Tutorial #1 - PS7
I've been meaning to make a tutorial for awhile, now, so when I got an email requesting one I thought, "why not?" This is my first tutorial, so I hope I explained everything well enough. :)
We're going to learn how to make this icon:
I started out with this picture from here. (I took a screen capture and then cropped it.) I then re-sized the image and dragged it to a new 100x100 canvas, instead of cropping the picture directly. (I find this helps me put the picture exactly where I want it, because I can then move it around a bit.)
Next, I sharpened the image. ( Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen ) I duplicated the layer and set that layer to screen, and then duplicated it again and set the top layer to soft light. This helps brighten up the image a bit; however, this obviously doesn't look very nice...
...so I played around with the opacity levels of both layers until I was pleased with the brightness. The end result was: Screen layer - 40% and Soft Light layer - 65%
I also played around with the saturation of the Soft Light layer. This affects the vibrancy of the image. I ended up desaturating the Soft Light layer by -30. ( Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation > Saturation -30 )
I decided to add a white box to the side, using the square marquee tool.
I love patterns, so to make the icon more interesting, I added a strip of this pattern from hybrid-genesis.net. The colour doesn't quite match the icon, so I used the Hue/Saturation tool and set the Hue > -90 and the Saturation > +35.
As a finishing touch, I added this brush from chouchoune. Then, all you have to do is flatten the image and save!
Just in case you would like a visual, here's what all the layers should look like at the end:
We're going to learn how to make this icon:
I started out with this picture from here. (I took a screen capture and then cropped it.) I then re-sized the image and dragged it to a new 100x100 canvas, instead of cropping the picture directly. (I find this helps me put the picture exactly where I want it, because I can then move it around a bit.)
Next, I sharpened the image. ( Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen ) I duplicated the layer and set that layer to screen, and then duplicated it again and set the top layer to soft light. This helps brighten up the image a bit; however, this obviously doesn't look very nice...
...so I played around with the opacity levels of both layers until I was pleased with the brightness. The end result was: Screen layer - 40% and Soft Light layer - 65%
I also played around with the saturation of the Soft Light layer. This affects the vibrancy of the image. I ended up desaturating the Soft Light layer by -30. ( Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation > Saturation -30 )
I decided to add a white box to the side, using the square marquee tool.
I love patterns, so to make the icon more interesting, I added a strip of this pattern from hybrid-genesis.net. The colour doesn't quite match the icon, so I used the Hue/Saturation tool and set the Hue > -90 and the Saturation > +35.
As a finishing touch, I added this brush from chouchoune. Then, all you have to do is flatten the image and save!
Just in case you would like a visual, here's what all the layers should look like at the end: