Once we have our blank sig ready, go to the color panel on the left. Id get a screenshot but it wont let me. Choose a first color. Keep in mind youll have to add a second later, so have two colors in mind. For what were about to do, Id say that shades of pink, shades of blue, blue and green, and pink and purple work well. Once youve selected the first one, fill up the whole sig with one color like so. Im going to go with shades of blue.

You may need to change the brush size to 100, which you can do at the bottom by dragging the little lever up to the top:

Now that weve covered that, select a second color. Then brush on top of the first color in random places, like a zigzag pattern. DO NOT fill up the whole sig. Heres what I did:

Now select the smudge tool. I cant get a screen shot so Ill direct you to it. Find the tool with a pencil on it (pencil tool). Hold down a click on the tool directly under that. Scroll down to the smudge tool and select it. The smudge tool size should be 100. Now that youre equipped with the right tool, use the smudge tool to smudge the colors together. Keep painting and smudging until youre satisfied with the outcome. Heres what I got:

Sometimes you might smudge away the color from a corner, leaving your background color (which shouldve been white). Simply re-smudge the colors back over that, or, if you cant, click the paint tool and repaint using some of your first or second color. Then simply re-smudge.

You have successfully completed a background!

Theres something missing: text and pictures! Find a picture you want to use in your sig and paste it into your file. Im going to use this Jonas Brothers one:

If your picture is big, simply use the scale tool (located under the pointer tool, the black arrow) to fix it to your wishes. But I will leave mine this way.

Its time to cut out the picture. In my case, since I have a white background, I can use the magic wand tool (located under the marquee tool, or selection tool). The settings can be found at the bottom. Select Feather, and scale it to 1. If you have a furry image (eg. a cat) you can set the Feather scale higher, as to make it fluffier and not so cutty-outty.

To cut out your white-backgrouned image, simply select the white part and pres backspace or delete. Viola! The magic wand tool does not always cut out perfectly, so you may have to whip out your eraser for some extra cutting on some edges. (You may also need to adjust your feather, which I had to do.)
If your image did not have a white background, use the eraser tool on a Feather to cut around it. You may have to zoom in (Ctrl + and -)  sometimes for a clean cut.

The next part is up to you. You can leave the image the way it is, or you can give it a cool effect. Select the image, then go to this panel:

There are a bunch of different effects you can set it on. It really depends on the image in your background, but I usually use Soft Burn, Soft Dodge, Soft Light, or Tint. Im going to go with Tint, but you can use whatever you think looks best.


Starting to look good, right?

Now its time for text. Select the text tool (the tool with an A). Choose the font youd like to use and type what youd like. To give a better effect, I suggest changing the sizes of words youd like to stand out more and the fonts as well. Try to keep a consistent font, however. Colors? Id go with white. But do as you please.

[I used Teen Light and Blue Highway Linocut]

Its looking nice, and if youd like, you can keep your sig this way. Usually though, I like to add effects. You can either select the words and add the effects the same way you added picture effects (by using Soft Dodge, Tint, etc.) or you can try something new on words you want to stand out. This wont always work, but if your background is plain enough you should be able to read it.

First, select the word you want to add the effect to. Im going to do it to Tears and Loud, since I wanted those to stand out more.

Then, turn your attention to the little Filters box at the bottom. Click on the Plus Sign next to Filters, <Shadow and Glow<Drop Shadow.

You should notice a little panel appear and your text immediately change. The effect it was automatically sat to probably wont suit you, so what I like to do is check the little box in the left bottom corner that says Knock Out. Youll notice your actual text fade so that theres only the shadow. It might not show up too well right now, so fiddle with the other boxes to find something that suits you.

These are the settings that I used:

And this is what my text looks like:

Cool, huh?

Now I just do the same to the other word I wanted to Knock Out, and I add the image effects we used earlier to my desired phrases. Heres what I have now:

Great! Were almost done. All we have to do is add a small black border. This is optional but does improve the outcome. Select the Line Tool (right under the word Vector on the left panel). Now look at the settings at the bottom. Heres what I set mine to:

Now just drag the line across the sides and top and bottom of your sig. Get the lines perfectly straight. It might be a little tricky at first, but you get used to it.

Youre done! Heres my outcome:

Thank you for doing my tutorial! If you dont have Fireworks 8, Im sure it will work on other programs as well since Fireworks is very similar in ways. It may not have the effects but if you search around your program youll probably find them somewhere in a different location then my says. Results are MUCH appreciated! Thank you!