rain tutorial
An entry was posted asking how to do a rain effect and people posted links to different tutorials but (for me at least) none of them worked that well, so I combined some and found a way that works pretty well. I used PSP8 and Jasc Animation Shop to make this icon: 
First I started with this sreencap from the movie Bride and Prejudice (it's SO good! I highly recommend it ^-^)
and cropped it to 100x100
and added 1px border in light grey (#404040)
To get the text I made a new image with the background colour the same grey as the border (#404040). Select the text tool and create the text as floating. I wrote "true love" in white, 8pt, TW Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold font. It should appear as a selection. With the text still selected go to "Selections>Modify>Expand" and select it at 1px.
After clicking okay copy the text (ctrl+c) and paste it as a new layer in the icon (ctrl+l)
Now there's a basic base to add rain to.
Create a new layer. Flood fill it with black and set to screen. Duplicate it twice.
Select one of the layers. Go to "Adjust>Add/Remove Noise>Add Noise"
Do this to all three layers but changing the setting at each one: one on random, the second uniform, the last gaussian. If you do them all the same the eventual rain will not move.
In order to have the rain look like rain, you have to blur the noise. Go to "Adjust>Blur>Motion Blur". I took an estimate that the rain in this picture is going at an angle of 201 degrees, but you can make it at whatever angle you want. I also put the strength at 30 but if you don't want it blurred so much you can put the strength at a lower number.
Blur all three layers, then make only one of them visible.
Don't merge the layers but copy merged (ctrl+shift+c) and paste it into animation shop (ctrl+v).
Make a different layer visible (and make the first INvisible) and copy merged. Then paste it as a new slide in the animation. Do the same with the last layer and save your work!
I hope this was clear. If anyone has any questions, suggestions or would like to share icons feel free :)
First I started with this sreencap from the movie Bride and Prejudice (it's SO good! I highly recommend it ^-^)
and cropped it to 100x100
and added 1px border in light grey (#404040)
To get the text I made a new image with the background colour the same grey as the border (#404040). Select the text tool and create the text as floating. I wrote "true love" in white, 8pt, TW Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold font. It should appear as a selection. With the text still selected go to "Selections>Modify>Expand" and select it at 1px.
After clicking okay copy the text (ctrl+c) and paste it as a new layer in the icon (ctrl+l)
Now there's a basic base to add rain to.
Create a new layer. Flood fill it with black and set to screen. Duplicate it twice.
Select one of the layers. Go to "Adjust>Add/Remove Noise>Add Noise"
Do this to all three layers but changing the setting at each one: one on random, the second uniform, the last gaussian. If you do them all the same the eventual rain will not move.
In order to have the rain look like rain, you have to blur the noise. Go to "Adjust>Blur>Motion Blur". I took an estimate that the rain in this picture is going at an angle of 201 degrees, but you can make it at whatever angle you want. I also put the strength at 30 but if you don't want it blurred so much you can put the strength at a lower number.
Blur all three layers, then make only one of them visible.
Don't merge the layers but copy merged (ctrl+shift+c) and paste it into animation shop (ctrl+v).
Make a different layer visible (and make the first INvisible) and copy merged. Then paste it as a new slide in the animation. Do the same with the last layer and save your work!
I hope this was clear. If anyone has any questions, suggestions or would like to share icons feel free :)