User: love_sacrificed (posted by immortalje) Date: 2008-11-29 14:27 Subject: Icon Tutorial #2 Security: Public Location: home Mood: rushed Tags: !tutorial, tutorial: icons

Well, after getting Mod's Invitation at severalplums last time, I made first AND second this time and here's my tutorial for the winning icon:

We're going from to .

I'm using Photoshop 7 and this tutorial includes Curves, Channel Mixer, Brightness/Contrast as well as several filters.


Note: If not mentioned otherwise layers are normal and 100%. Additionally, numbers in brackets are the layer numbers as shown in layer image at the end.

Step 1: After cropping the icon, I created a layer beneath the original image and filled it with a light colour (#F9EFAE) I usually use to bring out skin tones. I set the layer to 30%. I also set the original layer to Linear Light.

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Step 2: I copied the original layer and set it to screen (1)

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Step 3: I copied the layer again and set it to lighten. Since I only wanted the person to be lighter I added a mask layer and painted the respective are by hand until I was satisfied with the result. (2)

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Step 4: I copied the original layer again and used the filter "Find Edges" on it, inverted it and set the layer to soft light at 50%.

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Step 5: Now I added a Brightness/Contrast layer as the first of three adjustment layers and set the contrast to +14.

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Step 6: The next adjustment layer I used is a Channel Mixer Layer at 50%.

(Channel: red, green, blue)
Red: +98, +8, -16
Green: -14,+110,+24
Blue: +20, -20,+116

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Step 7: The last adjustment layer I used is Curves.

(in/out)
RGB: 126/141
Red: 127/138
Green: 135/128
Blue: 117/151

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Step 8: Since I wasn't satisfied with the way the person and the background didn't really "separate" I copied layer 2 (to keep the mask I already did) and added a drop shadow, adjusting the angle to -45 (assuming that fill method multiply and 75% are standard as well as the distance and size of 5px) before setting the layer to soft light. (4)

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Step 9: Now I wanted to blur the background. Therefore I copied layer 2 again and inverted the mask layer. I used a gaussian blur on the mask layer to soften the edges a bit before using the gaussian blur twice on the actual image. I used the value 2,0 every time. The layer is set to Soft Light at 30%. (5)

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Step 10: In the last step I added a new layer at the very top. I used Ctrl+A to select the entire icon and added a border (black, 1px) using the stroke function (in the edit menu). Once I had the border I used the gaussian blur (still 2,0) on it.

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I hope the tutorial was easy to understand (and I didn't use the wrong translation for anything I used). If there are any questions left, feel free to ask.

The layers looked like this at the end:

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