Creating a Banner

In this section we're going to create a simple banner for our server to serve as an advertisement to new players. This section has been written with beginner's in mind.Whenever somebody connects to the server the size of the MOTD will depend on their resolution. Because of this we want to make the size of our banner one that most resolutions will appreciate.Open up Photoshop and navigate to. In this example I will be settingto 600 Pixels and theto 225 Pixels. I'll also be setting thetoYou can adjust these settings to your own preference if you'd like.Clickand you should now have something which looks like this. For my example I'm going to have my server name in large text and I'm also going to include a mascot next to it. Creating Stylized text in Photoshop is easy, select thefrom the Tools bar. If you cannot find the Tools bar click on themenu from the top of Photoshop and select the option at the button which saysClick anywhere on the blank canvas to begin placing text. If you look at the top bar of Photoshop you'll be able to adjust the font being used, color, size and the type of smoothing you'd like. In my example I'm strictly using TF2 fonts which can be found here Once you're happy with how the text looks we can begin adding some effects to it.on the text layer from theand selectIf you don't have a Layers panel you can click on the Windows button at the top of Photoshop and select Layers.On the Blending Options window you can select a number of different effects to apply to this specific layer. To apply an effect check the box to the left of the name. Once you have the box selected, clicking on the name of the effect will allow you to adjust the settings of the effect you just applied.In the example below I have two effects applied, a Drop Shadow and a Pattern Overlay. You can view the effects in real time, so mess around until you have it where you like. If you want you can apply a temporary background layer to the image so you can see what it will look like on top of different colors.Once you clickyour layer effects will be applied. You can return to the menu at any time to adjust or remove them.After applying effects this is what my text looks like.Once you're happy with how your text looks like we can begin adding our mascot. Images with a transparent background will work best with our text. If you'd like to learn how to cut out your own images for your banner you can read the first few section of my guide on Creating Transparent Sprays which gives you instructions on how to do this.For my example I've already got some transparent background images prepared that i'd like to use saved to my Desktop. All you do is simply drag and drop the image on to the canvas.When the image initially imports you will have something which looks like this.If you'd like to resize it grab one of the corners and hold downon your keyboard. This will keep the image constrained perfectly so it's impossible to make it look squished or deformed.Move the image to your desired position and click Enter on your keyboard. The image we just imported will now be on its own separate layer, so you can follow the same steps we did with our text to adjust the looks of it by applying Layer Effects.After some tweaking this is what my banner now looks like.Once you're happy with your banner save your work by going toand thenSelectas the image type and name the file ''.We're now ready to begin building our MOTD.