Creating your own Sig

[Anonymous]

Ahh, thanks much Beleev, I'll give it a shot this is fun. hehe

[Anonymous]

Use imageready, not photoshop. Make sure you're editing frame 1. If the change still doesn't work. you need to right-click on the layer you're editing and enable "Propagate Frame 1 Changes". Once that's checked, it will carry anything you change in frame 1 to every frame. There are some issues moving between versions with whether or not the propagation flag is stored.

[Anonymous]

Grh. Still having the same problem with the changes not taking effect in all of the frames.
I'm using your template, Ratio. I made all the initial changes in Photoshop and hit Shift+Ctrl+M to get it into Imageready, and it looks perfect in the first frame, but not in the others.

Also, how would I go about importing a larger size of the spinning wheel from those other PSD files, and then inverting the color of it so it's more white than gray?

[Anonymous]

Don't make any changes in photoshop. Do it all in imageready.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, never heard of the Propagation thing...cool.

Midnight- To make the image lighter, you can just go to Image/adjustments/brightness and contrast or hue/saturation.  Either turn the 'brightness' up or the 'lightness'.  As far as the larger spinner, I think you'll have to import the pic and rotate it yourself in every frame.

[Anonymous]

Hmm... How do I re-apply that fade mask thing or whatever to the other text?
(Furious Angels..HVCFT..etc)

I went to edit the file and when I opened the document it said do I want to update the document, and clicked okay, and Now all the edges around the text are really jagged and pixelly (I'm hoping i don't need to brush over these with a blur tool to fix this).

[Anonymous]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you wanted a gradient right?  The Furious Angels layer and HvCFT layer should have some effects already applied to them.  If you click on the effects then go to gradient overlay, you should be able to apply a gradient (color overlay overides gradient so make sure to turn it off).

As far as the text...It sounds like you don't have the fonts, but I think I get the same message sometimes and I'm pretty sure I have the fonts.  I just never update the text cuz that changes or rasterizes it.  

Temp fix:
Just open the original and choose to not update.  Then drag all your edited layers over to the original.  

Other than that double check to see if you have all the fonts.

[Anonymous]

Nevermind. I figured out what the issue was. It was the type of settings that were applied to the text.
You know, like Sharp, Crisp, Strong, Smooth, etc.
They somehow got reset to "none", so I just went and changed it back to smooth.

[Edit]: Oh sheeeeit! Check out my insanely hot new signature! Custome widget motion paths, altered spinny-wheel color. It's too sexy, yo.

[Anonymous]

Nearly complere update of the template to take advantage of new CS2 features. Don't even bother if you're running CS or lower. Requires both Photoshop 9.0 and Illustrator 12.0 to be fully editable. Requires only Photoshop 9.0 for basic manipulations.

You can get the file Here. And yes, before you ask, it really is supposed to be 22 megs. Lots of embedded stuff now.

Changes to the sig for CS2:

Smart Objects

The disk: The spinning disk is now a smart vector object and can be resized without loss. To do this:
1) Select the layer group (either "Clockwise Disk" or "Counterclockwise Disk")
2) Unlock the layer group (click the padlock icon in the Layers window)
3) Menu: Edit->Transform->Scale
4) Click the chain icon to maintain the aspect ratio.
5) Enter the amount of scaling you want in the input boxes. Don't use the handles if you want it to remain round.
6) You don't have to maintain the aspect ratio and can make the disk any shape you want which can lead to things like this:

Note that you can also rotate the entire group to give the disk a different starting point. Flipping the disk horizontally will change the rotation and also mirror the disk graphic for more variation. Toys toys toys.

The angels: The angels are also smart vector objects, so they can be freely resized, rotated, skewed, warped, etc. with no loss of quality. Note that layer effects (like emboss) do not scale with the object, so you may need to adjust the effects to achieve the desired result. The layers have also been linked, so any change to one layer will automagically happen to the other. This will keep the "shadow angel" consistent. That only applies to transform manipulations, so layer style changes still will need to be copy and pasted between the two:


The stamp is now part of the sig and is a smart object. Can be rotated, scaled, etc. The standard layer style for the stamp is already included so the old difficult import directions can be completely ignored. I also redrew the stamp so it is now all vector with no raster elements at all, meaning it can be freely resized without the jaggies. To edit the date on the stamp:
1) Right click on the layer "Stamp (Smart Obj)" and select Edit Contents.
2) Illustrator will open.
3) In Illustrator: Using the text edit tool, enter the appropriate date on the date layer.
4) In Illustrator: Menu: File->Save
5) This will update the psd automagically - but it only works once. In other words, if you want to change the date again, go back to step 1.
6) To change the color, edit the Color Overlay in the layer style.

Animation
Redid the animation to support Photoshop's new animation tools. It is no longer neccesary to do anything in ImageReady. The frames window can be found under Menu: Window->Animation. Fixed propagation, confirmed save point, fixed timing, fixed layer unification,etc.

Styles
Cleared all old style information and redid it. Everything should be more easily editable now.

General
The new .ai file for the stamp can be found here.
The new .ai file for the disk can be found here.
The old .ai file for the angel can be found here.
Note that these may or may not require CS2 to view. (These are not required - they are embedded in the psd. They are here just in case.)
Anything that is a smart object is labled with "(Smart Obj)" on the end.
Fonts are still available here.

[Anonymous]

Hmm. Just noticed a problem (thanks Ferris). Reinstalled PS 8 and fixed it. I'm not going back to 7 to check the fix... mostly because I can't find my 7.0 CD at the mome.

1. Cleaned up the unify locks. That whole only modifying frame one thingie should be gone completely. Adding new layers will still generate the problem, but you can just unify them on frame one in imageready.
2. (The problem) Changed the angels to vector masks. Should get rid of layer effect artifacts from the previous flattened raster images. (They can also be resized without loss since they are vector based.)
3. Wiped out some unused style info.

Fix is here (That's Photoshop CS/8 compatible - The CS2/9 files don't have the problem so the above links are good).

30 day program trials for a legit means of trying photoshop, etc. (just in case you didn't know): http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp

[Anonymous]

If it helps, here's some fonts: Clicky

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to make my own sig using the template, basically teaching myself photoshop as I go since I have no earthly idea how to use this program.  I have an image I want to incorporate, how do I do it?  I also need to change or invert the color of the Disk and Widgets, if someone can tell me how to do it.

[Bellthazor]

Hey, I need help in making a animated sig. I am not changing mine as of yet ( Thanks again Sared) But i would like to learn. So if any one has a bit of time give me a shout on st.

[Styan]

Nightmaremode, you are best to make changes (like importing still images) in photoshop.  If you goto file, then place you will be able to import a variety of types of images, as for editing colours of the disk and widgets, if you have the layers tab open (defaults to bottom right corner of the workspace) you can double click on the layers to change their appearance and add FX.

Self teachin is fun

Sry bell im not one for animation..

[Bellthazor]

np, i was trying and screwed up. Practice practice practice....going to get a book tonight i'm sure that would help.