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Photoshop is my tool for tattoos.

I generally start with a 100 x 100 pixel square with a transparent background if I'm doing something simple, like a tattoo that is letters. I've found that Pillow Emboss (layer style) can be helpful for these.

If it's a more complex idea, I do an image search in Google, then refine the results by clicking Tools and Usage Rights. Then I make certain to select one of the wider categories that gives broad permissions. I also, when I get to the image I've selected as possible, look for any requirement for attributing the source, which isn't really possible for a tattoo.

I do NOT flatten my layers, because that always yields a white background. Once I have a reasonable design at 100 x 100 pixels, I shrink it to 25 x 25 pixels (Image-->Image size). To save it as a tattoo, I choose Export-->Save for Web and adjust the quality so that the file size is 15k or less. The choices for tattoos are PNG 8 and PNG 24, if I'm remembering correctly. Usually PNG 24 gives me a tattoo using less than 10k or even less than 5k.

I generally save most of the steps in a folder so if I have to go back and redo something I don't have to start completely from scratch. Save for Web always puts hyphens into the spaces between words, so it's easy to pick out the correct item to upload to the Tattoo Registry.

Vector images online do not copy and paste into Photoshop.

I've probably condensed some of that too much. If you'd like I could work with you in a PM to walk you through making a specific tattoo.

If you have a Wacom tablet, designing from scratch might be easier, but all I have to work with is a mouse, and Photoshop is a miserable program to work with when I try to draw freehand. *G*

I'll be glad to do that.

Link please?

I Wanted a space inspred tattoo for the Ax line so it got to be a yellow "star" or comet and my stable name letters in the middle "SZ" :)