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In this tutorial, you will learn the way I make my abstract BG's without lots of layers, in fact..only 1 layer .

Well, First of all, you need to get some good brush packs... i find mine at Deviant Art.. First lets open up a new document,
i chose 500x500.


1. Maximize your Document so you can brush around the corners without using the whole brush..

2. Take out a brush that is pretty big, and has sort of a grunge/abstract feel to it..
something like this:


3. Now use some brushes that match that brush.. I usually will stick to the same brush pack for a BG because they usually are somewhat similar.

4. Now brush around that first brush, until you get something like this:


5. Now i make this part of the BG Colored.. i like to do it with Color Balance...Image>Adjustments>Color Balence..
mess with the settings to whatever you like.

6. Now start brushing again.. this time, use some different types of brushes, this part of the BG will be a diff color, or black.

7. Note: I tend to use more of the grungey/abstractey brushes, then on the other side, use strictly abstract brushes.. thats what i usually do, but it works either way with how your brushing style is..
Now brush around the colored BG with a brush that is abstractey, but will fit in with abstract, and go around the part where its colored first.. like so:


8. You will have a weird area like i squared in the pic above.. make sure you use a similar brush to the one above it, and to the side of it, other wise it will look kinda wierd...

9. once you did step 8, its really easy, just click around with similar brushes.

10. Now you can color it, Note: you cant use color balence or ctrl+U (Hue/Saturation) if you do the whole BG will change..
To color this side of the BG, go to image>adjustments>Selective Color Since i used the color black to brush, i will pick Neutral and Black and mess with the settings till i find something that i like, if you brushed with a different color, pick that color and mess around with the settings..

Your done making the Main BG!
This is how mine came out:


Now lets make your BG into a Sig... This should only take a few steps..

11. Grab the crop tool, and select an amt which is basically the same size of a SIG.
I tend to get both parts of the color, like SO:


You are done with the SIG BG. Now add a border, and some text, and maybe even a render.. if you want to learn how to blend all that in with your sig, click here
if i were you, only use the text and render part of that tuturial ;)
My end results:


Enjoy!
-Pink

[copyright to pinkpanther of furiousgfx 2005]

Sweet! You should send this into GT. I like the output. It's got a good blend to it.

NICE wow NICE!!!!


This is waht i got

I think your signatures are a little to small but your the designer, also its a nice way to make signatures :D it lets you put more detail into them

dude that's awesome :lol:

Same goes for me M67...but that's because the only other site that im a part of (not a grafix site) limits them to like 400 X 150 and I just got used to it being that ;)

Can you get me the direct link to the brushpacks...for some reason i cant find them...

Me either...

try deviantart.com

i cant find them on deviantart.com...thats what i was talking about when i said i couldnt find the brushes...i was looking for them on there, but theres no buttons or anything to get them...help plz.

On the main page, scroll down a bit, you should see a heading in the middle entitled OTHER under that you should see Resources and under/beside that you should see Application Resources. Click on that. Then click on Photoshop Brushes. Then you can either Browse Todays favourites, of just Browse all. Ta Da!

Didnt do it with photoshop, but i saved pinks image and added a couple of things, and text ! in psp.

PinkPanther what brushes did you use in the second part of the tut? Or are they your own?

downloaded em.. i dont really remember... sorry :-/

:( Sounds stupid but could you just do a 500x500 document of those brushes so i can use for future sigs or should i request it? In black and white.

Great tut, pink. I think I make better backgrounds if I do multiple layers of grunge/abstract and change them to soft light (about 15 layers). But yea, great useage. I'd send it to GT.

If youre looking for brush packs, simply go to http://www.deviantart.com/

and search for:

brushes

Comes up with all of them.