I'm looking for this too. All the sigs I've done (see my photos, link in my "Services and Events" below) All that I've used is brushes and manual stuff

What filters (assuming its a filter, like on the Cheshire cat sig above) do people use, and how do you get the cool effects in (like in Princess's or Mutant's Signatures) Finally got enough saved up to head to school this coming September for Graphic Design, but it would be nice to know this stuff now

EDIT: Also curious about what Renders are... was told its just an image with no background. So, Instead of spending the 5 minutes to crop the Cheshire cat out of a background, a program does it for you?

This post was edited by GooseGuy on Mar 9 2011 11:41am

A render as your friend said, is an image without a background (transparent). You can do this yourself using a program such as photoshop, it would be hard to explain here, so search something about it on youtube. An alternative choice would be to use a gallery website with several renders on them that users posted. An example would be to use Planet Renders. (Search on google). You would have to sign up in order to save the renders on your computer, but its quick and easy. Hope this helped, enjoy.

Well, there are several tutorials all over youtube, but I believe you're thinking of brushes. You can search on google some websites where you can download free brushes. A good example would be brusheezy. Just search a keyword you're looking for eg. Star and there will be a list of brush packs with star dust textures. Some of the auras are also done with C4D renders which can be found on render websites. Also, auras and affects can be simply done using the tools already available in photoshop. You can simply draw a few lines using the brushes or pencil that are on photoshop when you buy it. Then using filter at the top toolbar, you can choose between several options. A good category is Filter>Distory and there you will find many options. Choose one and play around until you find something you're happy with. I'll assume you know how to undo mistakes, but if you don't, a simple shortcut is ctrl+z and in order to undo mistakes before that, the shortcut is ctrl+alt+z. Hope this helped.