Improvement

[lavenderspark]

I feel like my icons are looking MUCH better than they were. And I'm remembering where things are and what they do, so that makes things go a lot faster. My program updated today too, it now has a welcome screen with tutorials! I was surprised since it's PaintShop 7 and they're on like 9 or 10 now, but hey, I'll take it

Comments

[tinnny]

You're learning fast! These are indeed all good!

The fourth one could be a little lighter. It's not too dark, per se, but combined with the font color that is lighter than everything else in the image, it makes it seem dark. Do you know what I mean?

General rule of thumb: don't add textures/font in colors that are lighter than the image itself. Either lighten the image more or choose a darker font color (preferably picked from the image).

I very much like the third one, where you put the text behind the subjects. That effect is perfect and the icon as a whole is great!

[lavenderspark]

Thanks! I'm loving the whole mask layer thing. It makes some things SO MUCH easier!

Yeah, I struggled a bit with the last one, that's how I ended up with the black and white one. It lightened up just fine when it was full size, but when I resized it, my focal point ended up really dark. I'm thinking I might try some selective lighting or something to see if I can lighten just the couple.

I tend to use light/bright colors for the text because when I use dark colors I find it's hard to read once it's in icon size. But I can see how it makes the image look dark.

Thanks, the black and white turned out a lot better than I thought it would! Full size it looked a bit odd, but once I resized it everything kind of fell together.

[tinnny]

I'm thinking I might try some selective lighting or something to see if I can lighten just the couple.

Yes, it's often necessary to specifically lighten/sharpen/color only part of the image. That's where masks come in really handy. :)

What I often do is simply put a soft blob of white or beige over peoples heads/faces and set that blob to screen at low opacity. It's less work than masking and usually brings them out well enough.

Full size it looked a bit odd, but once I resized it everything kind of fell together.

That's the danger of resizing at the end, you never know what the end result will really look like. I personally like to work on 100x100 from the start, but there are a lot of icon makers who start out with larger images and resize at the end. Not everyone does it the same, there are so many roads that lead to success. :D

It's a personal process.

[lavenderspark]

I have to start full size. I can't see anything when it's icon size. I just make sure the resize is the last thing I do, that way I can just undo and try to fix anything that looks off.