*I* can make a tutorial??
Okay, folks, here it is: My first (possibly only) icon tutorial. It happened by accident (the icon, not the tut), but my fluke is your gain (I hope).
We are going to use PS8 to go from this to this
Before beginning, I must apologize. I wasn't planning on doing a tut when I began making this icon, thus I don't have any images saved for the beginning stages.
So, first, we (obviously) crop the cap down to icon size. I wanted the focus of the icon to be Dan's eyes, so I tried to get a section that included his face, but was small enough that his eyes would still be large when I re-sized things. I also put it off to one side for artistic effect, and because most icons just look better when the subject isn't centered (this is also true for pictures in general, incidentally).
Next we're going to duplicate this layer twice. As is the trend with icons, we'll set the middle layer to screen and the top layer to soft light. I always fiddle with opacity to get just the look I want. This time, I think I set the screened layer to about 45% and the soft light layer to 100%. Then I went back to the background layer and fiddled with the levels (image>adjustments>levels) just a tad until it looked as I wished. Then I flattened the image (layer>flatten image). Then I sharpened it up (filter>sharpen>sharpen).
Next, I used the magnetic lasso tool to select Dan's face. I inverted the selection, then (thanks to </a></b></a>
bendygemma for this idea), I used a motion blur on the background (filter>blur>motion blur). My settings were -29 degree angle and 283 pixel distance. This gets all of the yucky background image out of the way, and also makes for a nice effect. Now, after I deselect, there's an ugly line around Dan's face from the selection. I use my blur tool to just smooth this out a bit. It gives an interesting look to the side of Dan's face.
Now things get fun. :)
I use the elliptical marquee selection tool to select Dan's eyes. I invert the selection and play with the saturation of the image (image>adjustments>hue/saturation). We'll be dealing with the eyes later. I played with this until I got a look I wanted. I didn't entirely desaturate. I faded the individual channels a bit, then clicked colorize (in the lower right corner). This gave everything kind of a purplish hue. You can fiddle with this as you desire to get a nice effect for your icon. :)
Then I inverted my selection again so Dan's eyes were once again selected. Again, we're going to fiddle with the saturation a bit. I wanted them to be an intense green color, so I went to the green channel and increased the saturation a bit. I also increased cyan and blue just a touch. There wasn't actually a lot of green in his eyes originally. So, here's what we do next (and from here on out I have pictures to aid in your understanding!)
With Dan's eyes still selected, I made a new layer via copy (layer>new>layer via copy). On this layer, we are going to change the blending options (just right click the layer in your layers palette and select blending options...). Select color overlay, and choose a pretty, bright green. I fiddled with the opacity until it looked realistic on the photo, which ended up being about 25%.
Your layers palette should now look like this.
Next I duplicated this layer and set it to overlay at about 60%. You'll notice your blending options copy over as well, which we want. Your icon should now look something like this:
I did the next two steps backward. I selected a gradient for color and lighting first. I'm horrible about remembering who to credit for what, so I try to take gradients, textures, and brushes only from people who don't require credit. If either of these belong to you, let me know & I'll credit you if you like. At any rate, I chose this gradient:
It gives everything a nice warm color. I set the layer to soft light at 100% and this is what we've got so far:
Now I add this texture:
and set the layer to overlay at 50%. Now our icon looks like this:
I fiddled around and decided I liked the look better with the texture on top (just click the layer and drag it to the top in the layers palette). Okay, so I'm nuts and you can barely tell the difference, but that's me. :) So our icon now looks like this
and our layer palette looks like this
Our base is complete! Now for text.
I'm not great at text, and the cleverest thing I could think of was "Danny Boy." (I made one with "younger men" as a response to my husband's comment of "what are you doing with pictures of much younger men?" LOL). So here's what I did.
I clicked the text tool and typed Danny Boy. I used Book Antiqua at an 18 pt. font. Then I used the eyedropper tool to select a minty-green color from Dan's eyes. I highlighted the text, then clicked on the text color selection box at the top of the screen, then clicked on the minty-green color which was now on my tool palette. I've circled the important things in red on this photo.
Now the text is a pretty green which matches a bit of the icon and contrasts with the background. Next, I went to Edit>Transform>Rotate 90 CCW. This makes my text all up-and-downy. :)
I moved it to where I wanted it on the icon, then on to the blending options. Right click the text layer in your palette and select blending options. I used a drop-shadow. I really just fiddled with the settings until I liked it. Here's what I came up with. They might not be quite exact, since I was silly and didn't save my finished icon as a .psd (just the base), but it's close.
Click ok, and you're basically done! Your layer palette now looks like this:
Save as a .jpg and you're done! Whee! Your icon looks like this!
I strongly recommend you don't follow my instructions exactly, or use the same picture. The best advice I can offer is to play around, take helpful hints from various tutorials, and just put your own creativity into it. I never thought I had the right kind of linear creative thinking to make a really good icon (tut-worthy), but I think this one just might be. :) Let me know! And have fun!
We are going to use PS8 to go from this to this
Before beginning, I must apologize. I wasn't planning on doing a tut when I began making this icon, thus I don't have any images saved for the beginning stages.
So, first, we (obviously) crop the cap down to icon size. I wanted the focus of the icon to be Dan's eyes, so I tried to get a section that included his face, but was small enough that his eyes would still be large when I re-sized things. I also put it off to one side for artistic effect, and because most icons just look better when the subject isn't centered (this is also true for pictures in general, incidentally).
Next we're going to duplicate this layer twice. As is the trend with icons, we'll set the middle layer to screen and the top layer to soft light. I always fiddle with opacity to get just the look I want. This time, I think I set the screened layer to about 45% and the soft light layer to 100%. Then I went back to the background layer and fiddled with the levels (image>adjustments>levels) just a tad until it looked as I wished. Then I flattened the image (layer>flatten image). Then I sharpened it up (filter>sharpen>sharpen).
Next, I used the magnetic lasso tool to select Dan's face. I inverted the selection, then (thanks to </a></b></a>
bendygemma for this idea), I used a motion blur on the background (filter>blur>motion blur). My settings were -29 degree angle and 283 pixel distance. This gets all of the yucky background image out of the way, and also makes for a nice effect. Now, after I deselect, there's an ugly line around Dan's face from the selection. I use my blur tool to just smooth this out a bit. It gives an interesting look to the side of Dan's face. Now things get fun. :)
I use the elliptical marquee selection tool to select Dan's eyes. I invert the selection and play with the saturation of the image (image>adjustments>hue/saturation). We'll be dealing with the eyes later. I played with this until I got a look I wanted. I didn't entirely desaturate. I faded the individual channels a bit, then clicked colorize (in the lower right corner). This gave everything kind of a purplish hue. You can fiddle with this as you desire to get a nice effect for your icon. :)
Then I inverted my selection again so Dan's eyes were once again selected. Again, we're going to fiddle with the saturation a bit. I wanted them to be an intense green color, so I went to the green channel and increased the saturation a bit. I also increased cyan and blue just a touch. There wasn't actually a lot of green in his eyes originally. So, here's what we do next (and from here on out I have pictures to aid in your understanding!)
With Dan's eyes still selected, I made a new layer via copy (layer>new>layer via copy). On this layer, we are going to change the blending options (just right click the layer in your layers palette and select blending options...). Select color overlay, and choose a pretty, bright green. I fiddled with the opacity until it looked realistic on the photo, which ended up being about 25%.
Your layers palette should now look like this.
Next I duplicated this layer and set it to overlay at about 60%. You'll notice your blending options copy over as well, which we want. Your icon should now look something like this:
I did the next two steps backward. I selected a gradient for color and lighting first. I'm horrible about remembering who to credit for what, so I try to take gradients, textures, and brushes only from people who don't require credit. If either of these belong to you, let me know & I'll credit you if you like. At any rate, I chose this gradient:
It gives everything a nice warm color. I set the layer to soft light at 100% and this is what we've got so far:
Now I add this texture:
and set the layer to overlay at 50%. Now our icon looks like this:
I fiddled around and decided I liked the look better with the texture on top (just click the layer and drag it to the top in the layers palette). Okay, so I'm nuts and you can barely tell the difference, but that's me. :) So our icon now looks like this
and our layer palette looks like this
Our base is complete! Now for text.
I'm not great at text, and the cleverest thing I could think of was "Danny Boy." (I made one with "younger men" as a response to my husband's comment of "what are you doing with pictures of much younger men?" LOL). So here's what I did.
I clicked the text tool and typed Danny Boy. I used Book Antiqua at an 18 pt. font. Then I used the eyedropper tool to select a minty-green color from Dan's eyes. I highlighted the text, then clicked on the text color selection box at the top of the screen, then clicked on the minty-green color which was now on my tool palette. I've circled the important things in red on this photo.
Now the text is a pretty green which matches a bit of the icon and contrasts with the background. Next, I went to Edit>Transform>Rotate 90 CCW. This makes my text all up-and-downy. :)
I moved it to where I wanted it on the icon, then on to the blending options. Right click the text layer in your palette and select blending options. I used a drop-shadow. I really just fiddled with the settings until I liked it. Here's what I came up with. They might not be quite exact, since I was silly and didn't save my finished icon as a .psd (just the base), but it's close.
Click ok, and you're basically done! Your layer palette now looks like this:
Save as a .jpg and you're done! Whee! Your icon looks like this!
I strongly recommend you don't follow my instructions exactly, or use the same picture. The best advice I can offer is to play around, take helpful hints from various tutorials, and just put your own creativity into it. I never thought I had the right kind of linear creative thinking to make a really good icon (tut-worthy), but I think this one just might be. :) Let me know! And have fun!