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

In this tutorial we’re going to create this Coldplay signature out of their wallpaper. You can find great stock images and other resources on our resources page. We will use very basic smudging effects, brushing and Cinema4d renders and gradient maps for coloring. Right, let’s start with the tutorial.

This is the signature we’ve made:

1. Right, open up a new file.

as you can see, we picked 340 by 130. Find a good wallpaper, and place it in your file. Resize it to fit your canvas:

2. Now on the following layers, add your renders and remove parts you dont like, and try creating some sort of focal point in your signatures. Toy around with the layer settings to create nice coloring and textures on your signature. The following layers and layer settings were used:

Layer Blending mode: Lighten 100% opacity:

Layer Blending mode: LinearDodge 100% opacity:

Layer Blending mode: ColorDodge 100% opacity:

Layer Blending mode: LinearDodge 100% opacity:

Our result at this point:

3. We’re going to create some lighting at our focal point. On a new layer, use your eyedrop tool to pick a light color from our render. With a soft brush, add some brushing and set the layer to Screen at 100% opacity. Reduce the opacity if you feel like it’s too bright in your canvas:

result:

4. To add more depth into this signature, we’re going to add dark brushing at the edges. Add some black brushing at the sides on a new layer, and reduce the opacity if needed. We kept the opacity at 100% though:

5. We’re going to add an adjustment layer (Layer > New adjustment layer > Color Balance). I picked these settings, but it’s important that you make it look good, these settings might not work in your signature if you have a different background, used different renders or played aroudn with the brushing. Toy around with the settings, and make sure you have preview checked in the checkbox. Turn it on and off to see its effect.

before we added our color balance:

after we added our color balance:

6. Now we’re going to add some more textures into the signature. You can either pick your Round Marquee Tool like we did, or you can pick up the pen tool to make custom shapes. You can find great pen tool tutorials here. We made some white circles into our signature, changed the size and location of the circles and placed them in a seemingly interesing place near our focal point. Set this layer to linear dodge to make it stand out from the background. This is how we did it:

some more circles placed into the signature:

some more circles placed into the signature:

7. At this point we felt that the signature was a bit too dark, so on a new layer we picked a “not too darkish” color from our canvas, and brushed lightly. Set this layer style to Screen, and reduce its opacity to around 60%. Erase any bits that you don’t need or that make it look bad.

the result after this brushing:

8. Make a new layer, and go to Image > Apply Image… We’re going to flip this horizontally. Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal… This should be your result:

9. The signature looks a bit boring now, so we’re going to add a subtle Cinema4D render. You can find these and much more renders on our Resources page. Set this layer to LinearDodge with 100% opacity:

our result with the cinema4d render applied:

10. We’re going to do some more smudging. Make a new layer, and Apply your image (Image > Apply Image…). Try not to overdo this step, but just smudge lightly

11. We’re going to add some more light brushing to our canvas, experiment with the layer settings until it looks nice. We set our layer to Screen on 25% opacity. it gives the signature a lighter feel. If it doesn’t make it light enough, pick a lighter collor and do it over.

our result after adding light brushing:

12. We’re going to add an adjustment layer. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter… and pick these settings (play around with the settings if you have a different canvas)

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance… and toy around.

Result after adding adjustment layers:

13. Make a selection somewhere in your canvas, pick a detailed spot with difference in lighting, this will probably look best. Make a new layer, and while you have a section selected go to Image > Apply Image… Move this section around, and perhaps even turn it around. You can press CTRL + T or go to Edit > Free Transform… turn it around or change its angle until you are satisfied. We’re going to use this section to place our text, so if you like vertical aligned text, change its angle. Put it in a good place. In our canvas, the text on the shirt of the left guy looks kind of out of place, so this would be a good spot to put the selection.

Our result after applying the selection:

14. Place in your text on top of the square box. The text is obviously optional, but we used the methods explained in the following steps to color our text and have it match with the signature:

15. Add an cinema4d render on top, and erase parts that you do not need. Set the blending mode to LinearDodge on 100% opcaity:

our result after the cinema4d render was applied:

16. Add a couple of adjustment layers by going to Layer > Adjustment Layer and select the following:

Gradient map on luminosity with 75% opacity

Color Balance, layer mode set to normal but opacity reduced to 60%

our signature is finnished! result:

Original signature made by TrueFantom. Thanks a lot to The Dragon for the sharing the tutorial with SignatureStop!