Charlie & Claire Signature Tutorial!

Learn how to create:

STEP ONE: Preparing the base background.

1. Open a new document, 480 x 180. It doesn't need to be any particular colour.

2. Take this texture, and place it onto your canvas. I moved mine to the right a little. Next I went to Filter → Noise → Reduce Noise and entered the following:

    

   Strength: 6

   Preserve Details: 11%

   Reduce Colour Noise: 0%

   Sharpen Details: 0%

    

   I now played around with settings to sharpen it to my liking. First I went to Filter → Sharpen → Sharpen. And then I went Edit → Fade and began to lower the opacity, so it wasn't too sharp. I did a few more sharpening techniques, such as sharpen edges, and faded once again. It should now resemble something like the following;

    

3. I wanted to dull out the strong contrast of this texture, for making my next colours stand out. I created a solid black fill layer. Layer → New Fill Layer → Solid Colour: #000000. I lowered the opacity to 25%.

4. I wanted my signature to be bright and colourful. The current colours were too cool for my liking. I took this flower stock, and placed it onto my document. I played around with the placement, and resized it to about 60 - 65% by using the transform controls. Filter → Sharpen → Sharpen. This will make the flower look a little sparkly later on. Repeat this last step, and set the layer to lighten. The colours weren't bright enough for me yet, so I decided to colour it to bring out the colours more.

   Image → Adjustments → Channel Mixer and enter the following:

RED:

Red: +130

Green: -50

Blue: +25

Constant: -4

RED:

Red: -25

Green: +125

Blue: +15

Constant: 0

BLUE:

Red: -25

Green: -12

Blue: +160

Constant: +8

Image → Adjustments → Colour Balance:

Midtones: +60 | +15 | -60

Shadows: +60 | +30 | -100

Highlights: +55 | +30 | +1

Preserved Luminosity CHECKED

Image → Adjustments → Brightness/Contrast: -15
 

5. I duplicated my first texture layer, and brought it to the top of all of my layers. I resized it by 75%, and brought it to the center of my image, matching up the vertical lines on the left to the ones underneath from the first texture layer. I set the layer to softlight at 65% opacity. Because it lost it's sharpness when I resized it down, I sharpened it once again. Filter → Sharpen → Sharpen. On the original sig, I coloured it by adjusting the colours with colour balance, and made it more pink, however it isn't exactly necessary, so you can choose if you'd like to fiddle around with it or not.

6. Next, I took this flower stock, and placed it on my canvas. I desaturated it. Image → Adjustments → Desaturate, and set the layer to colour dodge at 100% opacity, and 45% fill. I moved the stock to the far left, so the branches were covering the large red area. I added a layer mask (located below your layer palette) and painted over in black the sharp edge of the stock. If you need more help with later masking, feel free to ask, and I'll try and help! :)

7. Next, I took this texture by crazykira, and set it to screen at 100% opacity. I dragged it across the canvas, for the little red dots to show through on the black area of the left. I also blurred it. Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur: 3.0. Adjustments → Hue/Saturation: Master: Saturation: +40.

   

8. Now for some more flowers. Take this flower stock, place it onto your graphic and set it to soft light at 100% opacity. Desaturate it, and sharpen it. I rotated mine by 90 degrees (located in transform controls box) and resized it to my liking, so that the flowers stood out in the way I wanted them to.

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STEP TWO: Colouring the base background.

1. Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Photo Filter: Warming Filter (81) Density: 54%.

2. Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Colour Balance:

Midtones: -19 | -3 | +12

Shadows: -5 | -18 | +19

Highlights: -10 | +12 | -30

This layer adds contrast to the image. I lowered the opacity to 50%.

3. Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Channel Mixer:

RED:

Red: +120

Green: -35

Blue: +10

Constant: 0

GREEN:

Red: -10

Green: +120

Blue: +13

Constant: 0

BLUE:

Red: 0

Green: 0

Blue: +100

Constant: -1

I lowered the opacity to 40%.

4. A colour balance layer to dull down the brightness of the colouring.

Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Colour Balance:

Midtones: 0 | 0 | 0

Shadows: 0 | 0 | 0

Highlights: -25 | 0 | +30

Lower the opacity level to 85%.

END of colouring. Please remember that I lowered the opacity of the colouring this time around as it became a little too bright, while the first time I made this signature it was fine all at around 100%. So please play around with the opacity levels until it suits your base.
 

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STEP THREE: Finishing up the base.
 

1. I brought this cloud stock onto my base, desaturated it, and set it to softlight at 100% opacity. Adjustments → Brightness/Contrast → Brightness: -25 and Contrast: +35. I lowered the fill to 25%.
    

   

    

2. I selected my document. (Ctrl + A) and copied. (Ctrl + Shift + C) OR (Edit → Copy Merged. I pasted it. (Edit → Paste) OR (Ctrl + V) and then blurred the image. Filter → Blur → Gaussian Blur: 2.5. I set the layer to soft light at 100% opacity. This step made the colouring more yellow, so I went Adjustments → Hue/Saturation: Yellow: Saturation: -100.

   
   

    

3. I copy merged again, and pasted. I went Filter → Sharpen → Sharpen. Edit → Fade: 70%.

   

4. Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Hue/Saturation: Master: Saturation: +20.
    

   

5. To finish off the base, I took this texture, and set it to exclusion and adjusted the fill to 25%. I also blurred it, and moved it around.
   
   Now we have finally completed our base!! Great job if you managed to stay with me. :)

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Okay so this post is directed to my MVF girls, I need someone to request a tutorial or two..

I am not sure what to do one of, but I want to post my first tutorial on here.

So if you would like me to make a tutorial of something I have made..

Feel free to ask and I will try and get it here as soon as possible.

Jess xox
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Current Mood: giggly

I still have a lot of work left on it.. I'm going to work on my header and other images soon...

As well as the little bugs..

I'll start adding you wonderful peoples now <33

Love you girls,

Jess xoxo
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Current Mood: cheerful