Hugh Laurie icon
Right-o! This is my first ever tutorial and I hope it's a pretty good one.
I actually don't do a lot effects-wise when it comes to my icons, but I've been playing around a lot lately and thought that I liked the way this turned out, so I'd give a tutorial a whirl.
Go from this:
to 
Image-heavy. PSP v. 9.
Hiya!
1. Okay, we're going to start with this hunkalicious picture of the wonderful Hugh Laurie.
2. Okay. Go ahead and crop it however you want.
3. Resize it to 100 x 100. I, personally, prefer viewing it at a lower percentage and doing a print screen to crop, but you can just as easily resize it the normal way.
4. Now, take your Soften Brush and set it to size 3 and set it to 33% opacity. Smooth over ONLY Hugh's face. We're talking skin here. Don't touch up any hair and be very careful around the eyes. The only reason I used the brush is to keep the graininess from shining through.
5. Do a little Copy >> Paste as New Image action (This is a personal preference - I like using clean slates if at all possible.) Either way, you're going to copy and paste as new layer. Set the blend mode to normal and the opacity to 60%. Take your eraser tool and, with the size to 1, go over the eyes ONLY. I did just the whites and colour. I did this so that Hugh's purdy blues can stay more vibrant throughout.
6. Add a new raster layer and set the blend mode to Saturation and the opacity to 70%. Go into your gradient options and choose foreground-background. Set your foreground colour to #000040 and your background colour to #F9F9F9. Set the angle to 225. Use the Flood Fill Tool and fill the layer with the gradient.
7. Once again, use your eraser tool and go over the eyes.
8. Add a new raster layer and set the blend mode toHugh Hue and the opacity to 80%. Go into your gradient options and choose the gradient Fading White. Set the angle to 45. Use the Flood Fill Tool and fill the layer with the gradient.
9. Once again, use your eraser tool and go over the eyes.
Aaaaand, that's all you need for the colouring! Now you can add whatever text and such you like.
10. I added the little Xs on a new raster layer with the blend mode to screen and opacity at 100%. The Xs are at size 15.
11. I added a new vector layer with the blend mode to overlay and the opacity to 100. I used Garamond at size 12 with the stroke at 1.0. The font colour was #FFFFFF.
12. I duplicated the vector layer twice. I set the second duplicate to opacity 50%.
13. Layers >> Merge >> Merge All! We're done!
And that's the way I made my Hughie icon. :o) I hope it was helpful, and if there's anything I could have done to make this easier to understand, please let me know.
I actually don't do a lot effects-wise when it comes to my icons, but I've been playing around a lot lately and thought that I liked the way this turned out, so I'd give a tutorial a whirl.
Go from this:
Image-heavy. PSP v. 9.
Hiya!
1. Okay, we're going to start with this hunkalicious picture of the wonderful Hugh Laurie.
2. Okay. Go ahead and crop it however you want.
3. Resize it to 100 x 100. I, personally, prefer viewing it at a lower percentage and doing a print screen to crop, but you can just as easily resize it the normal way.
4. Now, take your Soften Brush and set it to size 3 and set it to 33% opacity. Smooth over ONLY Hugh's face. We're talking skin here. Don't touch up any hair and be very careful around the eyes. The only reason I used the brush is to keep the graininess from shining through.
5. Do a little Copy >> Paste as New Image action (This is a personal preference - I like using clean slates if at all possible.) Either way, you're going to copy and paste as new layer. Set the blend mode to normal and the opacity to 60%. Take your eraser tool and, with the size to 1, go over the eyes ONLY. I did just the whites and colour. I did this so that Hugh's purdy blues can stay more vibrant throughout.
6. Add a new raster layer and set the blend mode to Saturation and the opacity to 70%. Go into your gradient options and choose foreground-background. Set your foreground colour to #000040 and your background colour to #F9F9F9. Set the angle to 225. Use the Flood Fill Tool and fill the layer with the gradient.
7. Once again, use your eraser tool and go over the eyes.
8. Add a new raster layer and set the blend mode to
9. Once again, use your eraser tool and go over the eyes.
Aaaaand, that's all you need for the colouring! Now you can add whatever text and such you like.
10. I added the little Xs on a new raster layer with the blend mode to screen and opacity at 100%. The Xs are at size 15.
11. I added a new vector layer with the blend mode to overlay and the opacity to 100. I used Garamond at size 12 with the stroke at 1.0. The font colour was #FFFFFF.
12. I duplicated the vector layer twice. I set the second duplicate to opacity 50%.
13. Layers >> Merge >> Merge All! We're done!
And that's the way I made my Hughie icon. :o) I hope it was helpful, and if there's anything I could have done to make this easier to understand, please let me know.