Thread: Lucid Dream Goals Signature Tutorial

(Sorry if this isn't the right section, but this seemed to be the most relevant place to put it since everyone has goals that they talk about here.)

Hey Dreamviews, here is a quick tutorial I wrote for making your own nice little "Lucid Goal" sig. It is done using a free photo editing program called The GIMP so anyone can do this.
Download the program here, http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gim...i686-setup.exe (Or http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ if you don't want to click the direct DL link)
Assuming you are somewhat computer savvy, this tutorial will take about 5 to 15 minutes.

First, find the picture you'd like to use for a background. You can find plenty of beautiful wallpaper pictures to use from the internet, if you don't know where to start, you could go to
4chan's wallaper section, I'm not a fan of 4chan but their wallpaper section is usually full of nice desktop wallpapers. BEWARE, Link might have nudity, so NSFW - http://orz.4chan.org/wg/imgboard.html
Wallpapers are GREAT for this kind of stuff because they are high resolution, and will look good even if they are shrunk..

NOTE CAREFULLY
Before picking a picture consider the color scheme & the size of the image you are taking a piece from.
You might have difficulty finding a font color that matches the background without contrasting really painfully, so think ahead before you waste the effort.
Notice how my last goal on my sig below (Flying) is barely visible in the white background? THAT is what I'm talking about.
For size, BE CONSIDERATE. Nothing is more annoying than an oversized forum signature. For most forums, an acceptable is about 500 pixels in width, and 150 pixels or less in height.

In this example, I'm aiming for the same color scheme as my current signature, so I found this nice picture to use
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6...0485859861.jpg (For any picture you choose, right click it and save it to the desktop.)

Now, we get into the meat of the sig process. If you have not used an image editing program before, you might get a little overwhelmed by all these instructions, but take it step by step and this should be nice and quick. If you havn't installed GIMP yet, do so.

Step 1 - Open up GIMP and you should see a blank background. First, we have to get the chunk of the picture you want from the image you picked for your signature. Drag your image file from wherever you saved it to onto the empty GIMP workspace. It will open up, showing you the whole image.

Step 2 - Decide on what piece of the image you want, once you've decided select the "Rectangle Select" Tool from your toolbox. If you can't find it, just hit "R" on your keyboard. Now, click and drag your box out over the space you want to use for your signature like this -
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/8850/36104571.jpg

When you've got your selection outlined, click the "Edit" button on the top of the screen, and click "Copy"

Step 3 - Now we put our chunk of image into what will become your shiny new signature. (To those who know some photo shopping skills, I didn't crop selection to image because I might change my mind and want to select a different piece of the picture) Up in the top left corner of your screen, click "File" and select the "new" option.
At this point, we get a box asking us how wide and tall we want our picture to be. For this case, I'm going to use the same resolution as my current signature which is 400 px wide, and 155 px tall.
Input the two values into their respective boxes and click "Ok"


Step 4 - At this point, you should see a white square in the middle of the work space. Now, go to the "Edit" button again, and click "paste"
You should see something similar to this -


This means that the chunk you selected is bigger than the boundaries of our signature. To correct this, you will use the "Scaling" tool to make the piece of image small enough to fit in our box.
Select the Scaling tool by pressing and holding "Shift" than pressing "T". Now, you can click on the picture that you pasted over, and the entire image should come to the front with small boxes around it like this -


Click the bottom right square, and drag the mouse towards the top left corner of the picture. The image should shrink in size, use this tool to adjust your picture to match the size of the signature. (If you are having problems getting it right, just have it lap over to outside the box a little.)

Step 5 - Now, we save. Hold down "Ctrl" and press S. A box asking you what you want to name the file and where you want to save it to will pop up.
Name it (For example DreamViewSig) and save it to the desktop. The image was saved as a "GIMP" file. For now, this is what we want.
Saving it as a GIMP file will allow you to store this for later, and edit it without remaking it. This way, you can (as I will show you how in a minute)
adjust your dream goals to check off completed ones and put in new ones.

Step 6 - Okay, we are on the home stretch here. Before you put in your dream goals, you have to anchor your picture to the image. To do this, press and hold "Ctrl" and press "L" to open your layers window.
You'll see this - Right click the "Floating Selection (Pasted Layer) and click "Anchor Layer".

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9126/25061838.jpg

Step 7 - Select your text tool by pressing "T" on your keyboard. Looking at your tool box, you'll see the settings for your text (As seen in the area with a black square around it in the previous picture) You'll see the color box, the font box, and the font size box. Select a color and font that suits the background (Size 18, font Tebuchet MS is a good for the size of the signature in the example), Now (With your text tool selected), click and drag the mouse over the image and enter your goals like so, feel free to throw in your user name somewhere around there like in my sig. You can also experiment with the effects and contrasts to make the image look better, but I won't cover that. -



Step 8 - All you have to do now is save the picture in a normal format. Press Ctrl + S once more (This saves the GIMP file so you can edit from this point), and than press Shift+Ctrl+Save and save your picture as "Dreamviewsig.jpeg" (Just click "Export" and "Ok" if any boxes pop up) You are done! You now have a GIMP verison of your picture (the .xcf file) and your jpeg version. The jpeg version you can upload and place in your signature panel. The xcf version you keep on the computer, and whenever you complete a goal or want to put in new goals, go in and edit the picture like I showed you. Enjoy!

You can upload a small sig using Dreamviews own server, or using imageshack.us.
NOTE - If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and forgive any errors in my tutorial. I'll fix any you point out.

The finished sample after I tinkered with it a bit.