Okay, well, since quite a few people have been asking me how I make my banners, I have decided to make an input in this thread :3 Here I go!
I will be showing you how to make banners with Paint.Net, which is the program I use for making my banners.
Step 1:
Open up Paint.net. You may need to download it if you don’t already have it. It is free and safe, if you get the right download :3
Step 2:
Then, go to File>New or click on where I highlighted (crtl+n) and set the size of your banner. The limits are width=600 and height=250, don’t bother adjusting the resolution, leave it on default. I prefer to make banners 400x160, but this varies depending on the image or style.
Step 3:
You need to choose a background. If you are starting out, I recommend you get an image off the internet, try searching ‘blue abstract’, for example, for a water type, ‘red abstract’, for a fire type. The abstracts are the best o;
But here I am going to make my background how I usually make them:
The highlighted bits show the tools that I used to make that background, which is gradient, and layer effects. I also used the internet to find the background.
*Layers are very important when making good banners, fyi.
*And to get the tools box up, you can press F5
Step 4:
Now you need to get your render :3 I personally use a site called PLDHnet, which gives you all the sprites and artwork of all the pokemon available.
In this banner I am going to be using ninetales:
Fortunately, these images do not have backgrounds, so I don’t have to do any erasing when I make the banners >=3
Then I just copy and paste the image into paint.net, in a new layer:
I had to make the image smaller, with the resize tool, highlighted, and then I flipped it over, still with the resize tool. This can sometimes blur the render, so then I go to Effects>Photo>Sharpen, and sharpen the layer by 2%, which is normally enough to un-blur the pokemon.
Then, depending on how you like to make your banner, you can add a shadow, edit the shading, and do whutever you want to do, I usually add a shadow, though, and use the effects in any way to make it better. To add a shadow you have to duplicate the render, using the duplicate tool on the layers box (to find the layers box press F7), then go to Adjustments>Hue/Saturation… (ctrl+shift+u) and put the bars on Saturation to 0 and the Lightness to -100. This makes the render black. (Put the lightness to 100 if you want the shadow to be white). After that I move the layer slightly, so it shows underneath the pokemon render. Then I go to Effects>Blur>Gaussian Blur and blur the shadow slightly, although at times I have been known to not blur the shadow :3. Then I play with the Layer effects (the little button on the far right of the layers box, next to the south-facing arrow) to get the right effect. (I used the overlay effect in the ninetales banner).
This is the end result. As you can see I only have 4 layers. And I have named them, but you don’t have to, I just do it for this guide’s benefit :3
Step 5:
Add your text :3
This banner is for Wisewizard41, since she did request one from me, and I haven’t gotten around to doing it, so now she gets to see exactly how I made it! <3
The text tool is the capital A in the tool box, and there you can choose from the text already in Paint.net, or you can use the text off the internet, I use ‘dafont’ sometimes, which is a site where people submit their own fonts, and you can download them there. But in this banner I will be using dafont and the default texts.
Here I used dafont for the name, and the normal text for the extra words.
Notice how I used the different layers to do the effects.
Step 6:
Uploading your image is how you can get it onto the forums :3 I use imageshack for all my images. Also, when saving your image I recommend you save it first as a paint.net image, so you can adjust it later if needed, and then saving it again as a PNG, since PNG saves images in good quality and can save images with no background. I have a folder with all my banners I have ever created in my pictures folder, so if you are going to start making a lot of banners, I suggest you keep a folder for them as well.
So, here is my completed banner:
I hope you find this very useful :3
-Chalky