icon tutorial
This is my first icon tutorial so if I make any mistakes, please tell me! :)
Tutorial made with Gimp 2.4.
We are going from
to 
This tutorial contains six steps. It it totally translatable to any other program.
1. Duplicate you base and drag it to the top, set it to Soft light, 100. This adds deeper colours to the icon.
2. Make a new fill layer, fill it with #6b0000 and set it to Exclusion*, 70. This adds a lot of blue to the icon. We are going to replace the blues for other colours in the next steps, but if you think there's too much, you can always set this lay to a lower opacity.
3. Merge your layers.
4. Color balance:
SHADOWS 10, 0, 0
MIDTONES 10, -10, -10
As you'll see, some of the blues already disappear.
5. Channel mixer.
RED 110.0, 8.0, 0.0
BLUE -10.0, 10.0, 100.0
This makes the blues disappear even more.
6. New fill layer, #24000f. Set this layer to Hard light, 10.
It makes the icon a little smoother. (You can play around with the opacity of this layer, because it might look different on other images.)
*In Gimp, Exclusion layers can be made by filling three layers with the colour you want. Set the first two to Screen and the thrid one to Substract. (Make sure the layer on top it the substract layer)
It will give you the same effect as one exclusion layer in another program.
Tutorial made with Gimp 2.4.
We are going from
This tutorial contains six steps. It it totally translatable to any other program.
1. Duplicate you base and drag it to the top, set it to Soft light, 100. This adds deeper colours to the icon.
2. Make a new fill layer, fill it with #6b0000 and set it to Exclusion*, 70. This adds a lot of blue to the icon. We are going to replace the blues for other colours in the next steps, but if you think there's too much, you can always set this lay to a lower opacity.
3. Merge your layers.
4. Color balance:
SHADOWS 10, 0, 0
MIDTONES 10, -10, -10
As you'll see, some of the blues already disappear.
5. Channel mixer.
RED 110.0, 8.0, 0.0
BLUE -10.0, 10.0, 100.0
This makes the blues disappear even more.
6. New fill layer, #24000f. Set this layer to Hard light, 10.
It makes the icon a little smoother. (You can play around with the opacity of this layer, because it might look different on other images.)
*In Gimp, Exclusion layers can be made by filling three layers with the colour you want. Set the first two to Screen and the thrid one to Substract. (Make sure the layer on top it the substract layer)
It will give you the same effect as one exclusion layer in another program.