Comments | rebeccarand987: Icon batch #5

rebeccarand987

Icon batch #5 - 34 multi-fandom!

Feb 21, 2009 16:36

Wait is this my...first multi-fandom icon post?! *WOOTWOOT* (well other than my icontest entries post, but that doesn't count).
As always, comment, credit, no stealing, hotlinking, etc...oh and enjoy! :)

Constructive criticism is very welcome!

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2009)
6 Taylor Swift "Love Story" music video
16 Gossip Girl (mostly Blair ( Read more... )

icon:taylor swift, graphics, icon:tess, icon:gemma arterton, icon:gg

Comments 7

winterlillies February 22 2009, 03:33:12 UTC

They do look pixely and grainy. A lot of times it has to do with the quality of the pictures used. What program do you use? If it's photoshop I could do a .psd for you for one of them to help you look at the coloring, etc and what I do for my icons.

Also-when I first started out I studied people's cropping. This cropping guide helped me out a lot! Also at the same community of the guide I studied the bases made there. I recommend that to people-study the bases and it can turn it a so-so icon into a wow icon.

I'd be happy to help out with anything. =)

rebeccarand987 February 23 2009, 22:28:44 UTC

Hmm...the quality of the picture is pretty good. I use paint shop pro (psp) not photoshop, but thanks anyways :). I actually re-did one of my icons based on those guides and sure, it got a bit better, but no matter what I do the noise/ugly stuff/pixely look/grains just won't go away! For example: I started out with this icon (before I looked at the tutorial you gave me). After looking at this tutorial (the cropping guide you recommended) I got this icon. However, after turning it into a PNG image I got this icon.
When I used this tutorial I got this image in PNG which is already much better with the whole grainy look, IMO. (This is how it looked in JPG). Have I been overlooking a cardinal rule of "there's less change when the image is png" or is it just a coincidence?
Thanks for the tips! (sorry this is long...)

winterlillies February 24 2009, 05:51:10 UTC

Can you upload the Blair picture? I'd like to see the quality of it. Does PSP let you plug in a resolution size? I know Photoshop lets you and most icon makers use 72 as a resolution size.

Anyway-have you checked out psptutorials? Off the bat I think this tutorial might help you in terms of the saving of the image Saving Quaility JPEG Images.

rebeccarand987 February 25 2009, 23:48:20 UTC

whoa I didn't know there was a community just for psp...THANKS!
do you mean the screencapture or the original icon that I made before fixing it?
resolution size...isn't that always 100x100 with icons?

firstillusion February 23 2009, 07:26:52 UTC

I agree with a lot winterlillies said.

If you want some tips and clear guides for graphic making, you could go to good_tutorial, where instead of scores of ugly colouring 'tutorials' like on icon_tutorial, only select tutorial makers are allowed to post tutorials that teach you something.

One of mine on the basics of vibrant colouring (because I think your colouring could do with some more vibrancy :)) is here, but there are tons of BRILLIANT tutorials there and they are easy to browse.

Also, if you need specific help and you want me to make a tutorial on anything, just let me know and I'm happy to oblige. I do it for my members at illusoir_icons, so I'd be happy to do the same for you. :)

Also a good tip: find icon-makers whose work you like and just study them. Study as many styles as you find interesting and get inspiration and ideas of what works and what doesn't for you - it's all about combining your skill with what style suits you. :)

rebeccarand987 February 23 2009, 23:11:58 UTC

Thanks so much for the community tip! It would always take a while to look through all of those "let's turn everyone rainbow-coloured!" tutorials, so I'm quite happy about the new community recommendation :). I completely understand what you mean about vibrancy - I've tried vibrancy tutorials (like yours ^^) before and even if it is more vibrant it's still as grainy, if not even more grainy!

ok so here's what I wrote in another comment:
I actually re-did one of my icons based on those guides and sure, it got a bit better, but no matter what I do the noise/ugly stuff/pixely look/grains just won't go away! For example: I started out with this icon (before I looked at the recommended tutorials). After looking at this tutorial (a recommended cropping guide) I got this icon. However, after turning it into a PNG image I got this icon.
When I used this tutorial I got this image in PNG which is already much better with the whole grainy look, IMO. (This is how it looked in JPG). Have I been overlooking a cardinal rule of "there's less change ( ... )

firstillusion February 24 2009, 06:43:15 UTC

Oh yes, I see what you mean. To me, your original Blair icon looks the best of all three of them - but if that's not the case for you, it could be my monitor settings, those are always a bitch.

The only thing I can think of is that when you save it as a JPEG or JPG, you can select the quality of the image. In Photoshop you get a pop up windown asking you to move a pointer across a line from low quality to high quality. The higher the quality, the bigger the image gets in size, but as long as you stay under the 40kb rule for Livejournal icons (when you upload an icon as a userpic here, it can't be bigger than 40kb) it's fine.

The other thing that might help (but really, I'm not at all at home in all those technical things. I'm currently having a problem with colours being totally different on my computer or in Firefox, so I'm not making graphics at the moment :(), is selecting all the layers of your icon, then merging them or flattening the image and then save the icon as PNG. For me, PNG has given better results than JPEG, but I no ( ... )