Since Wheat asked so nicely, here's a tutorial that I made a while ago for brushing sig backgrounds.

 

Alright, For my first tutorial I'm going to show you how to make the background of my sig:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/zorlenb.jpg

 

The brushing techniques shown here can also be used for all kinds of brushing, not just abstract. So if you don't like abstract as much as say grunge then you simply use grunge brushes instead of abstract ones :o But anyways, On to the Tutorial!

 

Step One: This is the easiest step in the tutorial. Open Photoshop and create a new document of a sig size, I used 400 by 125, and have the background transparent. You don't have to set the background transparent but it's easier to manipulate it, for example you can't use layer styles on the "background" layer which setting it as transparent bypasses that. Now then, take you paintbucket tool and fill it in with black. Here's what you should have:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs1.jpg

 

Step Two: Now here's the fun part, Time to get brushing! Grab your brush tool, set the foreground color to white and ready your favorite abstract brush set. If you don't have any, Deviant ART is a great place to find some. Now, create a new layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N and make a few brush strokes. Don't do too much! 2 or 3 will sufice if the brushes are between 200-400 pixels big. This is where what I do and what you do will start to diverge, so don't try to get exactly what I get. Here's what I have so far:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs2.jpg

 

Step Three: Continue Brushing! After using a brush about 2 to 3 times, create a new layer, Ctrl+Shift+N remember, and grab a new one. Here's a series of images to show the developement of my sig:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs2.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs3.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs4.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs5.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs6.jpg

 

Ok! I'm not done brushing yet, but it's getting a little bright, don't you think? Go to Layers->New Adjustment Layers->Brightness/Contrast to create a layer that will alter the, you guessed it! (I hope), brightness and contrast. After darkening the image it now looks like this:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs7.jpg

 

I'm still not done brushing, but I'm really close. After 2 more layers of brushing and another Brightness/Contrast layer, I now have this:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs8.jpg

 

Kinda cool, huh? but it's missing something... I know! On to the Next Step!

 

Step Four: Time for some color! For this we will be using a different adjustment layer, Color Balance. To find them, go to Layers -> New Adjustment Layers -> Color Balance. Here you can adjust the colors using 3 different sliders. There are also 3 different tone ranges that you can adjust here, Shadow for the darker tones, Midrange for the midrange tones, and Highlights for the lighter tones. Experiment with different settings for the different tones to get your image just right. Here is how mine's looking so far:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs9.jpg

 

Much better! but it doesn't seem quite finished yet... It needs some more definition... Time for the next step!

 

Step Five: It needs a border! This is a really really easy step. Underneath your color balance layer(s), which should be on top to color the whole document, make a new layer and set it's blending mode to Darken or Multiply, and then fill it with white. You shouldn't notice a difference because darken/multiply doesn't show White because they make the darker features of the layer show on top of the layers below, so white doesn't get shown. Now, go to Edit -> Stroke... and use the following settings(you will do the stroke 3 times on this layer by the way):

 

First Stroke: 3px, Black(#000000), Inside

 

Second Stroke: 2px, something lighter than black, Inside

 

Third Stroke: 1px, Black(#000000), Inside

 

Here is how those settings dressed up my image:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/abs10.jpg

 

Dosn't that look more complete? Now, for the final step!

 

Step Six: Add any text/images that you feel like adding. Your text will want to be placed above the border layer(the one with the strokes from the previous step) While images tend to blend better after lowering the saturation and placing under the top-most layer of brushing(The reason you haven't had to merge anything down). After you get an image that suits your fancy, Instead of using "Save As..." Were going to use "Save For Web..." because the quality control is much better. And now your Done! Here's my finished product from earlier:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/zorlentrivar/zorlenb.jpg

 

Before I finish, here are some extra tips that can really help out:

 

1. Play around with all of the adjustment layers to get a feel for them and what they do. This will greatly enhance the quality of your work.

 

2. Be sure to save a PSD of your image with all the layers intact so you can update it and make changes easily. If you forget, your stuck with that image for good. This is especially true if you make graphics, like sig banners, for others.

 

3. Try not to completely desaturate the image you add. 75% desaturation can allow for great image blending and enough of the original color to maintain the integrity of it's original detail.

 

Alright, sorry about the length but it's easier to learn from a detailed tutorial with images than a vague one without. I hope that this helps you with your own graphics projects, large and small!

Teh Awsome!!! Now i just gotta get photoshop >.<