Icon Tutorial #02 (PSP 9)

So here's my second icon tutorial! Hope you'll find it useful!

So learn how to go from this to

So you want to learn how to go from this (taken from the wonderful site The Superficial...Because You're Ugly) to ? I'll show ya! But firist of a few pointers:

- You are allowed to use my final icon but you must credit me.

- This tutorial is image-heavy. Sorry!

- When you follow these steps try to vary with a few things since five identical icons get kinda boring.

- I'm using PSP 9, but I'm sure this method could be easily translated to other programs. Here's my workspace:

Tutorial #02

Step 1:

So, what to do?  The picture is huge and it would look wierd if resized to 100x100 pixels. And so I take a 474x474 pixels part of the picture and crop it then resize it to 100x100 pixels.

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Step 2:

Now time to fix up the picture. So what I did, was I duplicated that base layer and used the very useful One Step Photo Fix (Adjust>>One Step Photo Fix). If you don't have PSP 9,  just perform your usual routine of lightening and sharpening and softening.

Step 3:

Now that we have that done, duplicate that layer. If you used several layers to clean the image up, flatten the layers and duplicate the flattened layer once. Now set the top layer to Overlay and the lower one at Screen.

Also, it would be great if you can make sure everything behind her is white by blending the layers again and then using the Flood Fill Tool.

Step 4:

Now gradient 1!  Use the following gradient (from teh_indy ) at Darken with 50% opacity. You may use it at 60% opacity if you wish a darker feel.

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Step 5:

New Layer >> Flood Fill it with #000040 then set the layer to Exclusion. I love this effect so much, it always manages to look good!

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Step 6:

FLATTEN! YAY! *cough* moving on...

You might think I'll be adding a brush now, but I'm not. Using the Selection Tool, form a rectangle down across the icon on a new empty layer and flood fill it white like so:

Then what I did, was I continued adding such lines and then I made other ones of the same size but in a row, instead of a column. In other words, I ended up with this:

Then I colored those bars in with #ffc0c0 to have:

Now set that to Hard Light at 68% opacity.

Then using the Pen Tool, form a vertical line and use the Text Tool to write "FREE KATIE" in white font, then move it, deleting the Pen Tool's vector.

Step 7:

Then, I used the heart brush made by miggy . Put that in a new layer and use the color #111146. Then I used the deafult small squares found in PSP. The reason why I never go into detail here, is because this is where you're really supposed to play around and have your fun and I don't want you to spoil it for yourself by following any steps! Here's my icon!!

P.S.: If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask and if you need help in anything, just let me know. ;) Why don't you post with your icon?