Avatar and Signature Making Tutorials??

[Phlameseeker]

I dont know if this is the right place, but id like to learn how to make avatars and signatures, so would anybody know any useful links or tips to help me get started?? Please?? lol. thanks for anyone who replies. G2g back to the real world now. What a drag!

[Marissa]

Moved to the Workshop.

[Kitten Medli]

First of all.. what kind of editing programs do you have? Paint, Paint Show Pro, etc. If you can answer that I an be more of a help.

[Medusa]

I don't recall ever having seen any guides or tutorials but the basic idea is get an image you like, blend it around, design other things, etc until you have a final image you like, most of this is just experimentation with images, layers, effects, brushes, whatever. From there you need to put text on it (well, you don't NEED too but most people do) this can either be your name or sub-text or whatever. After thats all done I usually just transfer my entire image into Paint where I put borders on and perhaps do a few cutouts, I always colour the cutouts a completely different colour to those in the image so I have less problems when I make them transparent. All up how to make sets is a little difficult to explain because there a number of steps each requiring a specific explanation.

Like Kitten Medli said though, perhaps if you tell us what type of program you're using, that way someone who has the program can perhaps give you specific directions and maybe even examples.

Ummm... I hope I haven't confused you too much...

[edit]Okay, I got bored and decided to write up a small tutorial on it, just the very simplistic basics: http://www.geocities.com/ppmedusa/sets/tutorial.html Enjoy![/edit]

[Phlameseeker]

Thanks you guys. At the moment i have only paint, but i can download Paintshop Pro (i think) and get the trail. Can you get free adobephotoshop trials?Thanks a lot medusa. I have absolutely no idea how everone can make such good stuff, like flashing text, and so on. i just want to be able to make my own stuff, but also to be able to enter decent stuff in the set competitions.

[Sapphire Faerie]

As far as flashing text is concerned, you have to use an animation program. Animation Shop comes with Paint Shop Pro. And a lot of people use it.
The basics of flashing text, is to change one letter at a time. To get an idea of the exact change, save an animated av or sig with the effect you're looking for, and then open Animation shop and open that file. You'll be able to see each frame of the animation seperately, that way you can get an idea of how to change each frame of what you're making.
To add your seperate frames into Animation shop, go to 'Edit > Paste' for the first frame, and 'Edit > Paste > After Current Frame' for each additional frame. Once you have all of your frames pasted in, go to 'Edit > Select All' to select all of the frames. You can then go to 'Animation > Frame Properties' to select the frame rate (speed) for your animation. The higher you set it, the slower the animation will go. Click 'View > Animation' to preview the animation. Once it looks how you want it. Save it, be sure to save it as a gif. Animation shop will automatically optimize the animation (so that it's 256 colours or less, and has a lower filesize).

[Yoshi]

To your question about Adobe Photoshop trials, you can get a 30-day one for Photoshop CS (version 8) here. This *might* include Adobe Imageready, which is Adobe's animation program- but that's pretty hard to learn in thirty days to get something useful.

[Amethyst]

If you just want a program for sets, get Adobe Photoshop Elements. I use it. It's really easy to learn and you can animate with it. You can also get some really cool effects^^

[Kitten Medli]

If you just want a program for sets, get Adobe Photoshop Elements. I use it. It's really easy to learn and you can animate with it. You can also get some really cool effects^^

Pfft, then why aren't my sets even half as good as yours?

[Bangel]

Well, I personally think the best way to learn is to teach yourself. I suggest starting off with Paint. You may say, 'hey, that sucks' about it, but it can make some pretty amazing stuff.

[Amethyst]

If you just want a program for sets, get Adobe Photoshop Elements. I use it. It's really easy to learn and you can animate with it. You can also get some really cool effects^^

Pfft, then why aren't my sets even half as good as yours?

'Cause no one in their right mind has as much spare time to practice as I do