Adding a signature to your web site

Do you want to give your web site a personal touch? Maybe you should consider putting "signing" a letter written to your prospects or audience.

Here are steps to take, to do it yourself:

1. Sign a piece of white paper (no texture or color) in black ink. *
2. Scan it - at 300 or 600 dots per inch (DPI) so it is much larger
than you need it. Save it to TIF if you can
3. Open it in a graphics application. Select the white background
and make sure every pixel is white behind and around the
signature - you might have picked up "stuff" in other colors -
the masking or "selection" tools will help you see if its clean.
4. If you don't do this you'll get "artifacts" of other pixel colors
around the edge of your signature
5. Size it down for your web site - usually 250-300 pixels wide is
good
6. If you need a white sig on a black bg, invert the whole image now
so you've got black bg and white ink
7. Export to GIF using white as the transparent. 16 colors should be
sufficient if you've done your clean up - this allows the edges
of the signature to be smooth and not jaggedy
8. Save this transparent gif and reference it on your site!

Of course, you could also ask your web or graphic designer to do this for you, past step one!

* For security reasons, you don't want to sign your entire name, obviously! Just your first name, or a closing message like "Yours in business, Robert" or even a business nickname or symbol.