What separates the pretty from the mundane? How can I make something that other people will want to use on their site? It's an ever-evolving answer that I can only answer based on what's good now, and what's NOT appealing. A few hints, as you make your own tags:
1) Be sure to give your background a smooth look. My early tags all had this sharp, poor texture to it, because the image was just TOO clear. Remember, when you're adding something to a picture that's really well done (i.e. stock photography) you might want to tone down the sharpness, just a smidge. Blur tools, color adjustment (curves tool in Fireworks 8 is my current favorite) and sparkles all go a long way to giving your "picture" a more "comment" feel to it.
2) Text by itself isn't just boring, it's hard to read! Use outlines, glow, or bevel effects to distinguish text from background. If you don't, the text will either be too difficult to read, if it closely matches the background, or it will appear to just "sit" on top of your photograph, without looking like it belongs there.
3) If it's going on myspace, you'll most likely be making it animated. It sounds cliche, but that's myspace for you. Short attention spans, gaudy profiles, and pages that make most w3c members scream in agony are just par for the course, but hey, the customer's always right, right?
4) I know I already mentioned it, but for your own sakes, if you're making money off of it (ads on your site count) then you might be in copyright violation. If you're making your buddy look like superman holding a mcburger in front of disneyland... you're good. These images are perfectly fine for personal use.
Lastly, have fun with it! If you're not in it for fun, then what are you really doing?
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