First of all I want to say Hello beacause it's my first post on this forum (and I hope not the last).

Welcome to my first tutorial (probably not the last).
Thank You for wasting Your precious time at this short text. The main aim of this tutorial is to show You how to make some nice looking sigs with simple nature image with some effects and border. I'll guide You through brush settings and simple usage of PS filters. I hope it'll help You in some way...
Okay, enough talking. Let's do it.

My outcome:


1. Find some nice picture of any nature part You want (You can surely use any other image with car, human etc... but of course it won't be nature sig then.) I'm using this one: http://www.cdesign.nazwa.pl/tutorial/naturesig/orchidac.jpg

2. Create new document. Width: 350; Height: 125. Background doesn't matter. Set your image in the middle of screen like so:


3. Duplicate layer with Your image three times. I'm using default names of layers so I'll be using them also in this tut.

4. Select "Layer 1 copy". Then go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Set radius about 4~5 pixels. Set its Blending Mode to Overlay.

5. Select "Layer 1 copy 2". Go Filter>Artistic>Cutout (You can experiment with other filters but this one is the best for me). Aply this settings:

and set its Blending Mode to Saturation.

6. Select "Layer 1 copy 3". I deleted main "object" in image (as You can see at screen I used Rectangular Marque Tool with Feather set to 15).

Then I did the same as in step 4.

Okay. Now we should have something like that:

Do we? If not, try to refine it or just follow next steps with Your result.

7. Now we need to add some light effects. Create new layer. Grab Brush tool and use this settings:

Brush upper corners. Middle of brush should be out of our picture to make some glowing effect. Should look like this:


8. We're still using Brush Tool. Create new layer and use this settings

(Brush size beetwen 13 and 27). Brush to become effect like this:


Now You have to do something with this because it doesn't look good, does it? Again use Gaussian Blur filter with radius about 4 and set Blending Mode to Overlay. You can add some various to this ray using Smudge Tool. My result:


9. Now we're going to make some "dots streams". Grab Brush tool and set this settings:



Brush from the edges into the middle of image. My result:


10. Create new layer at the top of others and type ctrl+a to select all. Go Edit>Stroke. Width: 2 px; Color: #FFFFFF; Location: Inside. OK! And then set Blending Mode to Overlay. You can also add some text or something of course.
Once again my outcome:

And that's it! You're done! I hope this tutorial helped You in some way. You can try this in other projects.

Post Your outcomes or comments, will be welcomed.
Greetings

Now THAT is a really nice sig, bright and colourfull.

Excelent work Ciumil

Welcome to Pixel2life Ciumil
Great sig and good tutorial.
Very well explained, I really like how it turned out.
Thanks

Thank you for sharing. Im to greedy to share mine.that and I have no more links to them and cant find any of them!

I would love to see more of your work and I love the effect from this tutorial..Abd I love how it was done in all defult brushes..

Pro

Great thanks for comments. I'm glad You like this .
Soon I'll write some tutorials but actually I don't have enough time to work on them. Thanks again

But um the noise around the flower seems too distractive
I wonder how to remove them

What do You mean, exactly? With which step do You have problem?

Nice one Ciumil, I like the way you wrote this tutorial.

i like that one! it is great! summer-ish =D

nice work ..

a waiting for more than ..

with regards ..

this is what i got... now i will try with another pic

here is another i made... doesnt look very good i think

so:
in Your first sig You should follow the steps from beginning then just reediting step 9, i'd like to see Your outcome =)
In second sig You should experiment with filters and blending modes. Maybe also with lighting effects to gain some shinny effect. (Filters>Render>Lightning Effects). Besides try to use some more corolfull images.

so easy .. so beautiful

Hi, Liked your tut, very clear and easy to do..!
I tried the tut with another flower photo. You can see my result beneath.

--------------------

very nice outcome.
I think same procedure could be nice on a sepia picture too.
I'll try it sometime.

Wow, that sig has STYLE! Very nice, elegant, stylish. Rated Tut 5/5.

Going to try this tutorial out. xD

Edit - I tried it, got a bad result - My own fault, To be honest I think i used a bad photo to do it with, anyway

@UntouchedStars - I think You shloud try with some other render settings while saving picture, there is some noise on it.
@Scythar - yes indeed. You can try with other filters and effects.
@Dale71 - it looks like You didn't set blending modes to overlay

I followed my tut once again and that's my result:

I also discovered that in step 5 layer opacity should be set to 50% because default layer makes whole picture to dark.

Greetings

actually, how can i get my brush go a little longer, cause it ends like in the middle of the image, i looks kinda weird though, thanx alot

Hi, i absolutly loved ur tutorial

i think its because i got such a beautiful outcome

here is my result :

Really cool tutorial... Here's my result


I'll try this with other pictures. Something other than "nature" as well.

@Nothing '2' Lose - go to Brushes settings > Shape Dynamics and set Minimum Diameter to whatever You want
@oneshot - indeed, looks realy cool
@xis - Result nice. One thing is to change font color to yellow or green, set some gradient effect or so, should looks better.

Thx for the tut, i cant wait to see some more tuts from u

Really nice Nature

Really good tutorial m8 helped me alot here is my result

10/10 on the tutorial, I used it to make a nice and big background!
I LOVE IT!



Link Here

Wow, this is a very nice tutorial. Well done And welcome to P2L!

sorry for off topicness. just a quick pointer for NightHawk, i noticed ur text's a little jaggy... if u select ur text layer and the text tool, see at the top of the screen there's a lil bar, look for the two little "a"s - select something else other than none from the drop down menu to make the edges smooth


btw tut looks great going by others' outcomes. good work

Well written
Wonderful result
Wecome to p2l

Very nice tutorial and very well explained.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

I will try this in the morning and post my outcome..
There are few great sigs on this topic from this tutorial. Gd job guys..

Many Thanks

Andy

I really found this tutorial easy to follow, Which is a good thing as i'm a newbie to sig making...

Here's my attempt...

Wow, nice tut trying now =D

Very nice tutorial and well explained Ciumil. Thank you very much.
Here is my result:

hi guys..

i use pixel2life regularly but this is the first time im using the forum;.

just tried my hand on this sig with the same picture..
heres my outcome...
^^... comments are welcome

Hey,
good job - both works

regards

Hey im new here and i tried your tutorial out and this is my result
Click to view attachment

I don't know why but my one looks a bit dark than the rest of you guys
maybe i did something wrong?

Thats a really nice outcome, I based my Elisha Cuthbert sig around this method

Hey! Great tutorial. I was following it, and I'm afraid I got a bit stuck at Step 6. After I select the Layer 1 copy 3, what exactly do I do? Can you explain a bit more in detail please? Thanks. ^^

This is a nice tutorial.. .. its really nice ..* speechless*

Beautiful tutorial

i love this tut very easy to understand and its well put together you get 5 stars and 2 thumbs up man...heres my out come

Orgional:

New Version:

Edited Version: ( Lowed the text opacity so it would blend better

I tihnk it's all good except the border. But otherwise, keep it up

Not bad, but I don't really like this type of sig...

How do you get the brush settings..

I can't get it with CS3 Extended..

When I first looked over CS3 i had the same problem. You can go Windows->Brush settings (or just 'Brushes' - the problem is that I don't have CS3 )

PS. Thanks for comments! Good results as well.

k..i have a questionnn! (im pretty dum so this is a REALLY dumb question LOL ...oh yaa and i just got photoshop so im new at this..) You no where it says well ummm how do u move the image into the middle cuz when i open a new document its blank and when i open up the image it goes into another documentt...LOL told u it was dumb!^_^

When You have opened doc. with image just type Ctrl + A(Select all), then Ctrl + C(Copy).
Switch documents. In the blank one type Ctrl + V(Paste), and that's it!

Greets

You should never lower opacity for blending, you could try blending Flower borders using eraser at a low opacity.... Just what i do, and got told to do.

Great tutorial!
Here's my outcome..

Great Tutorial and Nice outcome


But i have Few Question and Concerns

I Dont understand Step 6 can you please Explain in little but more Dept and what selection did you use for it and for step 7 and 8 when you say Create a new Layer do you mean on top of layer 1 copy 3 layer or do you mean for a specific layer

Thanks