Dominic Monaghan icon for PSP 9
Alrighty, this is my first ever tutorial. Hopefully it's up to snuff :D
We'll be making this icon:
I started off with this picture of the lovely Dominic Monaghan.
Then I messed around with the cropping until I found something that I liked. After I was done with that, I resized it to the standard 100x100.
Even though it's a gorgeous car, I didn't really want it to be featured in the icon. So I used the softening tool to fade it a bit. First I went over it with a size 20, staying away from Dom's image, then touched up the parts by Dom's head and hand. (Or you could just do all of it with the size 5). I repeated this a couple of times until I was satisfied with it (6 or 7 times). I used the softener a bit on his hand and his cheeks, but there wasn't too much to fix, so it's pretty much the same.
I then duplicated the layer and changed the blend mode to Overlay. I didn't think it was enough, so I repeated this step.
Too orangey for me. I changed the blend mode of the layer in the middle to Soft Light.
Better. I changed up the opacity of the layers a bit. When I'd finished, the Overlay layer was at 80% opacity, and the Soft Light layer at 56%. And of course, it took me this long to remember than I hadn't sharpened the image yet. So I sharpened all three layers (Adjust > Sharpness > Sharpen), but didn't like the look. In the end, I just sharpened the Background layer.
Next, I created a new vector layer for the text. I took one of the whites from the headlights for the text (#f6f6f5). I wrote "dominic" (all lower-case) in Arial font, size 16, bolded, with a Kerning of 175. Then I moved the text to the bottom of the icon, far enough that some of it was cut off. Then I centered the text (Objects > Align > Horiz. Center in Canvas).
Then I added a new raster layer and floodfilled it with a brown taken from his shirt (#2d2921).
Then I added a mask to the brown layer (I clicked on the little mask at the top of the Layer toolbar. Or you can use Layers > New Mask Layer > From Image...). Personally, I love masks. I don't know how I ever functioned using just the eraser. In masks, black works as an eraser, and white keeps everything the same. Greys will erase the layers slightly (depending on how dark it is). I used a gradient that comes with PSP (Swatch 1) and edited it, changing the angle to 130.
Then I flooded the mask with the gradient. When I'd finished, the icon looked like this:
Close, but not quite what I want. I moved the vector layer to the top.
Good, but a bit bare on the left. I added a new vector layer, and typed in "monaghan". Same font, but this time, kerning's at 15, because his last name was just too long. Then I rotated the text 90 degrees clockwise (I'm sure there's some way to do this without free-rotating it, but I'm not familiar with it).
Well, that's just messy. I put the "monaghan" layer beneath the "dominic" layer, and changed its blend mode to Overlay. A bit much, so I put the opacity down to 32.
Pretty close, except I didn't think Dom was standing out enough. I duplicated the background layer and put it on top of everything. I changed the blend mode to Overlay, opacity at 85%. But the "dominic" still stuck out a bit too much. I changed that layer to Hard Light and moved to opacity down a bit to 94%. Then I moved the text around a bit, because I thought it was a bit too cut off. I softened the car a bit more, just to be sure. I ended up with this:
Well, that was fun. Hopefully you enjoyed it too and it wasn't too difficult to follow. :D
We'll be making this icon:
I started off with this picture of the lovely Dominic Monaghan.
Then I messed around with the cropping until I found something that I liked. After I was done with that, I resized it to the standard 100x100.
Even though it's a gorgeous car, I didn't really want it to be featured in the icon. So I used the softening tool to fade it a bit. First I went over it with a size 20, staying away from Dom's image, then touched up the parts by Dom's head and hand. (Or you could just do all of it with the size 5). I repeated this a couple of times until I was satisfied with it (6 or 7 times). I used the softener a bit on his hand and his cheeks, but there wasn't too much to fix, so it's pretty much the same.
I then duplicated the layer and changed the blend mode to Overlay. I didn't think it was enough, so I repeated this step.
Too orangey for me. I changed the blend mode of the layer in the middle to Soft Light.
Better. I changed up the opacity of the layers a bit. When I'd finished, the Overlay layer was at 80% opacity, and the Soft Light layer at 56%. And of course, it took me this long to remember than I hadn't sharpened the image yet. So I sharpened all three layers (Adjust > Sharpness > Sharpen), but didn't like the look. In the end, I just sharpened the Background layer.
Next, I created a new vector layer for the text. I took one of the whites from the headlights for the text (#f6f6f5). I wrote "dominic" (all lower-case) in Arial font, size 16, bolded, with a Kerning of 175. Then I moved the text to the bottom of the icon, far enough that some of it was cut off. Then I centered the text (Objects > Align > Horiz. Center in Canvas).
Then I added a new raster layer and floodfilled it with a brown taken from his shirt (#2d2921).
Then I added a mask to the brown layer (I clicked on the little mask at the top of the Layer toolbar. Or you can use Layers > New Mask Layer > From Image...). Personally, I love masks. I don't know how I ever functioned using just the eraser. In masks, black works as an eraser, and white keeps everything the same. Greys will erase the layers slightly (depending on how dark it is). I used a gradient that comes with PSP (Swatch 1) and edited it, changing the angle to 130.
Then I flooded the mask with the gradient. When I'd finished, the icon looked like this:
Close, but not quite what I want. I moved the vector layer to the top.
Good, but a bit bare on the left. I added a new vector layer, and typed in "monaghan". Same font, but this time, kerning's at 15, because his last name was just too long. Then I rotated the text 90 degrees clockwise (I'm sure there's some way to do this without free-rotating it, but I'm not familiar with it).
Well, that's just messy. I put the "monaghan" layer beneath the "dominic" layer, and changed its blend mode to Overlay. A bit much, so I put the opacity down to 32.
Pretty close, except I didn't think Dom was standing out enough. I duplicated the background layer and put it on top of everything. I changed the blend mode to Overlay, opacity at 85%. But the "dominic" still stuck out a bit too much. I changed that layer to Hard Light and moved to opacity down a bit to 94%. Then I moved the text around a bit, because I thought it was a bit too cut off. I softened the car a bit more, just to be sure. I ended up with this:
Well, that was fun. Hopefully you enjoyed it too and it wasn't too difficult to follow. :D