Pink Poogle Toy Forum

I'm sure this has probably been asked before (tell me the link to the thread, because I couldn't find it through search), but how do you guys make those awesome looking sigs?

I made mine, and it looks horrible. I did it in paint, and when I saved it as a jpeg, it killed the quality. So what program do you guys use, and how do you guys make them animated?

Thanks for any help!

If Paint is all you have:

http://www.mspainttuts.lost-thoughts.net

Lots of tutorials for people at any level (beginner, advanced, in the middle).

((By the way, most threads like this go into the Workshop board, which is the place to ask for this kind of help. ))

(...Backseat modding?)

Thank you for the link.

Crud, I'm so sorry. I thought this would be the best place for this question.

Mods, feel free to move this thread. I am so sorry.

My program of choice is Adobe Photoshop (I'm currently running 7.0) for graphics editing. For animation, I use Adobe ImageReady. These programs are on the expensive side, so unless you already have them, you could try PaintShop Pro (http://www.jasc.com) or The Gimp (http://www.gimp.org) for graphics editing.
Good-Tutorials and The Web Machine are two of my favorite places to go to for tutorials on cool effects. If you want to get in on PPTers' graphics secrets, join the LJ community, Tragic Muse.

Just a quesiton vk, but is 7 the newest? My cousin had PS 7 and sent me the CD, so I'm slowly learning it. I thought it was just elements, but she had the actual version.

Just curious.

Nope.
After 7.0 is CS (Photoshop CounterStrike, aka 8.0), and just recently Adobe released version CS2 (9.0) (press release).
Word takes a suprisingly long time to get around when it comes to Photoshop upgrades.

I use Paint Shop Pro 7 =D

Some basic tips:

Graphics always look more complete with a border. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. A simple 1 pixel border will do, though sometimes fancier borders can be used.

The basic elements of a av or sig are border, text, subtext, image, background. If the image you're using already has a background to it, take advantage of it. But do other things to make the focal point stand out. You can try colouring just the background, or just the image, or adding scanlines or some sort of brush design over the background.

Don't leave a lot of empty space in a set. Your image, text, and subtext should take up the majority of room.

Always antialias your text (look for the option in the window where you enter your text). It makes the text look smoother. You can also add a stroke border, or glow to the text to emphasise it.

Never antialias your subtext. Use a small pixel text for subtext.

Coordinate any colours used in the set. The colours used for the border, text, and subtext, should all look good with the colours used in the image and the background.

Alternately, you can make a monochromatic set by colouring all elements to the same colour.

Also, things like animation and transparent cutouts are nice and fancy, but aren't required for a good set. And they can often just look silly if they're overused, or used improperly.

Busy images often seem (to me anyway) rushed and uninspired. Try to keep the amount of images/characters to a minimum. This gives the viewer something to focus on rather than trying to guess what the creator is trying to accomplish.