First off let me say thanks to Neon, who put me up to this, meh. This tut is how I make my grunge/abstract/whatever you call them sigs, and so naturally I pull techniques from lots of people. To name a few, II Nightmare II (he wrote a brilliant tut that I used a lot), El Matt, Anferny, and a few others. So thanks and credit to people who helped me learn how to do this.

To start:

Create a new document of 450x125 pixels, with a transparent background.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial1.jpg
Then hit Alt-Backspace to fill the background with black, which ought to be your foreground color.

Find a nice brush set from http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psbrushes/?view=1&order=5&limit=24 (Deviant Art) and after making your foreground color white, click around in the background, using different brushes, til you achieve something like this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial2.jpg

Back at deviant art, download metal-cx's sparkle brushes, create a new layer, fill it with black, switch to white, and click around again. Once you've done that, and achieved a pretty bright sparkly layer, lower the opacity to between 60 and 70%.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial3.jpg

Next, add Brightness/Contrast and Levels adjustment layers by navigating to Layer-New Adjustment Layer-Brightness/Contrast or Levels. Play with those two layers until you reach something brighter and more contrasted like so:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial4.jpg

Now, add a Color Balance adjustment layer (same way as above) and make it red, or whatever base color you want. Once you've found a color, hit okay, reset your colors and go Filter-Render-Clouds. It ought to make the clouds apply to the layer mask, which effectively applies the color to the sig very .. well, cloudy. Make a couple layers of color just like this, using slightly different colors, til you get something like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial5.jpg

Find a nice render: I used samus. I set it to darken, under my coloration/contrast/levels layers, but above the brushing.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial6.jpg

Now, select your render layer, and hit "Q". then click on your gradient tool, make sure you're in this mode (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial7.jpg) and make sure you're on foreground to background on your gradient (black to white) and click and drag from samus's center to the side. see that you have something like this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial8.jpg

Now hit "Q" again, and then hit delete a few times unti lyou have something like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial9.jpg

Next, create a layer under the coloration and all that, and type whatever word you want in whatever text/font/style you want. Just put it in white, and then set it to linear dodge (learned from el matt) and lower the opacity gradually til you have something like:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial10.jpg

To add a nice border, create a new layer and select all with your marquee tool. Four pixel black stroke, and then a three pixel white stroke, and then a one pixel black stroke. Set the whole layer to soft light, put your name somewhere, and YOU'RE DONE!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v664/closet_/tutorial11.jpg

P.S. If you're a guest and you're reading and liking this tutorial, please register here at Diablo II Sector. As the graphics moderator, I'd really like to see some new graphics designers here. thanks!!

Awesome!
It looks very nice, im gonna try it out tomorrow when i wake up.
Im off to bed now, Good night.

very nice tut ill try it out soon

Is the gradient thingie stuffs ALL about blending in the render?

Well, at least i tried http://d2sector.net/forums/images/smiliesv2/undecided.gif

http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/9711/foogtutsigthingokright2rk.jpg

Ya i tried too..


http://img342.imageshack.us/img342/1482/salvation7ko.jpg

nice tut, nice tut

yeah, the gradient is how i blended that render. that's all i did to blend it...

hey guys, nice work. that's not bad at all.

heh, how do you get it so the squares don't show up in the bground when using the brushes?

I gotta try this soon wanna make some sig :)
U are using Photoshop CS2 right ?

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/5091/samussig9ac.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
i tried too...heh but my try wasnt so good

cover them with a color (he used black)

**Edit**
he covered the squares (transparent) with black than used white brushes over the black

pt14, i liked your's. it was pretty good.you'rs to yuzzy

nvm fixed it by pressing new layer from backround, now how do i put the render into the sig? THis is all i have right now by just playing around with the brushes.

http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/8046/firstsig1rc.jpg

ok to use the render you first cut it out by using the lasso tool or get a pre-cut one and once you do this you push V and itl bring you to the move tool then you just click on the render and drag it onto the sig but you might have to re-size the render to make it fit the sig so you go to image then imagesize and fix the size....hope that helps you
oh and ty neon yours turned out really good also

pt14 that isnt bad.
very nice foog i will try that

i tried like 8 different renders, 7 out of the 8 didnt work because the main part of the render was on one side and would fade away too easy. i finally got the auron render that was in the center.

so wat i found was, that its easier to do on a render that the main part of it is in the middle.

Is "blending" hiding the white spots you can't erase? I'm assuming using the eraser is an alternative to the lasso tool. I couldn't find out how to blend. Just picked out random font.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/5176/green3wh.jpg

blending is (after you render it, which means separating the main picture from the background it was originally in) making it fit in more with the sig, not stick out so much. and no, guys, i can blend a render w/ that method no matter where it is located in the render...give me some rendesr and ill make sigs to show you.

When i tried to blend a render with the main part of one side, it would blend a little too much. How would you fix that?

Use the gradient tool not in the center, but put in on the main focus of the render?