I don't understand when people talk about depth and flow of a sig. What makes a good flow and what makes a good depth?
Well from an idiots point of view AKA MY point of view. Flow is the direction of everything in your sig is going, good depth is where evrything goes to one direction, aka flows in a direction, bad depth is where everything is just all over the point and just makes the sig look plain messy. Depth is distance ( don't trust me on this one cause its one of my pet failures) shown between your forground, midground and background, lighting usually helps show depth along with sharpening and bluring your focal and background. Also showing things in front and behind your focal helps add depth. Someone correct me if i'm HORRENDOUSLY WRONG!!! OH SO HORRENDOUSLY WRONG!!! ........ WARNING TEXT IS LARGE!!!
Twilight_Falls's description wasn't so bad. Basically, flow is defined as "movement or progress freely as if in a stream" or "the act of flowing or streaming; continuous progression." Think of it as the water in a river -- it goes in one direction, and everything kind of goes along with that direction. the river doesn't just run in every direction. it goes in one fluid motion. For example, this tag (made by the beauteous Laplace) has good flow: Notice how everything is going in one fluid direction? this tag has a / flow. Another example of good flow is this tag (by C4E): See how even though there are two directions, everything seems to fit together, and the effects allow the eye to travel across in the direction the artist wanted? This next sig doesn't have much of any flow (made by Sadden Blood Warrior): Notice how there's not really any sort of motion to the effects? how they all seem to be placed randomly without cause? Moving on to depth... Depth is defined as "the extent downward or backward or inward; "the depth of the water"; "depth of a shelf"; "depth of a closet"" or "the distance between the front and the back." In order to make your tags more three dimensional, you have to have effects in the background as well as ones in front of you. Most people would simply tell you that whatever is closest to you will be the sharpest, and whatever is farthest from you will be the blurriest. This, however, is not always the case. When you want the viewer to focus on something, you here's an easy trick that helps me understand depth. Take out a pen or a pencil, and hold it in a pincer grasp in front of your eye. Close the eye that the pen/pencil is not in front of, and focus on your pen/pencil/hand. Notice how everything behind the pen/pencil seems to be blurry, and the pen/pencil is sharp? Now, without moving, focus on what is behind the pen/pencil. See how now the pen/pencil is blurry and the background is sharp? I would show you examples of good depth but I'm too lazy to look for them lol. ... and now I feel like Repliku. But I hope I helped!
