stuck fixated on one star

Tutorial

fixatedstar — Mon, 07 May 2007 02:50:08 GMT

From to

1. Duplicate the picture, set to Overlay at 100%.

2. New layer. Fill with #03021F. Set to Exclusion, 36%.

3. New layer. Fill with #FFDFC0. Set to Colour Burn, 28%.

4. New layer. Fill with #E6870C. Set to Lighten, 18%.

5. Duplicate picture, drag it to the top. Set to Multiply, 53%.

6. Duplicate picture, drag it to the top. Set to Screen, 18%.

7. New layer. Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E. Set to Darken, 100%.

All done.</div>

Another tutorial

fixatedstar — Mon, 07 May 2007 02:20:29 GMT

From this to this:

1. Pick your image. I'm using this. Open it in Photoshop on a TRANSPARENT background.
2. Using a soft eraser of about 45 pixels, erase around Hayley. Once you're done that, switch to a 21 pixel soft eraser, and bring it in a little more.

Make sure there's that bit of black/grey around it. That's why we use soft erasers.

3. Crop it to 100x100.

4. Open a new document, 500x500 pixels.
5. Set the foreground and background colours to blue, one light, one dark. Like #091840 and #7EB5FF.
6. Filter > Render > Clouds
7. We made it 500x500 for a reason. Crop to 100x100 where you think it looks best.

8. Copy that cloud thing and stick it behind Hayley.

9. Ew, look at that. How icky. Go back to your soft eraser, around 13 pixels. Erase the darkest parts around her. It's cool if you erase part of her. We'll deal with that.

10. Now make your soft eraser 200 pixels. Go around the outsides, so she's something like this:

11. New layer. Group it with Hayley (Ctrl+G).
12. Fill the layer with the lighter colour from your clouds. (#7EB5FF)
13. Set it to Soft light.

14. Another new layer. Group it.
15. Fill it with that light colour.
16. Set it to Multiply. Lower the opacity to about 50%.

17. Outer glow. Go to the Hayley layer, and go to Blending options. The colour of the glow should be the lighter colour from the clouds.
Use these settings:

Turns out like this:

18. Time for text.
I've seen, way too many times:

Blending options - one pixel black stroke
Uni_5x found here

Love die:

(the font size isn't specified, as I used a larger size for the L and a smaller size for the E in Love)
Punk Kid found here

Blending options - one pixel black stroke, drop shadow, bevel and emboss:

And we end up with

Other icons made using this technique:

If anyone uses this, I'd love to see what you come up with.
</div>

My first ever tutorial!

fixatedstar — Mon, 07 May 2007 01:00:01 GMT

Today we will be making this sexy piece of iconage.

Alrighty. My first tutorial. Prepare to get majorly confused.

To start off, get like four to six pictures to use. I like five. You can use more or less, but then your measurements are going to be different than mine. Keep that in mind.

Once you've picked out your pics, open them all in Photoshop. Open another blank document, 100x100, transparent background. I usually use a 96x96 document, because I use these icons for MSN.

Change the dimensions of the crop tool (C) to 13 pixels by 98 pixels.

Crop all of the pictures you're using, copy them, and paste them in your 100x100 document.

Arrange them so they're each about 4 pixels apart, and one pixel away from the top and bottom. The one on the far right should be one pixel away from the side. There should be a large empty space at the left. Put a 1 pixel black boarder around each. (Right-click the layer in the Layers box, Blending Options, stroke)

Now each picture should be about 2 pixels away from each other.

Add text.
I used Century Gothic, white, 17 pt, tracking at 0. Use Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to rotate the text. Add a 1 pixel boarder, same as the pics.

Final product:

The most important step:

SAVE AS A .PNG FILE TO ENSURE YOUR BACKGROUND IS TRANSPARENT.

That is all.

Let me know what you think.

Before you bitch me out, I know Hunter isn't in the band. Whatever.

</div>

fixatedstar — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 03:43:22 GMT

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
(i totally wanted to sometimes)

Opening Credits:
Thunder - Boys Like Girls

Waking Up:
Going Down - The Stone Roses

First Day At School:
The River - Good Charlotte

Falling In Love:
Another Hole In The Head - Nickelback

Fight Song:
Variatio 15 a 1 Clav. Canone alla Quinta. Andente - J.S. Bach

Breaking Up:
Livin' In Sin - Godsmack

Prom:
And One - Linkin Park

Life is good:
Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba - Handel

Mental Breakdown:
This Time is the Last Time - Mae

Driving:
Sugar, We're Going Down - Fall Out Boy

Flashback:
Butterfly - Charlie Gracie

Getting Back Together:
It's Electric - Metallica

Wedding:
Shirts. Versus. Blouses - holding.sky

Final Battle:
Open Up - Love Arcade

Death Scene:
Where is My Mind - Storm Large

Funeral Song:
Tell Me - Idol Sons

End Credits (3 tracks):
What Are You Doing, Man? That's Weird! - Valencia
The Last Something That Meant Anything - Mayday Parade
Melt With You - Modern English