[Guide] How To Create Standard FM2008 Logos.

The following is a simple guide on how to make the Standard FM08 Logos with Photoshop using the provided action files. (A more detailed guide in various formats with imagery is available from My Site)

First thing you need to do is to gather images of the logos you want to make, and then prepare them – for best results you need a good quality image (800pixels is a good size) with a transparent background and the canvas cut to the image (unless your image fills the entire canvas – square or rectangular logos for example – these you need to extend the canvas by one pixel around the image, otherwise the background logos won’t work), if you don’t know how to do this you can follow the first two parts of the guide on my site - depending on what type of image you are starting with (If you use a different program the tools maybe in different places and called different things).

So with your image prepared the easiest way to create standard logos is with the Action File for Photoshop – you can use the Default Action Tool released by Ter (Ter feel free to replace this link with an sigames link if you have one, as I couldn’t find one), or one I modified – that just puts the actions into two actions, rather than an action for each type of logo.

The following instructions assume you are using the modified action file:

1. To open the action file just drag and drop it into Photoshop, whilst Photoshop is open.

2. Next you’ll need to pick somewhere to save the created graphics to on your Hard Drive, I’d select somewhere that can easily be found.

3. Once you have picked a location, create four new folders and call them background_left, background_right, normal and small. One for each type of logo. (For FM08 the huge and normal logos are from the same image, but with different config files).

4. Now you’ll need to edit the action file so that the export location corresponds to your chosen location.

5. First open any image in Photoshop, something small but it’s not important what.

6. In the actions panel Click on the small arrow > to the left of the action All_standard, so it expands the action, now scroll down until you find the first Export Command.

7. Double click on the Export Command and the Save For Web Dialog box should appear, now the file type you have to select is PNG-24, and also tick the Interlaced and Transparency boxes, click save and then select the location for the background_right folder you created earlier.

8. Now repeat for the other three logo types, next one will be the background_left logo, then normal and finally small.

9. You’ll also need to fix the Export command for the Wide action. If you are using the Default Action file you’ll also need to fix the Export command for each of the actions.

10. Now to run the action, open an image in Photoshop, select the All_standard action and tick the green arrow at the bottom of the actions panel. Photoshop will now create and save each of the logo types to the folders you picked earlier.

11. Alternatively if you have a complete folder that you want processing goto File -> Automate -> Batch. Under Set select FM08_standard and under Action select the action you want to perform. Under Source select Folder (unless you have opened all the images you want), then select Choose and browse to folder that the logos are located in. Select OK to run the action. Now just wait for the action to finish.

12. After the action has finished, browse through the completed logos to make sure they turned out fine.

13. For any image that is wider than it is tall you’ll have to run the Wide Action after running the All_standard action to replace the Normal and Small logos. (You don’t need to replace the background logos).

14. And that’s it, now all you need to do is make the config files, and put them into you User Data Folder.

If you are using the Default Action File, the actions correspond to the following Logo Types:

Largest, 180x180 - creates the normal and huge logos.

Largets, 180x180 (Wide) - is for creating normal and huge logos where the image you are using is wider than it is tall.

Background Left - Creates the Background Left Logo.

Background Right - Created the Background Right Logo.

Small (18 height) - Creates the standard small logo.

Small (20 Width) - Creates the small logo, for wide images.

If you wish to create the logos manualy:

Normal/Huge Logos - Resize the image so that the max. dimension is 180 pixels (i.e. width and height don't exceed 180 pixels).

Small Logos - If the Height is the largest dimension resize them so that the image Height is 18 pixels, then adjust the canvas size so that is 20 pixels.

If the Width is the largest dimension then resize the image so that the width is 20 pixels.

Background Logos - A rather complicated and are best made using the above action files.

When saving images you need to select PNG-24 File Format and select Transparency. (Interleaved option doesn't matter).

Excellent Stuff. Exactly what we need around here really.

Thanks michael