Adding a scanned signature to a photo

This method will already be well known to a lot of you, but I hope it might be a little "a-ha!" moment to some.  I've done this in CS2, but it's exactly the same in all version of Photoshop and Elements.

The idea of placing your own genuine signature on your photos might seem great, but the prospect of cutting out around your scrawl to achieve a transparent background is too daunting, right?  Well, luckily you don't have to.

With a black pen (another dark colour should work too), sign a piece of white paper, then scan it.  (If you don't have a scanner handy, take a good sharp photo of it.)  Use a nice high resolution (at least 600ppi), to allow plenty of flexibility to use it at a large size if you want to.

Comparing Curves and Levels

To a degree, choosing Curves or Levels to make your tonal adjustments in Photoshop is much like choosing Coke or Pepsi to quench your thirst - it's a matter of taste. (Although neither Curves nor Levels go well with rum!)

Needless to say, Levels and Curves are the "heavyweights" of Photoshop - if you really want to be able to edit your photos, you need to be able to use one of them. They have some similarities, and some differences, and I'm going to discuss those briefly here.

I'll begin by saying that Elements users don't get this choice. Yes, there's a primitive Curves function buried in the Enhance menu in Elements, but the control it gives you is minimal, and more importantly, it's not available as an adjustment layer. Any functions that aren't available as adjustment layers should be avoided where possible, because they can't be re-adjusted, and they can't be masked. Elements peeps, you need to embrace Levels, and in some cases, Brightness/Contrast. Both of those are available via the little half-black-half-white circle icon in your Layers palette.

Ok, back to Curves vs Levels ...