Signs painted on walls

[spitfire]

Here's a great little idea for pre-weathering signs if you have Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

1) First I scanned the side of the building I want the sign to go on. That's to get the exact brick texture

2) then I create the artwork for the sign in Illustrator, and import to P'shop

3) In my Photoshop file I have the following layers from the bottom to the top:
a - brick texture
b - sign art - darken 80% opacity
c - sign art duplicate - lighten 50% opacity
d - texture layer - overlay 100% opacity

And here is the result - a perfectly weathered sign that exactly matches the brickwork of the building it's on.

This one is for a City Classics building. Feel free to download and use this sign if you want to.

Val

 

[N Gauger]

Ooooooooo Dat's Cool!!!!

 

[FiatFan]

Outstanding work! Take the rest of the day off and play with trains.

Tom

 

[Matthyro]

Very nice Val. I will have to try my Corel Xara program to see if I can do it too. I don't want to spend the money on Photo shop. Too expensive for how much I would use it.

 

[Tyson Rayles]

I don't understand a word you said but the sign looks great. :thumb: Could you do a step by step with pics including one of the building you are matching?

 

[Mellow-Mike]

You GO girl! Looks real-er than real.

 

[Will_annand]

Looks great Val. Simply perfect.

Robin, Corel can do the same thing.
I am using Corel Photo Paint and Corel Draw and can do it.

I just never thought of it.
Thanks so much Val.

 

[spitfire]

Okay Tyson, will try to walk you through it. First I start off with this artwork, that I created in Adobe Illustrator.

 

[spitfire]

This is a scan of the brick wall - well, part of it. The building is Baum St. from City Classics.

 

[spitfire]

Now I copy the artwork into a layer in the Photoshop file that has my brick texture and past it on top. I want the brick texture to show through, so I set the layer to "darken" and it will add to what's underneath.

Here's the layer palette, and what the image looks like at this point.

 

[spitfire]

So you can see in the previous pic, there is no white. To get the white, I duplicate the artwork layer, and set it to lighten.

 

[spitfire]

Now for the texture. I downloaded this photo of a concrete wall which had the texture I was looking for. Then pasted it into another layer in my P'shop file and set it to "overlay".

 

[spitfire]

As you can see, the concrete image goes from light to dark, so I copied that layer, flipped it 180 degrees and set that layer to overlay as well - giving a more uniform look. And the final result is the image at the beginning of this thread.

Fun, huh?

Val

 

[brakie]

Val,I have no clue to want you did on the computer..However,I love the end results.. :thumb: Great job ! :thumb:

 

[spitfire]

By the way, that sign is based on a real one. It's from the website of a Toronto photographer, so for copyright reasons I won't post it. But you can check out the original sign on his website here

There are lots of other painted signs on the site - it's great inspiration!

Val

 

[belg]

I don't understand a word you said but the sign looks great. :thumb: Could you do a step by step with pics including one of the building you are matching?

I second this request and sentiment. Pat

 

[spitfire]

Pat, see the first page of this thread about halfway down. I have posted the step by step process that I used to create the sign. If you don't have Adobe Photoshop it may be a bit confusing, but basically I am using the Layers feature which allows one layer to affect those below it.
Example: I have a brick texture on the bottom layer. If I simply paste the sign on top of this, the brick texture is covered by the artwork and you can't see it. By putting the sign art on a different layer, and telling that layer to "darken" the one below it, it combines with the brick texture in such a way that both are visible.
Does that help?

Val

 

[N Gauger]

Val - When does "The Complete and Un-abridged Tutorial" come out??

 

[Tyson Rayles]

O.K. Val I "kinda" get the idea. Thank you for the extra effort. I'm sorry, while it looks great it's way to much trouble for this dumb ol' redneck. It looks like a decal would be easier and faster (for me anyhoo ) .

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Looks good Val!
Whens the "How To" DVD coming out.
Or is it VHS only.
Betamax?