This is what I managed to do:

Now go to Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges and press OK. After that press Ctrl + I on your keyboard for inverting your signature.

The next step is optional but can make your sig look better. In this step we’re going to make a source of light and dark. For creating light use “Dodge Tool” (), and for dark – “Burn Tool” (). This is what I did to mine:

Now select your “Gradient Tool” () and put all the options to normal. Pick two colors that you want and put them in your color pallete (in my case I’ve used dark and light blue). Create a new layer and make a Gradient on it. This is how it should look like:

Now put the “Gradient” layer to “Color Dodge” and if the colors go crazy, just lower down the opacity. I’ve set mine at “80 %”.

Now duplicate the “Gradient” layer > press on your “Gradient” layer and go to Select > All (Ctrl + A) and than Edit > Copy Merged (Ctrl + Shift + C) and than finally Edit > Paste (Ctrl + V). Now you should be having a new layer on top of these two.

Set that layer to “Overlay” and if the colors go crazy again, just lower down the opacity.

Now let’s go to Image > Adjustments > Hue / Saturation .
You can press the color button and select the color you want, or you can just play with the scrool bars until you get the color you want. I’ve used sprite for mine (light green).

Do that again but with different colors.

Now duplicate the”Gradient”  layer again (press on your “Gradient” layer and go to Select > All (Ctrl + A) and than Edit > Copy Merged (Ctrl + Shift + C) and than finally Edit > Paste (Ctrl + V)).

I’ve set the “Bledning Mode” of that layer to “Soft Light” and played a bit with Hue/Saturation again.

Yet again duplicate the “Gradient” layer and use the “Clone Stamp Tool” to fix all your mistakes. You can see what I did:

Now go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Angled Strokes. Play a bit with the settings until you get what you want.
What you don’t like, just remove with the “Eraser Tool” .

Now finally all you have to do is add some text and we’re done.

Oh yes, I almost forget the border . Let’s do it fast, just create a new layer and go to Select > All (Ctrl + A). Than go to Edit > Stroke and use a 1px black border.

This tutorial was made by Aqua. Translated (from Croatian) and converted by Core GFX. All rights for distributing and editing this tutorial reserved.