Banner Tutorial: Beginner and Advanced

[Exie]

I plan on adding instructions for MSPaint and Paint Shop Pro, and maybe Photoshop.
Please pm me with comments, suggestions, or questions.


ppp
A Banner Tutorial by the Signature Nazi
Yeah, that's what I am, the Sig Nazi. Deal with it. :p

I've broken this tutorial up into several posts so that it's not so overwhelming, and people can read what's applicable to them. Here are the main sections:
Why the tutorial?
The Rules
Banners for Beginners
Banners: Advanced Users
User Q&A
ppp
Why the tutorial?
First off, let me say that there are TONS of talented people here in Creative! Keep it up! :w00t:
BUT...
There has been a lot of banner and sig rule-breaking going on, and I am betting a large percentage of you dont even know it. No, it's not the end of the world or anything, but rules are rules and they should be followed by everyone. The sig rules have been posted in the Lost-Forum Rules for a long, long time.

So here's what's happening. These great talented artists make these awesome banners, but they dont fit the banner rules. So, dozens of users take these free banners to use in their sigs, and they are the ones getting the banner violation warnings. Not really fair, is it?

So why are the rules so strict? Well, if you were on dialup you'd understand. The more sigs there are, the larger they are, the longer the pages take to load. Even if you're on DSL, they would take a long time to load if everyone's sig was huge. If you've ever been on the Post a Pic of Yourself threads, you can see my point. Besides, the more files there are on here, the more space is taken up on Gertie's servers, and the more cash she has to shell out to expand her space.

The Rules
Here are the current sig rules (http://www.lost-forum.com/showthread.php?t=45588), condensed from Gertie's version, taken from the Lost-Forum Rules (http://www.lost-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=39).

Signature Rules
No more than 300 small font characters, including spaces. Please do NOT use the font size attribute.
No more than 2 pictures.
Signature pictures should be no larger than 400 pixels wide by 100 tall (400x100) AND 30 KBs in size. This means the total area of ALL images in the signature.
No animated pictures please.
PG-13 level applies to sig images as well; cursing and rude gestures are grounds for a warning.
Spoilers may not be used in signatures. This does include text spoilers placed under a spoiler tag.
Members may include links in their signatures to other sites, and these links are the sole responsibility of each individual signature owner.
Non compliant signatures will be deleted or altered by a moderator. Broken images will be deleted. If you don't have personal webspace and bandwidth to host your own signature images, here are some options:
http://imageshack.us/
http://www.imageark.net/
http://www.zippyimages.com/
http://www.photobucket.com/
If you'd like to request a personal signature, visit the Creative LOST Art Request forum.
THANK YOU!
Mainly what we'll be covering here is concerning banners, but that other info is applicable to signatures as well, so dont overlook them!
The next two posts are concerning illegal banners and how to fix them, one for beginners and one for advanced users. Soon there will be a Q&A thread where I will post PM's from other users, and I might also later add a section for uploading your pictures to your host sites (like Photobucket. :w00t: )

Hope this isnt too confusing so far! :shy:

[Exie]

Banners for Beginners
Disclaimer: This is targeted to Windows users.

Okay, so you want a banner in your sig. You either make one yourself or get one from the great people in the Creative Lost forum, and oops! It's too big! But what does "too big" mean?
Could mean two things:
File size: Banners more than 30k in file size are not allowed. You are only allowed two images in your sig, and both of those combined must be no more than 30k.
Actual visual size: Banners must be no longer than 400 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall.

How do I find out if my banner is legal?

Go to the place on your hard drive that you have the banner saved. Find the file and right click on it. A menu will pop up. Click Properties. A box will pop up with several different sections. You should be in the General tab. The line marked "Size" will tell you its file size. Make sure this is under 30 kilobytes (k or kb), or 30,000 bytes (b). (One kilobyte is equal to 1,000 bytes.)
To find out the pixels (the dimensions), click the Summary tab. You should see Width and Height. Check to be sure the width is no wider than 400 pixels and the height is no taller than 100 pixels. Of course, if you have two pictures, the total pixels of the width of the two and the height of the two cannot exceed the 400x100 pixel limit.


What can I do to make my banner legal?

File size:
Well, first off, what kind of file is it? The three letters after the filename will tell you. Most likely it will be a jpg or a png, but it could also be a gif or bmp, or a number of other image types. If it's anything but a jpg or gif, most likely that's the reason why the file size is so big. Open the file in an editing program (Paint will do--it comes with all Windows computers.) Re-save the file as another format. Click File at the top and select "Save As." Dont bother renaming the file unless you really want to. Under the drop down menu that says "Save As Type," click JPG (best choice.) Then click Save. Be sure you know what folder you saved it in! Then follow the same directions above ("How do I find out if my banner is legal?") to determine the file size. If it's still too big, you may have to make the banner dimensions smaller. Go on to the next topic.



Width and Height:
If your banner size is larger than 400x100, open your picture in a graphics editor you are familiar with (Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, Microsoft Paint, etc.) Use the Resize feature to resize your picture to the correct dimensions. This part may be a bit tricky, if your picture is square, because if you try to resize to 400x100 it will be stretched out. You may just want to have someone help you with this part.
In Microsoft Paint, there is no specific "resize" menu command--what you have to do is go to Image > Stretch/Skew and play with reducing the Stretch percentages (remember to keep them equal so your picture isnt distorted.) After each reduction, save the file and check its size by following the directions outlined above.

[Exie]

Banners: Advanced Users (in progress)
If you're an advanced user, you probably already know about file size and such. The next complicated thing is the issue of resizing the banner. If your banner is the right aspect ratio, you wont have any trouble. Aspect Ratio is the ratio of width to height. (If you use Photoshop or another more advanced program, you can see the aspect ratio will probably be locked when you open the Resize dialog box.) If it's not, you wont be able to get your banner to exactly 400x100 without cropping--you'll just have to be sure one side is not over the limit (i.e., a banner that's 400x75, or 350x100.)
There isnt really an easy way to crop a photo to the right dimensions. The best way is to start off by resizing the photo to a manageable size. If your photo is really big, like the ones from digital cameras, this helps. Cropping out the parts you dont want also helps. Resize it to the 400 pixel width size (dont worry about the height.)

Figure 1: A pic from my camera of my cat that I've resized to 400 pixels wide. (Obviously the mess behind her is not very flattering for a banner. :giggle: )
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/kat9375/figure1.jpg

Next, you'll need to crop out what you dont need. You can see at the bottom of the screen how big your selection is. Make it the full width (400 already) and make it 100 high.

Figure 2: The red circle shows how big your selection is, in this case, using Paint Shop Pro X.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/kat9375/figure2.jpg

If you didnt get it quite where you wanted, right click inside the dotted line, hold, and drag. Now tell it to crop to selection (under the Image menu.)

Figure 3: my crop.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/kat9375/figure3.jpg

Now add whatever else you want...text, brush art, whatever.

Figure 4: my finished banner.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/kat9375/figure4.jpg

Somehow I missed a row of pixels on that one, so it's 399x100. :p But see? My banner is under 21k and is still very clear and sharp.