I need your help again!

[sun_star_n_moon]

Christmas/Winter icons are on the way!

But first I was wondering if any of you knew of a tutorial for how to do snow like you see in this icon. I know you use photoshop for it (which I have) but for the life of me, I can not find a tutorial for how to do it. Anyone got any helpful links for me?

Comments

[alexia_drake]

Don't you still have the program Sqirlz Water reflections that you use to add rain or snow in your icons? I think it does a very great and narutal effect!

[sun_star_n_moon]

Yeah. I do. And I can do perfectly lovely snow and rain with it.

But the snow is a different style than this. And I would just like to mix things up a bit. Sometimes I want more of a gentle snow than the blizzard Sqirlz tends to give you. (Plus it's always nice to learn new things!)

[brotherskeeper1]

With Squirlz you need to practice with it to get light snow, heavy or intermediate. It is the same with rain. It can be an easy program to work with or it can prove very frustrating. You can shorten and lengthen your snow and rain.

I recently got PHotoscape, a free program but I have not had time to work with it. Perhaps it could help you.

There is Canon Arcsoft but that is mainly f0r jpgs. I cannot think of others; if I do I will let you know.

[heyurs]

YAY! I'm all excited for them! :D

[kissofcinnamon]

I'll be tracking this post to see if you find out. Just breaking down the icon, it looks like the flakes are three sizes, gaussian blurred and haloed, and it looks like the tedious "move every frame down a square" method was used. I'm working on trying to duplicate it but I keep running into problems with the speed. I can't get the smooth fall like in the icon. I have learned that less is more, though. I was making the mistake of using way, way too many flakes.

[brotherskeeper1]

I know what you mean. Disassembling, checking the frames out and reasembling can turn into a nightmare if you try to use Jasc to reassemble them. I check frame speeds and think the answer is there but like you, cannot get it to even out. Some people can get marvelous affects with a few flackes. I tend to use too many.

[aglarien1]

See my comments down below - you can take one of the premade gifs and remove the backgroud to make a .mng. I found it works best with the larger snow.

[kissofcinnamon]

Thank you so much for that! I was wondering how to use them in PSP and I completely forgot about "screen". :D

[lotos79]

the tutorial from awmpdotnet works very well:
http://awmpdotnet.livejournal.com/14655.html

Premade animated snow textures:
http://community.livejournal.com/awmpdotnet/15984.html

[aglarien1]

The link that lotos79 posted above is the one for that snow effect. This one:
http://community.livejournal.com/awmpdotnet/15984.html

Save the gif and open it in PSP. I believe they are 15 frames. You need 15 copies of your base. You have to apply each frame of the snow to each base, screening the background and keeping them in order. An incredibly long and tedious process, but it works. You can also take the snow gifs and open them in animation shop, remove the black background (and any gray background that appears), apply a gaussian blur to get it softer, then save it as a .mng image to put put over your icons. It's a bit of work too, but you only have to do it once. That's what I did for my icon. Good luck!

[vesper_evensong]

WOW.. what a lovely icon in this comment! I just have to say it. So soft, and feminine.

[aglarien1]

Thank you!

[heyurs]

Sweet Agie is the absolute best. x)