Signature Brush

So you are doing some cool things in Photoshop and you want to sign your work. But you want to sign it easily!

Maybe I haven’t yet convinced you to get a Wacom tablet, and you’re still working with a mouse. Signing your name with a mouse is … well, you can do better with Photoshop! So let’s make a Signature Brush.

There are also some very cool effects you can do with a signature brush, and we’ll go through some of these at the end of this tutorial.

You’re going to learn some good Photoshop techniques in this tutorial:

• Using the Freeform Pen Tool
• Stroking a Path
• Making a Custom Brush
• Using special Brush Options to do a special effect
• A brief introduction to using a Mixer Brush

1. Doing your signature
   File -> New .. and make your canvas 600 x 600 with a white background. Make your foreground color black.

Make a new layer by clicking on the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

If you want your signature to be handwritten, and you are good at writing your own name, choose a small round hard brush, set foreground to black, set spacing to 1%, and sign your name in black on your canvas. However, if you want your signature to be larger than you can comfortably sign it, or if writing with a mouse is not your style, you can follow this tutorial to make your signature.

I’m using this Freeform Pen method for my signature. Above is the Path I made with my Freeform Pen.
And here is the signature stroked.

If you need your signature, can’t write with a mouse, and don’t want to learn the pen tool right now, you can still do this! Take a black medium-thick felt-tip, like a Sharpie, and sign your name. Scan this in or take a picture of it.

To Stroke your signature, you need the following:

• Layer active in Layers palette
• Color chosen
• Brush and options chosen
• Path active in Paths Palette
• Push the Stroke Selection button at the bottom of the Paths Palette.

2. Make this signature into a Brush.
   Turn off the visibility eye for the background layer. You want only your sig to be the brush.

If you’re using the scan-it-in method to make your signature, you’ll need to select the background with your Magic Wand and hit Delete.

Now you want a selection of your sig, and my favorite way to do this is by Ctrl-clicking the layer in the Layers palette. Ctrl-click the signature layer.

Next, define this selection as a brush. Edit > Define Brush.
Name your brush something clever, like sig brush, and click OK.

Your new signature brush will be the last one in your palette!

3. Try out your new brush! Open a file of some work you have already done, or a new file.
   To sign a piece, type B to choose the paintbrush. In the toolbox, choose an appropriate color and make a new layer. Use the ] and [ bracket keys to make your brush smaller or larger, if you need to.

Touch the Brush to the canvas till you have the right look. If the signature is too big, since it is on its own layer, you can use Edit -> Free Transform and drag it to the proper dimensions.

Since this is on its own layer, you can even use layer effects on the signature, such as drop shadows or bevels. Here, I’ve used an inner bevel and drop shadow.

4. Go a little mad! You can have lots of fun with Custom Brushes, and your sigbrush is no exception!
   In your Brush Settings, there are many scrumptious choices, and I hope you’ll try them all out. For this example, I used Spacing set to 1%. Click brush once on the canvas and then Shift-click at the other side. This makes your brush stroke in a straight line.

Here, I made a path with my Pen Tool and then used the same Brush Settings to Stroke the Path.

And, for this bit of razzle-dazzle, I did the signature part using a Mixer Brush. It takes a little bit of trial and lots of error to get this to work out cool, but some neato effects can be made with this brush. I used the following settings: Wet 50, Load 15%, Mix 50%, Flow 39%. My foreground color was red and background is black.

Now it’s your turn! Do something cool and then email it to me!