Some of you had asked what sort of work I put into a sig. While I try to make the best out of every sig I work on, the limiting factor most often works out to be the quality, variety and just how interesting the pics are that I have to work with in the first place.
If I get 8 or fewer basic shots (one from each side, front, back and then one from each corner) it honestly puts a serious damper on the chances of coming up with a really creative sig. And it honestly takes longer to do because I have to struggle to turn out something half decent.
So in case you didn't read my pointers for sig pics thread, read up and learn something -- you and I both will be happier with the results. Give me interesting shots.... wheels at unique angles.... focus on mods you've done, etc... and good lighting!! I can't stress that last part enough.
With that out of the way, I took the time to capture some screenshots during the buildup of cbraga's sig earlier tonight since some of you were interested. For those of you who don't know, this is westcoastz71's friend who was just featured in the TruckinSUV magazine. The pics I had to work from are here.
The first thing I try to do when working on a sig is plan out the look I want it to have. If possible, even build a theme around it that best captures the truck. In this case, cbraga's truck has a flame theme going so I decided to use these three pics:
So, I opened up Photoshop and created a new pic. (BTW -- I'm using 6.0, but the procedures should be similar for newer versions)
The 500x150 size self-explanatory. 72 pixels per inch is the best that most monitors can handle. If I were looking to make something printable, I'd go higher. But I know that these are only intended for the web so it's all I need. I'm pretty sure it helps keep the file size down too...
So, with my blank canvas ready to go, I copied the full size pics into the sig. For Photoshop newbies, you can keep tabs on each pic because they're on different layers as shown in this toolbar below.
To keep even better track on something you know could be huge, it doesn't hurt to right click on each layer in this toolbar, go to properties and rename them since the thumbnails are so small.
Now that I've got all the pics all in one place, I went ahead and stretched out the workspace by clicking and dragging on the borders. You could also just optimize it so that this file is the only thing you see rather than all the files being tiled. This extra space around the sig comes in handy as you'll soon see.
Next thing up... resize and layout the pics in the position you want them. Handiest tool for this is the Free Transform. Make sure that you've got the layer you want to work with active (check the toolbar mentioned above), then right click on the sig and go to Free Transform. Now you can rotate, scale and move the pics. Here I've already started to scale the steering wheel down:
Note: if you hold the Shift key on your keyboard while you scale the pic up or down (by grabbing and dragging the corners only -- it will not work if you grab the middle of one of the sides, top or bottom!!), it will keep the height and width proportional. Or you can click the chain-link icon in the toolbar at the top of Photoshop between the height and width percentage settings.
I went ahead and did this for all 3 layers. Here they are in their final size and positions:
I plan on having the full pic of the truck as the top layer, followed by the steering wheel, then the flames down the side, so I went ahead and reorganized them in the Layer Control toolbar. Just click and drag to do this.
I decided I wanted just a little bit of a blur on the flame layer. So, with that layer active, I went to Filter => Blur => Gaussian Blur...
Since I wasn't quite sure yet what I wanted to do with the steering wheel, I decided to move on to getting the background out of the truck pic.
This is something that really requires a steady hand and some good hand-eye coordination, especially as you get nearer to the truck. I normally use a small round brush with hard edges. Here are two key things to keep in mind:
1. For straight lengths, hold the Shift key, click at one end, then the other. Photoshop will connect the two points. Same thing works for the paintbrush and pencil tools.
2. If you're not using the "dot-to-dot" type approach I described in #1, don't try to erase it all at once freehand. If you do and you spend the time on all the intricate details as you go around the truck (mirrors, etc.) and you slip up at the end, you'll have to redo all of it. Always move in short managable lengths.
Here I've already cleared out around the suspension and I'm starting on the nose of cbraga's truck:
Another thing I normally do is take care of what can be seen through the windows. No need erasing all the rest of the background if you missed the guy giving you the finger through the truck... I went ahead and erased the windows on the opposite side of the truck, but smudged the reflection on the near side windows.
Since that layer was active, I decided to set it off using the blending options. Right click on the layer in the Layer Control to get there:
And I thought an outer glow would be pretty cool...
But wait... I don't want the halo to be visible where I erased the windows. Cancel that blending option for a minute...
I change the tool to the Polygon lasso like this:
This lasso allows me to select an area in a "dot-to-dot" manner like holding the Shift key does for the other tools. Just click where I want sides of the perimeter to end, and then look for a little circle to show up next to the lasso to close the loop:
Instead of doing a regular copy, I went to Edit => Copy Merged so that I fill the hole I had created when I erased the windows with the corresponding section of the flames from the other layer.
Edit => Paste to put this on a new layer. It lined right up with the area I copied it from.
Now, back to the truck layer and the blending options. I didn't want a pale yellow outer glow and I wanted to change the size too. So I clicked on the little yellow box to change the color, and used the sliders below there to adjust the size and spread of the outer glow.
Now that it was coming together, I realize I can't see much of the dash. So I erased it, leaving only the steering wheel. And in the blending options, I gave it a bit of a drop shadow.
To finish it off, I copied in the FSC logo from a separate file that I made up and I added cbraga's username. Changed the fonts a bit and played with the blending options...
So, after about 2 hours (on a slow comp and including the time to take all the screenshots) here's the end result:
cbraga -- you can link right to this pic to set up your sig. Thanks for letting me use it for this demo. :rocking:
If I get 8 or fewer basic shots (one from each side, front, back and then one from each corner) it honestly puts a serious damper on the chances of coming up with a really creative sig. And it honestly takes longer to do because I have to struggle to turn out something half decent.
So in case you didn't read my pointers for sig pics thread, read up and learn something -- you and I both will be happier with the results. Give me interesting shots.... wheels at unique angles.... focus on mods you've done, etc... and good lighting!! I can't stress that last part enough.
With that out of the way, I took the time to capture some screenshots during the buildup of cbraga's sig earlier tonight since some of you were interested. For those of you who don't know, this is westcoastz71's friend who was just featured in the TruckinSUV magazine. The pics I had to work from are here.
The first thing I try to do when working on a sig is plan out the look I want it to have. If possible, even build a theme around it that best captures the truck. In this case, cbraga's truck has a flame theme going so I decided to use these three pics:
So, I opened up Photoshop and created a new pic. (BTW -- I'm using 6.0, but the procedures should be similar for newer versions)
The 500x150 size self-explanatory. 72 pixels per inch is the best that most monitors can handle. If I were looking to make something printable, I'd go higher. But I know that these are only intended for the web so it's all I need. I'm pretty sure it helps keep the file size down too...
So, with my blank canvas ready to go, I copied the full size pics into the sig. For Photoshop newbies, you can keep tabs on each pic because they're on different layers as shown in this toolbar below.
To keep even better track on something you know could be huge, it doesn't hurt to right click on each layer in this toolbar, go to properties and rename them since the thumbnails are so small.
Now that I've got all the pics all in one place, I went ahead and stretched out the workspace by clicking and dragging on the borders. You could also just optimize it so that this file is the only thing you see rather than all the files being tiled. This extra space around the sig comes in handy as you'll soon see.
Next thing up... resize and layout the pics in the position you want them. Handiest tool for this is the Free Transform. Make sure that you've got the layer you want to work with active (check the toolbar mentioned above), then right click on the sig and go to Free Transform. Now you can rotate, scale and move the pics. Here I've already started to scale the steering wheel down:
Note: if you hold the Shift key on your keyboard while you scale the pic up or down (by grabbing and dragging the corners only -- it will not work if you grab the middle of one of the sides, top or bottom!!), it will keep the height and width proportional. Or you can click the chain-link icon in the toolbar at the top of Photoshop between the height and width percentage settings.
I went ahead and did this for all 3 layers. Here they are in their final size and positions:
I plan on having the full pic of the truck as the top layer, followed by the steering wheel, then the flames down the side, so I went ahead and reorganized them in the Layer Control toolbar. Just click and drag to do this.
I decided I wanted just a little bit of a blur on the flame layer. So, with that layer active, I went to Filter => Blur => Gaussian Blur...
Since I wasn't quite sure yet what I wanted to do with the steering wheel, I decided to move on to getting the background out of the truck pic.
This is something that really requires a steady hand and some good hand-eye coordination, especially as you get nearer to the truck. I normally use a small round brush with hard edges. Here are two key things to keep in mind:
1. For straight lengths, hold the Shift key, click at one end, then the other. Photoshop will connect the two points. Same thing works for the paintbrush and pencil tools.
2. If you're not using the "dot-to-dot" type approach I described in #1, don't try to erase it all at once freehand. If you do and you spend the time on all the intricate details as you go around the truck (mirrors, etc.) and you slip up at the end, you'll have to redo all of it. Always move in short managable lengths.
Here I've already cleared out around the suspension and I'm starting on the nose of cbraga's truck:
Another thing I normally do is take care of what can be seen through the windows. No need erasing all the rest of the background if you missed the guy giving you the finger through the truck... I went ahead and erased the windows on the opposite side of the truck, but smudged the reflection on the near side windows.
Since that layer was active, I decided to set it off using the blending options. Right click on the layer in the Layer Control to get there:
And I thought an outer glow would be pretty cool...
But wait... I don't want the halo to be visible where I erased the windows. Cancel that blending option for a minute...
I change the tool to the Polygon lasso like this:
This lasso allows me to select an area in a "dot-to-dot" manner like holding the Shift key does for the other tools. Just click where I want sides of the perimeter to end, and then look for a little circle to show up next to the lasso to close the loop:
Instead of doing a regular copy, I went to Edit => Copy Merged so that I fill the hole I had created when I erased the windows with the corresponding section of the flames from the other layer.
Edit => Paste to put this on a new layer. It lined right up with the area I copied it from.
Now, back to the truck layer and the blending options. I didn't want a pale yellow outer glow and I wanted to change the size too. So I clicked on the little yellow box to change the color, and used the sliders below there to adjust the size and spread of the outer glow.
Now that it was coming together, I realize I can't see much of the dash. So I erased it, leaving only the steering wheel. And in the blending options, I gave it a bit of a drop shadow.
To finish it off, I copied in the FSC logo from a separate file that I made up and I added cbraga's username. Changed the fonts a bit and played with the blending options...
So, after about 2 hours (on a slow comp and including the time to take all the screenshots) here's the end result:
cbraga -- you can link right to this pic to set up your sig. Thanks for letting me use it for this demo. :rocking:
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