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Pretty excellent! The lightings are a bit random though. An orange glow on the person's hand is pretty "out-of-place." Is it me, or does the character look sharpened by a lot? Try blurring it a little bit. I like what you did with the three filmstrips-lookalikes. The character's lighting is a bit too bright. Go for a lesser lighting to show the face more than having it be blindful. The BG has those three dots - random, but placed very well; gives an overall flow of the sig. There's this blank spot near the left of the filmstrips (things), and it isn't doing it. Add something to it, anything to occupy that total blank. The text works pretty well, although I wouldn't mind to see it a bit more (just a bit, like 1% more). The random blue effect of the right-side of the sig is truly awesome! First time I've seen something like that, so that's props' to you Misty. I'll be honest here, it is a bit misplace or it is positioned badly. Possibly try moving it up a little.

Keep the original idea you have, and fix the positions of certain effects. Really, this sig has potential to be one of the best I've seen yet if the effects were fix at different positions, and the lightings to be a bit less bright. ;D

Whatever you done to that render ruined the overflow of the sig - badly. I like what you did with everything outside of the render, nice colors + awesome text blending, however, the right side looks pretty "appealing" moreso than the left; possibly try to even out the effects on both side.

The render now. The arms looks messed up like crazy. Too much disortion, guessing you use iWarp for that. Really, just the overly done disortion gets bad for the eyes.

I say though, you're good. Looks to be some abstract brushes with a bit of iWarp here and there, some layers that deals with the hues/sats. Other than that, good job; some details that got done over here and there that doesn't match.

***Colors don't fit to my liking; it's very monotone for me. Maybe this could be why I'm criticizing your sig a lot. You put no emphasis on the color, just mainly black + one other color, and maybe some lightings (in a lot of your sigs). Try going for a bit more variety, like the render matches perfectly with red + blue + black (well, this will be on the factor of: Can you pull it off?). Keep trying, you'll eventually get it.

I'm too lazy to give a clear, detailed criticism so this is the best I got:

1) It looks messy at the left-side, yet so bland at the right side. Try to balance out the effects, dude. I suggest to clean up the lighting a bit, because it's far too bright. The jumble of mess near the bottom of the Halo render needs to get less messy. Add possibly maybe 1-2 more of the strands of lights at the right-side to event it out.

2) The checkerboard-effect isn't a must for every dang thing... It fits the mostly with monotone avatars/signatures. Sometime, a reflective or a polar-base theme. I'm sorry, but the whole checkerboard-effect ruined this signature's appeal to me.

3) It doesn't look too blurry nor too sharpened... Excellent! A very strong point for this signature.

4) The text is hardly visible. Different color please. Text is very hard to do in GIMP, so it's okay to not make it look a bit flashy (IMO). I suggest making it lightblue, with a tiny hint of blend with white/black. Try to make it shiny (I'm not sure how to do this, but think of ways of GIMP's structure to do so).

5) Make the background of the signature to match with the render's theme... Halo is a shooting maniac game. So try a maniac shooting game, or something of that nature. *

Overall, the checkerboard effect needs to go, needs to balance out the elements, and have the background match with the render's theme! I say this isn't one of your best, but it's surely something that is worthy of a tutorial, no? I wouldn't mind learning how you did certain effects on that signature, ;)!

* It isn't a must, something that's generic with the Halo render. A cave, crystal forest, something. Really, the render matches with a lot of themes 'cept a plain background of lights that doesn't match well... A good example of a render that matches with the universe (as in space) is a Dragon Ball Z character like Goku. ;) So think of something that deals with the render itself...

... A warrior with swords, divinity-obstructions. A sniper with buildings, weapons, etc.

EDIT: I give the sig a 3.5/5 since it's too bland. However, some nifty effects are in it that saved it from being a 1/5. :P Your Kirby signature is the one I like, which I put at 5/5, if you wanted to know.

It wouldn't also hurt you to host the tutorials on image-hosting sites too... Preferably using imageshack.us. I'm saying this simply because there are times when you can't see certain images if it's not hosted on another website with an url to it. :( And pixel stretch designs is a self-explanatory name don't you agree Mickey?

Pixel stretch involves the use of manipulating a render, or something with a shape to it (whether it may be a background or spiraling-vectors, whatever) that "stretches" it to have the pixels disorientated across an avatar or signature, whether it be side-to-side or top-to-bottom. Something of say, Gaussian Blurring the render.

This is all base on what Misty posted, and the condition of which I can't see your tutorial. Please do note that I could be completely wrong of what the pixel-stretch method is.

A bit too high in contrast. V3 is the best one out of all the rest, IMO. The render is placed nicely, and the transparency of the render makes it fit with the whole BG. However, I see a lot of fractuals. The right side of the render, where it isn't highly contrasted looks pretty good. The rest, no. Possibly add some flowers vectors around the left side of Sakura, so it wouldn't look so empty and like a piece of trash (it looks very, very bright compare to the rest of the sig). Text could be worked on a bit, maybe positioning it better with a smaller font size (go smaller front size definitely if you are planning to put more tech, read... Tech, not fractuals around the place to the right of Sakura).

And the saying, "Practice makes perfect" should be change to "Practice makes perfect in the eyes of the beholder." =P

Beautiful. O_O I can see everthing, the scratchism with those colors are very nice. They provide an illuminating sorce to see what the BG is made of, and the effects also provides a nice FG effects. :D The text is pretty good, 'cept it's blending in too much with the FG, so do something with it. Add a border to it? I suggest black as the text border since the FG effect is really shiny, and with black it'll somewhat counteracts with it, yah'? The render is nice too, it matches with the whole overall feel of the sig. It doesn't look like the original render, so it works. The bottom part leaves something to be desired though... Add something to it, swirly lines or some special effects like pixelize. ;/

Overall, if the bottom part wasn't pitch black, I would see this sig as some of the best around here. ;)

*Wait* = The border is terrible. It looks fugly, change the border please. =[ Make it 1x1 on both axis size, not 5x1, my gosh. It's not that catchy to the eyes, and it's ugly. It's only ever so useful to make film straps like designs. And the sig size is PRETTY wide, maybe make it 360 x 120. Whatever, it's just so wide...

Your mom's computer more than likely has some stuff that is not needed. And is it an old OS? Like Windows 98? Even then, there are probably a lot of junks on that computer of yours, so maybe uninstall the useless stuff.

*And 16 MB is not even big... lol, you must have ATLEAST one item that takes up over 30 MB that you do not use. :T

BTW, some good graphic editing softwares are Paint.NET and PhotoFilter. Both are free and are relatively small download sizes (both are less than 7 MB for sure, correct me if I'm wrong if you happen to surf for 'em).

PhotoFilter - better than Paint, and it can combine with Digital Suite in terms of basics and "manipulating" graphics.

Paint.Net - better choice than PhotoFilter, and it sure can give you more ways to edit something than Digital Suite can do. =T It allows you to manipulate layers, and other features.

There, two options with both file size totaling less than 13 MB, lol...

The whole plasma-BG as special effects is not digging it for me. Text looks fantastic! I got no problems with it, o.o! The render is place at a very nice position, however a little bit more to the left will do it a whole lot better due to the staff. Some scratch effects going on, but overused at the arm part. Put a lighting near the staff to have it glowing, or at the top left corner so the render is a lot more visible, and can be use for the FG effects. Like other said, lacks FG effects. Add some FG effect, I don't know some swirly around so it'll look like a magical spiritual pressure thing? :P

For your second version of the sig, it's bad. The text is hard to read, too much grain effect going on. Smudges are overdone at essentially the bottom, make it done evenly everywhere (or a specific part, not a whole part). Looks a lot grayer now, and not really all that visible so put some lightings around. As the first criticism of mine to your first version also applies to this one.

Well, your first one is fantastic. Your second version is overdone with too many special effects from oversmearings to grainy effects.

As for following tutorials, it isn't ALWAYS a must to follow every steps. If you find a horrible step that you think looks bad then change it with something else (a new step or a technique you got from somewhere else), since you never know.. It could be a whole lot better. ;)

... Microsoft Digital Image Suite will not do to make "web graphics" that are decent (this is nearly always the case). You should download GIMP, it's FREE, there's no catch to it. It can make stuff WAY better than Microsoft Digital Image Suit can do (the program I'm assuming deals with photography, so making any kind of "nice" web designs will be tough to do, if at possible decent ones.)... So tell your dad or mom, or whomever that's not letting you to download GIMP about it's freeness, and no catch to it. Seriously, it has nothing on it that will mess up your PC unless you are a complete numbskull. :/ I'd like to know why you can't download GIMP and use it though.

As for your graphic designs, V1 looks bad. the green needs to go, too blurry, and the text needs work; possibly with the text, put it at one of the corners so it'll fit with the render. Looks so weird I'm not sure what category to place it in: abstract or "out of the blues". I won't rate it, 'cause I see no "good" ideas being executed by the sig..

V2 isn't that much better either. Just changing the colos won't do you much good (hue/saturation/colorize) since.. Oh my gosh, just a flick of a slider will do something like that. :/ The BG is visible now, although it has very little, VERY of any thing going on. The colors as a whole does not blend very well at all. No text either? Atleast a text at the corners would've done a good job, dude.

Your two sigs aren't very good at all. No offense, but it looks like all you just did was color the BG a bit, with some blackness at low opacity for some attention going on, then slapping on a render with some weird-shape things to the side, and save it. Then colorize and saturated it. =/

There are so many nice graphic editing programs out there that comes with absolutely no catch, and is pretty good at making stuff and FREE too.. *sigh*

"What will come depends on what you use and how you use it." - It's true in many cases, and in your case the Suite does crap since I have not seen any "good" stuff coming from it other than some photography editing. ;/ You got a lot of good ideas, but just NOT the right tools.

Looks blurry, a big white spot is just there being annoying. Render's good, doesn't need any sharpening or whatever. The BG is blurry like I said, doesn't match with the render at all either. Nice BG, poor choice of render use.

So a BG that's blurry, with a nice render like that = no-no.

Color Sig - It looks really good, especially the second time you edited it. ;) There's something that's too strong though, the blue color on the TV screen thing really ruins the flow. Make it a little less visible, or less stronger. Then you will have a sig that is so colorful, which mind you is hard to do without it looking like a mess of brushes slapped onto. And it certainly has objects there that really does look like objects (monitors, a system thing going on); that alone makes this a very good creation, IMO. The stock/render looks a bit too sharpen though (originally, no I don't think so maybe sharpen by about 20-35). Also, having no text doesn't really make it look like a sig but moreso like a movie thing. So either slap on some text (that's good) or leave it as is. It'd certainly makes the whole thing look better as a sig than a movie though, so try adding some text into the creation...

The Black/Gray/White Sig - I'm not particularly fond of sigs that are mainly black, gray, and/or white. Seriously, such an overused theme that it's sickening to the eyes. =/ The text suits better at the left, and smaller. Overall, the text fits with the sig I give you that. Nothing more to say, 'cept dodging the character a bit, and smudging the area behind the character so it'll give him a glowly feeling.

Also, both of the sigs has that line straight down the middle near the far right. That's annoying, I'm not sure why you have it like that (add to the whole randomness?). Try smoothing that part out, 'cause it's by far the most nuisance to my eyes since I observe everything of something rather than just the focal. >.< And add a 1x1 black border, or something so it'll look more professional. :P

...

For text, blend it via a new transparent layer with a pattern/gradient fill (or alpha to selection, which doesn't work WELL sometime). Obviously, the color/font/size plays a factor. Try adding a drop shadow to it (filter > light and shadow > drop shadow), stroke it (if text isn't merge down already, just select-invert, edit > stroke selection with a color that'll make it blend in with the BG but make it look out, and in your case for the Sora sig it's yellow or white.) or add a layer mask where the gradient/pattern fill is at. You could also use the layer opacity "value".

Of course, this is assuming you know some of the advance stuff of GIMP, so... And remember, experimenting makes better. Tutorials will also help! BTW, if you got the basic of GIMP down (shortcut keys, what each filters do, layer opacities, brush opacities, smudging, etc.) then you can also look up Photoshop tutorials since a lot of the stuff in PS tuts' has the same function as GIMP. Just convert PS tuts to GIMP (like PS says free transform, it'd be the perspective clone tool for GIMP to free transform).

Ahh well, I haven't been trying lately on making anything (my two horrible creations, lmao) due to lack of interest. If I ever get in the mood to start making good stuff I'll show you what I'm talking about. And remember, there are help files to read...

I agree, since a render/stock that is dead-on at the center just ruins the whole flow of a sig, or if the stock/render themselves are far too the side it'll ruin the background since the render will be covering almost, or all of the side of where the renock (render/stock abbreviated and combine :P), is place at. Good tutorial, however it is necessary of having a renock at a certain part of a sig if it balances out good enough so...

I say this will help a lot, but it won't do much good if it is in the tutorial section TBH. Most people only look at the beginning of this subforum, or in the shop area, so if you want this to be more widely known to people of making better sigs, then maybe stickying it at the beginning of this subforum? Anyway, this helped me a lot, but... Something as similar of saying "Put the renock slightly off to the side, so it'll balance the sig out; or dead-center if the render itself is absolutely will make it look good." is much shorter unless you're planning to show depths then by all mean continue your tutorial.

I see, and I just slapped on the KH 2 words on there. lol, so no surprises. I was seeing if I could make a nature-siny-logs BG, but I failed apparently. :P

It doesn't always have to be all colorful to be good. Sometime, people forget that even the simpler of colors is of great beauty to the human eyes. -

The text could be a bit better. It looks all messed up with the ackward slant that's going on. Needs some blending, perhaps to make it look bigger on the capitals. The background is all fuzzy with like 3-4 special effects going on... Consider feathering the render, then duplicating it a bit to smudge/grussian blur and move it around so atleast the fuzziness won't be the main attention of the BG. FG needs work on, no doubt about it. xD

All in all, it's good. Just lack a creator's interest it seems (the colors are vivid, but nonetheless perfect choice that was executed with the wrong plan of graphic choices). Keep trying, and maybe this time when making a grunge BG (it seems), try to add some other brushes that isn't just plain grunge (it's possible for just grunge, but it's sometime hard to make it look good with the render(s) or other special effects). I say smudge the render's hair so it'll have a smudgy feeling at the head point, which seems to be the main attraction with those spike hairs. :P

The sprite tag needs to have a different background other than pitch darkness (the random spike colors are a great addition). Text is good, but it should be a bit bigger and not blend in so much with the background for now. The sig size should be a lot smaller, to compensate for the sprite's size. That's all I can give as a CnC since this is my first time criticizing a sprite sig. :P

Cin - his/her ideas is also good, just mix up your techniques for fun! This is a hobby, and well when you get better you'll lose lack of interest of course; however, it doesn't mean mixing techniques up won't cure it! So just do it! I don't agree with his/her comment on that your sprite sig sucks though. I find the comment to be degrading. Even though it may suck, you can still CnC about the good stuff (like the spikes or whatever) instead of just saying it's not worth crud. >.<

Really nice! That one sig of yours > the rest of your other ones. :P

CnC - The background really fits with the render! Good job! You got an idea on how to make a background now right? Make it fit with how the render feels to you, then it'll probably feel like what you feel to others. :) The lighting near the top-left could be better though; suggestion, lower the layer opacity so it'll fill the BG less, but moreso to the point where it'll evenly balance out. I like what you done to the text, just at a perfect spot between some metallic things. Your metal at the side with abstract to fill it up really is a nice idea, I give you that. However, try to dodge some areas (particularly near the render) so it'll show more shines when you put a lighting at the top-left (again, 'member to decrease the layer opacity of the light so it doesn't become the main attention). Back to the text, it's main disavantage is that it's a bit blurry at the letter E and O. It looks like some splatters got onto it, and it's a bad thing in this sig; it's good, however if it has a decrease in the splatter on the text. ;) Near the bottom with those white-watery lines, make it less visible. It's a good idea, but it shows too much effect. Your sharpening timing is excellent, but: remember the white-watery lines? It looks far too sharpened (easily fix with layer opacity), and some of the background parts like behind the render is all too sharpened. You should redo the sharpening a bit.

Other than that, it's all good! Much better than your other ones, like 10x better! BTW, render could be a BIT sharpen, and don't make the background contrast so much like the render's colors (like with the blackness, try to go for a lighter black on the background so the render colors will prove to be the main attention, 'kay?). Anyway, good job and thank you for a change in that horrible mewtwo sig, no offense. :P

1st Sig - That render could be sharpen a bit. The text is tough to see, so make it a different color or move it to a more visible spot. A background like that is weird, especially the part near the render that looks like a flower or something. Remove the flower thing, and decrease the spikes; the spikes adds a great deal to the background, however, it isn't necessarilly good. Why is there a rainbow-like colors near the bottom of the sig? Really gave me a hard time to enjoy the background as a whole. On the plus side, it looks like a grunge background and you have the right ideas going. Just remember to not add so much randomness to the background, otherwise it'll completely threw a viewer's sight. I like the little grids you set up though! :D

2nd Sig - Not a whole lot of changes, other than that it's sharpened - a lot. The render is nearly perfect making it look like it's staring into the woods or something like that since you could see some trees or so. The BG itself is way too sharpened. You put it with too much details. Again, the random color of the rainbow at the bottom of the sig, ugh. Text is seeable, but it's not that clear so put it at the bottom-left since it's all white/blue there. Remember the little grids I told ya' I like? It doesn't work when it's sharpen, sorry!

Comments - It looks like to me that you're going for a tree BG, look up some tuts' on making trees or download some tree brushes. Make it shine at the top near the render so it'll give the background a dark feeling (the render itself is a remininsces of darkness itself with the choice of colors you blend onto it) and a point of where the sun's at. Make it blueish, the background; work with the trees, shine it up, make it look like you, as the render at a place that's all beauty yet dark but shiny at some parts. ;) This is of course assuming you're going for some trees in the background. Don't forget to dodge the necessary parts of the sig to lighting it up like the sun hit there, whilst burn to make it look dark nearly! Even the render itself, could use a little bit of dodge since it's a tad bit dark.

Some things you can do is colorize some of the parts, with the pen tool. You can stroke the selection with black or something to make it stand out more, or create some nifty stuff. Remember, anything overdo isn't always necessarilly a good thing. Since the render isn't all colorful, don't make the background all colorful! Make it fit, but you're trying to get the render to be visible, so atleast stroke it up a bit or use a brighter color to blend it (your case, dark blue? Go for sky blue). The text always need a work on, and I can't stress enough on it. Make some paths like a rectangle at the lower corner of the sig, and put your text there so atleast it'll be a bit more visible if that's what you have to do!

#1 Rule - Always keep your original contents as .xcf (GIMP) or .psd (PhotoShop) so you can always go back to the layers to learn, and fix up the mistakes, if any, that you don't particuarly are fond of now.

lol, it does not have to be complex. Ever try grunges? Look up vectors, btw...