Getting The Desired Quality.

With tags that is.

What are some tips to get better quality with sigs? (Lighting, depth, b&c, gradient maps, etc).


Thanks

 

With depth it's nice to brush in black on a new layer around the focal point and set the layer to soflight at about 50%.You can also make a new layer, go to image>apply image and blur it w/ the blur tool or the gaussian blur tool(I prefer the blur tool) and erase the blurred area off of the focal point.

For lighting a nice little trick I like to do is add a B&W gradient map and set it to luminosity and lower the opacity if needed, this gives the tag a nice shine.These techniques are best used at the very end of the tag, except for maybe the black brush layer.

P.S. What do you mean by "b&c"?

 

brightness and contrast

 

start with high-quality stocks and renders, and be circumspect with your tools. also, it's best to resize something down to the right size ONCE, not multiple times. each additional resize will have less pixels to extrapolate from, so the end product won't be as sharp or as smooth.

 

As far as lighting goes, use lighting effects. If you can learn to use it effectively, it really is the best tool for it.

A tip I've learned for depth is to blur the background slightly, and then sharpen the focal ever so much. It really makes the focal pop out at you.

 

Crop images before resizing and use the sharpen filter, but do not overuse. (Try fading it as well).

 

Well:

Blurring the background
Sharpening around the focal/render
Addind a light after most effects
Using Lighting Effects