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~Introduction~
Till this day, I never actually saw someone exactly demonstrate how to "make signatures," but it is mostly your imagination of how you want it to look. Once you understand the basics of Photoshop, you can pretty much create whatever you want. You can make a GIF as your signature, engrave your name onto a texture (such as metal and wood), and some simple and minimalist designs which you can do within Photoshop. Of course you can do a lot more, just that I'm limited to this blog post because I don't want to write a 10 page essay.

I am just going to show you one design I think it's the most easiest, which I think helps you get used to Photoshop. It's pretty good to start understanding what layers, blending options, rasterizing, etc, are. I think after you finish reading this blog post, you will have a clear idea on the basics of Photoshop.

If you don't have Photoshop or you don't wanna crack it, GIMP is a really good free alternative. If for some reason you do not want to download anything, you can probably give Pixlr a try, though it might miss out some features such as different types of blending options.

You can also start a Photoshop trial by creating a Creative Cloud account here

The process should be relatively the same for GIMP and Pixlr, so you can probably try this out if you are like desperate for a new signature. Photoshop is extremely easy to use once you get the hang of it, it is extremely handy if you want to quickly make something, such as a video thumbnail, etc.

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Photoshop shortcuts/keybinds:
I think anyone who frequently uses a computer already knows most of these shortcuts but here is a list. These shortcuts are quite handy.

Ctrl+C = Obviously, this copies anything that you have selected/highlighted, such as texts, layers, image, anything.

Ctrl+P = Obviously, this pastes anything that you have just recently copied. Pasting a layer, creates a duplicate layer, pasting text simply pastes text that you have copied, etc

Ctrl+Z = This simply undo any actions you have just done, such as pasting an image/layer/text, etc. Note that this only undo the last action you have just did, nothing else before that, so you should probably be considerate. Things like painting small and tight spots should be done in small chunks as you would have to redo everything if you accidentally miss.

Ctrl+T = Simple allows you to "transform" your layer freely, such as creating simple perspective texts, etc

Shift+W = Switches between your magic wand tool and quick selection tool. Magic wand automatically selects an area by setting your tolerance settings, while quick selection is a more manual and precise option. Quite handy.

Ctrl+"+ and -" = Zooms in and out of your current working space.

These are probably the most important shortcuts I would say to help speed up the process. Some of these are also mapped to your function keys, such as F1, F2, etc. If you ever need any other shortcuts, the list is here

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To start off, you can create yourself a simple transparent text behind a white layer, something like this
Takes you like 5 minutes to do because its so easy. But at the same time I think you will understand Photoshop a lot better.

 First, open the background image in Photoshop.

 Go all the way to the top and hit the "Layer" drop down menu ----> "New" ---> "Layer"

 On the window that just popped up, make sure you set the color to "None" and hit "OK"


 Now on the bottom right, you should see that new layer created named "Layer 1". Make sure it is highlighted in blue and that it is on top of your background image, just like this


 Go to your paint bucket tool all the way to your left, where the rest of your other tool are, and select it.

 Make sure that on the top right, in the colors tab, you set the foreground color to white, which is the first square. Then make sure it is selected. You can worry about the second box later.


 Once you have done that, just simple use your paint bucket tool and click on your image. Everything should become white.

 Now go back to your layers tab and select "Layer 1". Right above that, you should see "Opacity".

 Set the opacity to around 30-45%, and you will now see a translucent white on top of your original background image.

 Hit Ctrl+T on your keyboard to use the free transform tool

 Hold and drag the square points around the white translucent layer to change its length/width. Drag anywhere within the white translucent layer to move it around within your workspace.


 Now to add text, hit the "T" symbol all the way on your left in the sidebar, then drag and hold from anywhere to make a text box. It should be on top of "Layer 1" in your layers tab.

 On top, you should see a white box (not in color tab), set that color to black. Type whatever you want within the text box but it has to be black for the full effect.
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 Right click on your text layer and click on "blending options"


 Make sure you have the same settings as this circled in blue.


 Boom and you are done.


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But what if it doesn't look well on the forums because it got resized?

One quick solution is you can center it with , just like how I am centering the images on this blog post, instantly makes everything look a lot "professional".

 But what if its too small?
You will have to set it to 467 x 200 from the "Image" drop down at the top and select "Image size". Then set width to 467 and height to 200.
467 x 200 is dimension the forum can support, anything higher will resample it to 363 x 200.

 But why is it super blurry?
Any time you resample or "shrink" the image will lead to blur within text and just the overall image. Imagine you have more foam balls ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), that the box can hold. You would have to squeeze them in for them to all fit. Same principle goes with the pixels. Since you have more pixels to begin with, when you resample the image, it will have to find a way to fit all these pixels into one smaller image, which leads to blur. Kind of simple logic lol.
Enlarging the image too much stretches the image, and it might create some artifacts or blurs.

 But is it noticeable?
To be honest, you wont be able to notice it, unless you intentionally check.
https://www.gta-multiplayer.cz/en/topic/33288/#post-324461
Here's the signature after i shrunk it down to 467 x 200 in that forum post. Can't really tell just by looking at it, huh?
It is only noticeable in Photoshop or if you open up the image and zoom it in.

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So what did you exactly learn after doing all this bullshit?
After you tried this out, I think you have a much better understanding of layers and various features of Photoshop.

 Layers
- I don't know exactly a good way of how to explain this, but it is kind of the different parts that compose a image.
- It kind of controls what is stacked on top of the original image.
- You can drag to re-order the layers.
- For example, if you move the text box layer below the background image, it will go behind it, and of course you won't be able to see it.
- If you move the text box above the background image, it will be placed above it, and the text that you type will appear on top of it.
- Any blending options you apply on the layer will also move with it.

 Blending options
- Blending options is kind of like effects you can add on layers.
- For example, the signature above in the "how-to" has a blending option applied on to the text layer, which makes it transparent over the white layer.
- Blending options is really cool, and you can change the settings to whatever you want to make things look however you want it to be.
- You can make things to be reflective, engraved, etc.

 Rasterizing
- Well, this function was not featured in the how-to, but to put it in simple words, it converts your layer into pixels.
- For example, if you ever noticed, you cannot paint/erase when you have your text layer selected and it asks you to rasterize the type.
- This is because the text is still on a vector-layer and it is not in pixels, as those tools needs the text to be rasterize.
- Once you rasterize text, you will not be able to edit text, such as changing the font and size
- When you rasterize images, it cannot be resampled or scaled up without blur because it is now in pixels. Refer back to the bullet point above where i explained why there is visible blur when images are resampled.
- Click here if you are still unclear.
- To conclude it, basically you always want to scale images and edit text before you rasterize it, otherwise you will encounter blur on images and you will be stuck with text that cannot be edited.
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Now to sum up everything, if you actually pay attention and followed the blog post, you pretty much just learned the basics of Photoshop. You are not limited to what you can, such as this dog tag with a name engraved to it:


Any questions, comments, suggestions pm me or comment on this blog post :)

If you are still reading this blog post, this is probably the longest blog post I have ever written with like 15 minutes of my life doing nothing.