Original:
Final Result:
Important Disclaimer!
Policy 5 covers what is acceptable in signatures. The last part of the Policy states:
"Under no circumstances is a member allowed to use an official rank tag in their avatar or signature unless they hold that rank. Signatures and Avatars should also not contain offensive material"
So it is ONLY acceptable to use this guide to modify a rank tag the wearer currently holds! No exceptions! Don't come running to me if you get in trouble.
I'll be using Adobe Photoshop CS 5.5 for this tutorial. Some features I'll be using aren't available in earlier versions. You can download a fully functioning 30-day trial from Adobe of PS 5.5
here.
Step 1: Open the original tag in Photoshop
Don't copy-paste the file, that won't preserve transparency. Instead either drag the image from your browser onto your desktop or select "Save as..." from the right click menu.
Once open, use CTRL-A then CTRL-C to copy the entire image. Create a new file using the clipboard dimensions then use CTRL-V to paste your image in. This will allow us to edit the image freely.
Step 2: Remove the old text
Use the square selection tool. Select the text you wish to remove leaving one or two pixels on either side of the text selected.
Now go to Edit > Fill or press SHIFT-F5
Under "Use," put "Content Aware Fill." Under mode, put "Dissolve" and make it 100% opacity.
Hit "OK" and you'll now have a clean tag without the text! Don't worry if it's not a perfect match for the background, it'll be covered with text soon enough.
Step 3: Add custom text
Now time to add our custom text! The tags use
Lithos Pro for their font. You probably already have it on your system, but if you don't you can download it from
here.
Font: Lithos Pro
Size: 13 pt
Smoothing: Strong
Alignment: Center
Verticle Spacing: 12 pt
Character Spacing: -35
If you're having trouble aligning your text, try copying in the original tag and lining up the original text with your added text.
Now type whatever you'd like!
Note: To match the look of the WNx tags, your text should be all lower-case! If you're adding more than two lines, just move the text up and down until it looks right (keep the left-right distance the same). If you want, you can decrease the character spacing to fit more text on each line.
Now finally, to get the text to look right, we'll need to add a drop shadow to it.
Right click on the text layer and select "Blending Options." Click on "Drop Shadow" and put in the following settings (which should be default unless you've changed it).
And now you're done! You have a sweet looking fake tag! If you have a background on the image (like a white layer) make sure to delete it to make the background transparent.
Step 4: Exporting
So you've made your image, but how to make it usable as a signature? You'll want to export it in a format that preserves transparency and meets the file size limitations. PNG might work, but I've found it's typically too large a file size. Instead we'll save it as a GIF.
Go to File > Save For Web And Devices (or press CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-S) and select GIF and the following settings:
Now you're all done!
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