If I can add onto Deathkillz' comments on the three discussed signatures...
Ichy: Your signature is trying to portray a dark mood, right? If so, the first thing I would recommend that you should do is change the border color from red to black. Red glows. Too much red and everything just lights up for the eyes. When I can see everything, I don't get a hint of mystery or ominous as noir settings should elicit. There's nothing wrong with the text and character in the foreground. The problem is the static background. Again, there's too much red and some pixels blend with the font, causing difficulty to read as Deathkillz pointed out. I suggest reducing the opacity of the background layer, add a black layer behind it to make it darker, and changing the effects of the image to something like a motion blur at 0 degrees. Blur everything around the eye but leave the eye untouched. That's what I feel would improve the sig.
Veg: I pretty much agree with everything Deathkillz said here. A full border may not be necessary (can go for the widescreen border like I have in mine), but a border nonetheless would help. But instead of moving a line of text to the other side, just move the entire image and leave the text hanging around the middle of the remaining space. Have you heard of the rule of thirds? If you have, totally apply it. It'll help.
Aoie_Emesai: Blonde is best as it is the one color that helps push your subject foward from the background behind her compared to the other ones you got. Personally, text is the last thing I worry about when creating a sig and I only insert it after I've done any form of canvas resizing. Font sizes in the decimals never really worked for me. It's much clearer if font is left untouched.
--------------------------------------------------------------
This sig is my "Thanks 2006" sig. I've only seen three anime titles that were released in 2006: Utawarerumono, Kanon, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (in that order). To say thanks for the year I got back into anime, I wanted to incorperate three female protagonists (one from each series) together into a single image like what you would find on an CD album cover.
My first attempt obviously gets the point across. However, common problems people sited were:
- Unusual lighting on the characters' faces (their shadows are pointing a different direction)
- Background sun gives off an unrealistic light source
- White glowing text indicating series names difficult to read
So I retouched it to give a better lighting effect and a time of day that would best evoke that kind of lighting on their faces and bodies. Unfortunately, placing the women where they are now leaves very little room for additional text short of my name. As a result, a lot of people are telling me how Eruruu (girl on the far right, suppose to be the most distant of the three girls) is looking wierd or not fitting with the scene.
Can someone/you guys or girls help me figure out what's wrong with Eruruu, if she has a problem? >_> Other than that, feel free to give me additional suggestions too. This took me half the day on Dec. 30th and two additional hours on the 31st for retouching.
EDIT: Yes, after browsing hundreds of pictures on my HDD, I can confirm that Haruhi's skin is darker than Nayuki's by a few shades. I have their skin tones to match as close as it could get (even adjusted for perspective and height accuracy. If Yuuichi was the same height as Kyon, then Haruhi is freaking short!). But Eruruu, surprisingly, has the most pale skin of them all! I'm not kidding! Go browse the pictures.