Sagittarius
08-27-2006, 02:03 AM
i kno many of you out there want sigs. and many of you are waiting in a line that seems like ti will never end. well....cheer up, there is hope, her i present to you Sagittarius' SIGS FOR DUMMIES. just FYI i made mine using this method and this isn't a manual so much as a guide for useful ways to make your own SIMPLE sig.
Requirements:
**Microsoft Office Word 2003 or any recent addition.
**Paint, the one in accesories.
**Microsoft Office picture mananger (or any other program that can save/load/resize pictures from paint.)
**a decent connection and the "Print Screen" button. (should be right above "delete")
** a blog, forum, or some online website which you can use to upload your sig to the web, i would reccomend THIS SITE (http://www.blogger.com/start)because it is simple and easy to use.
Directions:
okay if you have the above you are ready to begin making your first simple sig. first off, here is a list of simple keyboard commands that will let you be able to do all sorts of magical things. they are
ctrl+c : this is the windows command for "copy". you can use this command to copy nearly anytihing anywhere that is highligted with your mouse (web-adresses,pictures, etc). become familiar with this key.
ctrl+v : this is the windows command for paste. it automatically pastes the last thing you copied whereever you have selected in a progra (ie, Word).
Print Screen : this is the key to making your sig. what it does is take a screen shot of whatever you are looking at right now, and i mean EVERYTHING!! even the taskbar or the start buton at he bottom of the screen. with this tool you can put several different images togther and then take a picture of them as one. this ALSO acts as a copy or ctrl+c and as such, pressing ctrl+v will bring up your last image in a program like paint.
okay, now that you kno the commands its time to start making the actual sig. i would suggest opening Word first so u can paste images and arrange them at will. start by selecting a backround. for this sig i will use THIS BACKROUND (http://www.kepplah.com/stuff/lightning-and-burst.jpg) to do this i right click on the image and press copy. then i go into Word and press ctrl+v.
this is where it gets tricky. i need to do two things, one, i need to be able to have absolute control over the image. Second, i need to resize it roughly to what i want.
to do the first step, go into Word, open a new document, click on the page, and press ctrl+v. this should paste the image somewhere on the screen. in order to gain movement control over the image, we need to to use the Word Picture Toolbar. (if yours is not in a window already, right click on the blank gray space under where the menus are (at the top of the screen) this should give a list of things with check marks beside some and not other, go down to the one that says "Picture" and selct it. this will bring up the picture toolbar.)
select your image and then press the button on the toolbar that says "Text Wrapping", (the icon should look like a dog with lines around it). after u click this scroll down to the option labeled "edit wrap points". after you click that the image will get a red dotted line around it, this is good. whe nthe image has the red line around it, unselect the image. the next time you do select it, you should be able to move it anywhere on the page. to resize it, just grab the corner of the image and drag it to the desired shape. note, it doesn't matter how big it is because u can resize it later so feel free to make it as big or as small as you want on the page.
Adding Extra Images:
to add extra images go online or into clipart and repeat the above steps with ctrl+v, text wrapping, etc. you may want to press ctrl+enter in word before browsing for pictures because sometimes Word screws up the copy-pate thing and the ctrl+enter simply adds a new blank page that you can paste and drag your images around.
when adding images it is important that you find ones that have the desired figure u want, and NOTHING ELSE otherwise your sig will just look like a box ontop of a box. take an image like THIS (http://www.desktopexchange.com/gallery/albums/Anime-Wallpapers/angel_sanctuary_pictures.jpg) because ones with backround will just cause you grief. for my sig i will choose the above image, THIS IMAGE (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://neuromancerwp.free.fr/James%2520King%252001.png&imgrefurl=http://neuromancerwp.free.fr/&h=1024&w=1280&sz=704&hl=en&start=16&tbnid=WQME58HHztVR9M:&tbnh=120&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dking%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den %26lr%3D%26rls%3DSNYI,SNYI:2005-33,SNYI:en%26sa%3DN) and THIS IMAGE. (http://images.hallmarkchannel.com/MicroSites/InsideStory/images/Walker2.jpg)
note how both of these images have the main character, and the nothing else. here is the reason for this: in order to eliminate the "box effect" you will need to use the "transparency" button. the icon, whic is located again in the picture toolbar, looks like a little blue and yellow pen pointing towards at black L in the bottom left of the icon. select you image and then select this button. this is cool, click the transparency "wand" on the white space of your image. now drag your image over your backround....hopefully you should only see your figure highlighted against the backround that YOU put in. if there are some lines around the edge, use the "Crop" button to get rid of them. you canalso do mirror images (such as the knights in my sig) by grabbing the corner of the image and dragging past the middle to about where it would be on the ohter side, halfway during this procedure the image should flip and make u feel toaly awesome. place the images wherever you want them in the sig. remeber, the sig has to generally be much wider than it is long.
after all your images are in place, its time to put on some text. i would reccomened either word art or an online text website. if you shoose the former, select a word art, write in your name, and then fit it into the sig. it may look awkward but if you right click the Word Art and press the "Format Wordart" button, you get a lot of interesting options. try setting the transparency to about 70% and see how it looks. try using all the options in there and also try chaning the text style or font. ultimately its up to u bust basically, by this point you should be looking at roughly the finshed product.
FINALIZING THE SIG
this is where our old pal "Print Screen" comes in. first, zoom in or out of the page so the sig becomes roughly about the size as it would appear on the forums. if you have a mouse wheel, and easy way to do this is to hold down ctrl while you roll the mousewheel forwards or backwards. when the image is about where u want it, press, Print Screen.
now, open up paint and press ctrl+v. you should get a weird image of your entire browser AND the sig, but don't worry. now go into the paint toolbar onthe laft and select he box that has a dotted square around it. this in turn should give you two options. choose the one that has only a dotted line around the icon and NOT a white box in the middle. then, carefully drag the dotted box around EXACLTY what you want to be your sig, you should be able to cut off the extra bits. once your sig is selected, press ctrl+c
now open up a new paint document and press ctrl+V. it should paste your sexy new sig in the document. thats all you can do here so save the picute and open up picute manager or a similar program that lets you load Paint documents.
once you have the image in Picture manager, carefully crop away the extra white bits and leave nothing but your sig unselected. this gets rids of all the extra bits. you're nearly there. the last thing to do is re-size the pixels of the image so go into the taskbar and press resize. you'll get a menu with values for width and height, type 500x100 in the fields and press okay. the Picture Manager program will convert your sig to the proper size.now press save (if u havn't already) .
UPLOADING YOUR SIG
this is where the blog comes in handy. get into your blog, or forums, etc, and upload the pic onto the blog. from there, log back onto your blog as a viewer and and then right click the image. scroll down to the "properties" button and select it. you know what comes next. copy the web address with ctrl+c and then post it in your DF, USER CP sig with YOUR SIG'S URL. log out and vew your masterpiece. all in all this sould take u mebbe an hour or two. heres mine from the images i showed you earlier: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5435/3645/1600/SIG2.jpg
PS] i apologize for my horrendous typing, its late and i don't see very well with 4 pounds of caffeine in my system.
TroubleShooting
if you have any problems, please please please post them in this thread so others can see too. i guarantee you that once you publish even a really simple sig that you will feel amazing. also, i will also be publishing an advanced guide if i get enough positive feedback from yallz. to create custom shapes, get images from backrounds, edit transparency, etc.
hope you enjoyed!!
Requirements:
**Microsoft Office Word 2003 or any recent addition.
**Paint, the one in accesories.
**Microsoft Office picture mananger (or any other program that can save/load/resize pictures from paint.)
**a decent connection and the "Print Screen" button. (should be right above "delete")
** a blog, forum, or some online website which you can use to upload your sig to the web, i would reccomend THIS SITE (http://www.blogger.com/start)because it is simple and easy to use.
Directions:
okay if you have the above you are ready to begin making your first simple sig. first off, here is a list of simple keyboard commands that will let you be able to do all sorts of magical things. they are
ctrl+c : this is the windows command for "copy". you can use this command to copy nearly anytihing anywhere that is highligted with your mouse (web-adresses,pictures, etc). become familiar with this key.
ctrl+v : this is the windows command for paste. it automatically pastes the last thing you copied whereever you have selected in a progra (ie, Word).
Print Screen : this is the key to making your sig. what it does is take a screen shot of whatever you are looking at right now, and i mean EVERYTHING!! even the taskbar or the start buton at he bottom of the screen. with this tool you can put several different images togther and then take a picture of them as one. this ALSO acts as a copy or ctrl+c and as such, pressing ctrl+v will bring up your last image in a program like paint.
okay, now that you kno the commands its time to start making the actual sig. i would suggest opening Word first so u can paste images and arrange them at will. start by selecting a backround. for this sig i will use THIS BACKROUND (http://www.kepplah.com/stuff/lightning-and-burst.jpg) to do this i right click on the image and press copy. then i go into Word and press ctrl+v.
this is where it gets tricky. i need to do two things, one, i need to be able to have absolute control over the image. Second, i need to resize it roughly to what i want.
to do the first step, go into Word, open a new document, click on the page, and press ctrl+v. this should paste the image somewhere on the screen. in order to gain movement control over the image, we need to to use the Word Picture Toolbar. (if yours is not in a window already, right click on the blank gray space under where the menus are (at the top of the screen) this should give a list of things with check marks beside some and not other, go down to the one that says "Picture" and selct it. this will bring up the picture toolbar.)
select your image and then press the button on the toolbar that says "Text Wrapping", (the icon should look like a dog with lines around it). after u click this scroll down to the option labeled "edit wrap points". after you click that the image will get a red dotted line around it, this is good. whe nthe image has the red line around it, unselect the image. the next time you do select it, you should be able to move it anywhere on the page. to resize it, just grab the corner of the image and drag it to the desired shape. note, it doesn't matter how big it is because u can resize it later so feel free to make it as big or as small as you want on the page.
Adding Extra Images:
to add extra images go online or into clipart and repeat the above steps with ctrl+v, text wrapping, etc. you may want to press ctrl+enter in word before browsing for pictures because sometimes Word screws up the copy-pate thing and the ctrl+enter simply adds a new blank page that you can paste and drag your images around.
when adding images it is important that you find ones that have the desired figure u want, and NOTHING ELSE otherwise your sig will just look like a box ontop of a box. take an image like THIS (http://www.desktopexchange.com/gallery/albums/Anime-Wallpapers/angel_sanctuary_pictures.jpg) because ones with backround will just cause you grief. for my sig i will choose the above image, THIS IMAGE (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://neuromancerwp.free.fr/James%2520King%252001.png&imgrefurl=http://neuromancerwp.free.fr/&h=1024&w=1280&sz=704&hl=en&start=16&tbnid=WQME58HHztVR9M:&tbnh=120&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dking%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den %26lr%3D%26rls%3DSNYI,SNYI:2005-33,SNYI:en%26sa%3DN) and THIS IMAGE. (http://images.hallmarkchannel.com/MicroSites/InsideStory/images/Walker2.jpg)
note how both of these images have the main character, and the nothing else. here is the reason for this: in order to eliminate the "box effect" you will need to use the "transparency" button. the icon, whic is located again in the picture toolbar, looks like a little blue and yellow pen pointing towards at black L in the bottom left of the icon. select you image and then select this button. this is cool, click the transparency "wand" on the white space of your image. now drag your image over your backround....hopefully you should only see your figure highlighted against the backround that YOU put in. if there are some lines around the edge, use the "Crop" button to get rid of them. you canalso do mirror images (such as the knights in my sig) by grabbing the corner of the image and dragging past the middle to about where it would be on the ohter side, halfway during this procedure the image should flip and make u feel toaly awesome. place the images wherever you want them in the sig. remeber, the sig has to generally be much wider than it is long.
after all your images are in place, its time to put on some text. i would reccomened either word art or an online text website. if you shoose the former, select a word art, write in your name, and then fit it into the sig. it may look awkward but if you right click the Word Art and press the "Format Wordart" button, you get a lot of interesting options. try setting the transparency to about 70% and see how it looks. try using all the options in there and also try chaning the text style or font. ultimately its up to u bust basically, by this point you should be looking at roughly the finshed product.
FINALIZING THE SIG
this is where our old pal "Print Screen" comes in. first, zoom in or out of the page so the sig becomes roughly about the size as it would appear on the forums. if you have a mouse wheel, and easy way to do this is to hold down ctrl while you roll the mousewheel forwards or backwards. when the image is about where u want it, press, Print Screen.
now, open up paint and press ctrl+v. you should get a weird image of your entire browser AND the sig, but don't worry. now go into the paint toolbar onthe laft and select he box that has a dotted square around it. this in turn should give you two options. choose the one that has only a dotted line around the icon and NOT a white box in the middle. then, carefully drag the dotted box around EXACLTY what you want to be your sig, you should be able to cut off the extra bits. once your sig is selected, press ctrl+c
now open up a new paint document and press ctrl+V. it should paste your sexy new sig in the document. thats all you can do here so save the picute and open up picute manager or a similar program that lets you load Paint documents.
once you have the image in Picture manager, carefully crop away the extra white bits and leave nothing but your sig unselected. this gets rids of all the extra bits. you're nearly there. the last thing to do is re-size the pixels of the image so go into the taskbar and press resize. you'll get a menu with values for width and height, type 500x100 in the fields and press okay. the Picture Manager program will convert your sig to the proper size.now press save (if u havn't already) .
UPLOADING YOUR SIG
this is where the blog comes in handy. get into your blog, or forums, etc, and upload the pic onto the blog. from there, log back onto your blog as a viewer and and then right click the image. scroll down to the "properties" button and select it. you know what comes next. copy the web address with ctrl+c and then post it in your DF, USER CP sig with YOUR SIG'S URL. log out and vew your masterpiece. all in all this sould take u mebbe an hour or two. heres mine from the images i showed you earlier: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5435/3645/1600/SIG2.jpg
PS] i apologize for my horrendous typing, its late and i don't see very well with 4 pounds of caffeine in my system.
TroubleShooting
if you have any problems, please please please post them in this thread so others can see too. i guarantee you that once you publish even a really simple sig that you will feel amazing. also, i will also be publishing an advanced guide if i get enough positive feedback from yallz. to create custom shapes, get images from backrounds, edit transparency, etc.
hope you enjoyed!!