Wow. Ok. So here's my first tutorial it was requested by

forestflowers &orchestrachik89

for this icon >>

So today we will be going from this icon >>  to this icon >>

This is made with PSP 7 but it can be translated into other programs I'm sure. Also be sure to have your important palettes open such as your layers, colors and tool palettes.

- I started out with this screencap of Cordy off of Buffy from Screencap-Paradise

Then I rotated the image at 20 degrees to my left. If you don't have a rotate button you can just move it with your tools, it will blur a bit, but that's ok for now.
Then I cropped it however I choose to do but since I was trying to have the same icon as before I made it very diagnal.
Next I resized it, now normaly people resize to 100x100 but in most cases I just end up with 100x96 or 100x98. Either is fine for this icon.

Then I to effects - sharpen - sharpen, Then again I went to effects - sharpen - unmask sharpen with Radius at 1.52 Strength at 30 and Clipping at 1.


Next I went to layers - duplicate - and I set that to screen, then I duplicated the screened layer, making it out to be 2 screen layers. I then duplicated the 2nd screened layer and set that to soft light, so you should now have the base, 2 screened layers, and one on soft light. Then merge your layers


Next go to your retouch tool (or in other programs a blur or soften tool would be fine) Click soften - opocity - 100, brush size 4. Then find your zoom tool zoom in 2 or 3 times, and soften Cordys checks neck, and in this case her forehead and chin too but normaly you wouldn't want to do that because you lose good facial features.


See how nice and pretty our icon looks, but it needs some more.

Go to your color palette and fill in the color as #011637 - it should turn out blue, then make a new layer on foreground layer and you should have that nice blue color. Copy and paste that onto your icon as a new layer, then set it to exclusion.

Next go back to the color palette and find the color #92C2D, copy and paste that as a new layer on your exclusiond icon, and set it to burn, now I always mess around with both of those sometimes I duplicate them sometimes I don't, its your icon try and be creative.


Next go to adjustment layers - hue/saturation/light, and move the hue button up to 50. Now I realize your icon looks scary for now but don't worry were going to fix that.


The new hue layer should be another layer so take your eraser brush and make sure the opacity is on 100, and erase everything except Cordy's shirt. Sometimes if there eye color stands out I dont erase that either but in this case I did. Sometimes if you want the character in the icons to stand out you can soften the background.


Then I want you to go to your dodge tool and make sure its on opacity 2, and brush size one, zoom in and dot the whites of her eyes.Now be carefull cuz this step can really mess up your icon ( I would know tehe )
Then dodge the side of her lip just a bit,  your result should look something like this.


Next I want you to merge all layers and then duplicate it and set it to screen.


Then make a new white base with the size of 100x100. Copy and paste your icon onto the base and move it up about a bit. Just so theres a little bit of a white border. In that white border I added some text - merged the layers and then....Im done!!
FINISHED PRODUCT _


Tips: Normaly I do this on a Willow icon because of her hair, or a bright Buffy icon, but Cordy was the only screencap in my pictures at the moment. It works best with bright colors that you can change around. Red is the best color to work with.

Let me know what you guys think and if this helped you on anything, I know its not much of an icon, but still. Let me see some of your results too:) Hope this helped

Other Icons with that effect.