Signature Stop, Photoshop signature tutorials, renders, tag tutorials and signature backgrounds!

In this tutorial we will be making this sweet tag with the use of a stock, a cinema4d render, lots of smudging and some pattern techniques. Optional in this tutorial is the pattern we create on top of the text, you can either use your own pattern or leave it out. We have some patterns available in the Resources section if you’re looking for some. In this tutorial I tried to explain the importance of flow and how you use it in a tag:

optional result with selective color layer:

1. First, create a new file.Our size was 360 by 110 pixels. Fill this with a dark greyish color:

2. Grab your text tool, and write your text. We’re going to remove parts of the text to give it a broken structure. To do this, we have to rasterize the layer, then grab our eraser tool to remove some of it. Right click on your text layer, and select Rasterize Layer.

You should now be able to remove parts of the text. Don’t overdo it if you still want it to be partially readable:

3. We’re going to add a pattern to our text (you can do this on a new layer if you like). CTRL + Right Click on our text layer to select our text. Then select Edit > Fill, choose your pattern and press ok:

This should select the outlines of your text:

Fill this with a pattern, this one has a white striped pattern (Edit > Fill > Pattern):

4. This step could be a bit harder. We’re going to add our stock, and remove most of it. Smudge the edges with a hard brush, and sharpen certain areas. Experiment with this, try using the burn and dodge tool, or the clone stamp tool for example. Set this layers blending mode to Lighten, and place it nicely in your tag:

5. Duplicate this layer, and start burning certain areas. Set this layer to Lighten as well.

6. We’re going to create some more textures in our tag. Use either the pen tool or brush tool to create some hard lines with a few different colors. Smudge this area a bit with a hard brush. It’s best to use a splatter brush in this step:

8. Set this layer to screen to blend it a bit:

9. Duplicate the layer, and move it down a little. Remove, smudge, burn, and so forth:

10. Add in a cinema4d render (you can find plenty in our resources section) and erase most of it. Try creating some sort of flow in your colors, as shown in our image:

11. Set this layers blending mode to lighten:

This image is made to illustrate the flow in our signature. Try to create a similar effect where everything moves into the same direction.

12. Find another good cinema4d render, and place it onto your canvas. Rotate the render in a way that it will continue to follow the flow of your signature. Remove parts that are disturbing. Set this layer to Lighten, keep its opacity at 100%:

Blending mode changed to screen:

13. We’re going to add another pattern, and we’re going to set this to Lighte on 30% opacity. You can find this pattern in our resources section, or save the image below:

Copy this image, and paste it in a new file in Photoshop. Go to Edit > Define Pattern, enter a name and press ok.

Press CTRL-A to select all, then go to Edit > Fill, select your pattern and press ok.

Set the blending mode to lighten on 30% opacity:

14. Add in another Cinema4d render if your tag needs more texture, and set this layer to lighten. Rotate it so it follows the flow of your signature.

Set the blending mode to Lighten. The opacity was kept at 100%:

15. Add in a good looking stock, and remove parts of it. We’re going to rotate this to match the flow in our signature.

Our stock rotated (You can see the parts we erased to blend into the background):

16. To blend the stock into the background, set its blending mode to Lighten:

17. We’re going to add in some more text and once again apply the pattern onto it:

Like shown in step 3, CTRL + Click on your text layer to select your text. Make a new layer, and fill the selection with a pattern. You can change this patterns blending mode to soft light, overlay or lighten to create a good looking effect. Our result:

18. The color of the text looks slightly odd, so you can either change the text color or add an adjustment layer on top of it. We’ve blended our text with a pink to black gradient map, and erasing all the parts outside of the text. We set this gradient map to lighten on 60% opacity:

19. We’re going to sharpen our tag. Make a new layer, and go to Image > Apply Image. You can now either manually sharpen the layer with the sharpen tool, or go to Filter > Sharpen, and remove parts that come on too strong. We’re nearly done now! Our result:

Our tag in high quality:

20. The following step is optional, we’re going to add in a selective color layer. It’s not very useful to show you which settings exactly we’ve picked, because every image will have a different outcome. However, you can download the selective color layer here. Click on the adjustment layer panel to view the settings, and scroll between the colors to view it.

Our result:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Please show us your outcome in the comments!