Signing up for DeviantART is not necessary to browse the site, but it does have certain advantages. With a free account, you are able to view mature content on the site, which would otherwise be hidden. If the people you want to find on the site have mature work in their portfolio, it is harder to locate them if you don't have an account. With a free account, you can make use of the deviantWATCH feature to keep track of your favorite artists, so you don't have to search for them or new work they have produced each time you visit the site.
Narrow down your searches using specific parameters in the DeviantART search feature. Using a search term on its own returns results for everything containing the keyword, including groups, art titles, descriptions or group taglines. By combining your search terms with specific parameters, you refine the results for greater accuracy and a better chance of finding the exact type of people that you seek. For example, include "in" without the quotation marks and the category, such as "photography" or "literature" next to your keyword, to search only the specified category. Conversely, use "-in" without the quotation marks along with your keyword to exclude specified categories. DeviantART publishes a list of search parameters in an FAQ.
One of the benefits of signing up for a free DeviantART account is the DeviantWATCH feature, which you can use to keep track of people whose work you enjoy and to receive notifications when they post new content. After finding a person on DeviantART using the search feature, open his profile page and click the "+ Watch" button to add him to your DeviantWATCH. After adding him, create or select a list to which to add him. For example, you can add people who are photographers to your "Photography" list and artists to your "Artists" list. This isn't necessary, but it makes it easier to keep track of why people are on your list and what type of art they produce. You can also use the check boxes to select the type of updates you want to view in regards to each person, such as new art he posts, critiques he makes or journal entries he publishes.
Your DeviantART profile not only contains information about you and your journal entries, it also be used to find the people with whom you interacted previously. If someone commented on your profile, you can click her username above the comment to open her profile. Click the "Browse Favourites" button on your profile to view a list of art that you added to your favorites along with the names of the people who created the art. Click "Browse Gallery" to view all the work that you have posted and then click the thumbnails to view the comments made by people. If the person you are trying to find commented on one of your photos, his name is displayed above his comment.