Go from  to  in Photoshop 7.

1. First I took this scan from Daydreaming and cropped it. Select the crop tool and hold down the shift key to crop and resize at the same time.
The result is this:

2. Desaturate the base so that you have a black and white (not greyscale, but RBG) image. (Image > Adjust > Desaturate)

3. Now we're going to adjust the levels a bit. Go to Image > Adjust > Levels and move the center slider until it reads .7

Your image should now look like this:

Not a huge difference, but it will make a difference in the end result of your icon!

4. Merge. (Layer > Merge Visible)

5. Duplicate the new base layer and apply a Gaussian Blur to the desaturated image, radius 3. (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur)


6. Duplicate the base and drag it so it's above the blurred layer. Set to soft light, 100% opacity. Now she's got that pretty soft, flawless skin look to her.


7. She's a little too dark and contrasted though, so duplicate the base once more, drag to the top and set it to screen, 60% opacity. Ahh, much better!


8. She's a little bland...We need some textures, gradients and spice! We take this gradient by the lovely crumblingwalls and place it in a new layer on top of all the rest. Set to overlay at 80% opacity.

9. We take another red and yellow gradient again by crumblingwalls and set it to Soft Light at 50% opacity.

Now, if you're satisified with the coloring of that image, you can go on. Feel free to play with more gradients and textures if you like.

10. I took a light texture from someone...awmp and flipped it around and scooted it around on my image until I got it in the desired place. I set it to Hard Light at 100% opacity.


11. On second thought, I decided she looked like someone was playing around with a flashlight on her face, so I lowered the opacity down to 60%. We want to give texture to the image, not overpower it completely.


12. I'm satisfied with the coloring and light effects, so I decided on some simple text. I used Century Gothic, bold, size 14 in #2E191A and wrote "smile" with a space between each letter.


13. Now, I take my eraser tool and erase the bottom half of the text so it looks like this:


14. We're ready for some tiny text. I used Arial Narrow size 4, anti-aliasing set to Crisp in the same color as above and typed nonsense words. Arrange these underneath the "smile" text so the line up and are visually pleasing.


15. Finally, I snag a brush from someone...again I can't remember who (I need to start writing these down instead of just saving my brushes as part of the username. Bad me!) I made a new layer, used #F6062D and placed the heart next to the smile. Set it to Color at 100% opacity and voila! We have our beautiful Jennifer Garner icon!


This is my first tutorial, so go easy on me :) Let me know if anything is missing/needs to be fixed, etc.!