Web signatures/logos - on white or transparent

[Marko]

Just curious how people are approaching this specifically for the web.

I too have a new signature logo (ever so slightly similar in style to raiven's new sig (http://www.photography.ca/Forums/37791-post1.html) except mine is a black logo and i want to add my black signature to it) that I'll reveal shortly.

It seems like the only way to add it to a web image is to have the sig on the white border. This is because most web shots are jpegs and jpeg does not support transparency. This feels like a HUGE oversight on my part...what am I missing?

many thanks!
marko

[JAS_Photo]

Marko, I cheated and did mine in flickr which would have let me put the sig anywhere but there are tutorials on doing this with elements or photoshop:

Add A Signature - Digital Photography Tutorial - Photoxels (http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial-signature.html)

I have not tried it myself. You can do this as well with your own sgnature by writing your sig on white paper then scanning it and creating your 'logo' in elements that I have seen as well.

*edit* Ok here is the tutorial for a personal signature:


First of all you need to get a digital image of your signature. The easiest way to do this is to sign your name on a plain white piece of paper, ( Black ink ) and then to scan it.
If you don't have a scanner, and don't know someone who will do it for you.
Then the other thing you can do is to photograph your signature. If you do this then I would suggest signing your name with a marker pen or felt tip. Use a piece of white paper again. But for photographing, make your signature big enough so as to get a crisp clear image. Black will be good for colour again.

Once you have your digital image of your signature.......

Do This....

1. Open your signature Jpg in the editor.

2. Blow it up big on your screen. Choose the Magic Wand from the tool bar. Make sure that Contiguous is unchecked.

3. Click on any part of the black lettering to make a selection of the whole signature.

4. Go Edit > Define Brush from Selection.

5. Name your Brush and click OK.

6. Choose the Brush Tool from the tool bar. Click the small down facing arrow just to the right of the brush preset icon.

Scroll to the bottom of the brush menu, and you will find your new signature brush there.

You can now make your brush any colour or size you choose.

[Mad Aussie]

I just use PS and add the sig as a new layer. If I want I then adjust the opacity. I have it built on a transparent layer and saved.

[AntZ]

I just use PS and add the sig as a new layer. If I want I then adjust the opacity. I have it built on a transparent layer and saved.

+1 for layers in PS or Gimp.

If you are using LR you can do it too using the mogrify login. The advantage with this method is once set up you just apply it at export(to flickr,picassa, file...whatever) without having to go to PS.

[Mad Aussie]

There is so much I have to learn about LR!

[AntZ]

There is so much I have to learn about LR!

Don't ask me HOW to do it, I just know that you can:)
Actually I did play around with it and did have it working, but didn't have a cool sig I wanted to use.

The mogrify tool is donationware which you can use free with a limit of 10 images at a time, so you have to do batches if you want more than 10.

For anyone interested
LR2/Mogrify - Add Watermarks, Border and Text Annotions to Images Exported by Adobe Lightroom 2 (http://timothyarmes.com/lr2mogrify.php)

It has some pretty cool features, like being able to add metadata as text to the export. EG. At one stage I was exporting my images with aperture, shutter speed, time and date in a border.

I set this up ages ago, and remember there were a number of steps involved but none particularly difficult. Now I used it with nearly every image I export for the web.

The settings for Mogrify are saved in your export profiles in LR, so you can have different watermarks and sigs for different exports for different uses without having to setup everytime.

[AntZ]

I see the text detection is working for the advertising. I have a banner add for "Exclaimer Signature Manager" what ever that is.

[Marko]

Thanks for the info everyone!

[Marko]

F8&Bthere - posted this last month - thx F8

"The coolest sig technique I've read about lately (but haven't tried yet) was in Kelby's PSE7 book where he scanned his signature (well actually it was the co-author Matt Koslowski's signature) and turned it into a brush preset. That way if you do use PS/PSE (any version, and I'm sure there's ways to do this with Gimp or Corel too) for touching up your best images you can easily brush on your signature anywhere you like on the image and even make it lighter or darker, bigger or smaller, to suit your background. I'm sure to many of you that's old news..."

This can be done in Photoshop fairly easily. Just copy the layer (merge them if you are using multiple layers) then click Edit - define brush set - and name the brush something. THAT'S IT. YOU'RE DONE.

Now all you have to do to use your new signature brush is go into the brush palette and look at the brushes. Your custom brush will be the last brush in the list. Click it and put it wherever you want in the photo. You can alter the colour of the new brush by clicking the squares (The black square on top of the white square in the main vertical toolbar) and choosing whatever colour you want. You can alter the opacity of the brush by moving the opacity layer.

[Mad Aussie]

I made my own brushes in the past but never thought to make a sig brush.