A Tutorial!
I'm bored and finally discovered my own style-ish. So I made a tutorial. The picture used in this tutorial is from a General Hospital promo, and the scenes haven't aired yet, so if you aren't a spoiler whore like I am, beware.
Using Photoshop 7 for this...
We'll be making this icon:
Starting with This picture which I got from http://meribarb.org/luckyliz.htm.
Crop your picture, obviously
This is from a promo so there are lighting effects on it already, it probably helped with the way it looks too.
If your picture seems to be too dark, always duplicate the layer and set the blend mode to Screen, it helps a ton! You can do it mulitple times until you get the lighting you want. Make sure you merge all the layers after that.
Take that, and duplicate it. Desaturate it (make it black and white) and set the blend mode to Screen.
Take a pink-ish gradient like this:
Set it to Soft Light
You get this:
Take the desaturated layer, duplicate it. Drag it above the pink gradient and set it to Soft Light.
That makes it a little darker
Take a pink/orangeish yellow/pink gradient like this:
Set it to Color with a 43% opacity.
Take a dark blue/light blue gradient like this:
Set it to Screen with 56% opacity.
Make a new transparent layer. Take a regular ol' circle brush (I'd say size no bigger that 10) in the color #FFFFFF (white) and scribble on the bottom of the icon. Set it to Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) 2-3 pixel radius.
Time to add text. You can get creative with this. This is what I used.
we're-Font: Arial 14pt Strong (Anti-Alias), Color: #000000 70% Opacity, In lower case letters, Tracking: 60
destined-All of the above but I made it bold.
This is what your layers should look like:
Merge all the layers, add a simple 1px white border and you got yourself an icon.
To make your's unlike mine, try using the Varations tool. Merge all layers, go to Image>Adjustments>Varations.. and play around with those.
Any questions? Let Me Know
Using Photoshop 7 for this...
We'll be making this icon:
Starting with This picture which I got from http://meribarb.org/luckyliz.htm.
Crop your picture, obviously
This is from a promo so there are lighting effects on it already, it probably helped with the way it looks too.
If your picture seems to be too dark, always duplicate the layer and set the blend mode to Screen, it helps a ton! You can do it mulitple times until you get the lighting you want. Make sure you merge all the layers after that.
Take that, and duplicate it. Desaturate it (make it black and white) and set the blend mode to Screen.
Take a pink-ish gradient like this:
Set it to Soft Light
You get this:
Take the desaturated layer, duplicate it. Drag it above the pink gradient and set it to Soft Light.
That makes it a little darker
Take a pink/orangeish yellow/pink gradient like this:
Set it to Color with a 43% opacity.
Take a dark blue/light blue gradient like this:
Set it to Screen with 56% opacity.
Make a new transparent layer. Take a regular ol' circle brush (I'd say size no bigger that 10) in the color #FFFFFF (white) and scribble on the bottom of the icon. Set it to Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) 2-3 pixel radius.
Time to add text. You can get creative with this. This is what I used.
we're-Font: Arial 14pt Strong (Anti-Alias), Color: #000000 70% Opacity, In lower case letters, Tracking: 60
destined-All of the above but I made it bold.
This is what your layers should look like:
Merge all the layers, add a simple 1px white border and you got yourself an icon.
To make your's unlike mine, try using the Varations tool. Merge all layers, go to Image>Adjustments>Varations.. and play around with those.
Any questions? Let Me Know