First Tutorial
This isn't actually a fantastic icon, but it's one of the few icons I have that I know what I did with.
Low-Fi Image Recovery
1. After cropping and resizing my image to the above bas I sharpen it. While I wouldn't advocate over sharpening, blurry images make really crap icons.
2. This image is too saturated and contrasted for me, so I duplicate it and lower the saturation on the top layer.
You'll notice that a section of that white line disappears between these two images. Ignore it-it's for the arrow I add later.
3. I like using gradients to add subtle additions of color. Using this gradient, which should be in the standard set, I make a new gradient layer, and set it to lighten, 40%.
See that? Veery subtle.
4. I decide to add an exclusion layer. I make a new solid color fill layer from #090624 and set it to exclusion 100%.
5. To lighten the image up a little bit, I add another color fill layer in #CDC8BF and set it to soft light 100%.
6. Since the image is a little fuzzy-feeling to me now, I add another color fill layer in #DCEBFC and set the layer to color burn, 100%.
7. My image still doesn't feel dark enough to me, so I duplicate my base image, lighten it up a little, and set it to multiply, 50%
8. I'm done with getting my picture the way I want it to be, so I start to add text and brushes. First, because I like tiny text, I add a text brush from
ohpaintbrush (who has really excellent stuff) that I've erased parts of. I usually prefer to make my own text brushes, but I don't seem to have the right font for tiny text.8. This is about where I add the arrow. Using the shapes tool, I select the fat, short arrow, and stamp it onto my icon. I rotate it a little, and change the color. I can't remember why, but I rasterized it. It ended up being #B0ACAC color. I set it to to normal, opacity 73%
Since I lowered the opacity of the arrow, you could see the white line through it. I didn't like that, so this is where the line disappears-since it's part of the original image and I don't know how to photomanip it out, I just used the blur tool to rub it until you couldn't see it anymore.
9. I like drop-shadows, so I added one. In Layer Style, I added a black drop shadow at 75% opacity, angle 72, spread 59, and size 5. This gives me a large, heavy shadow.
10. I feel that the icon's still a little colorless, so I decide to add a gradiant. I select this gradiant (from
disappear), but i don't like how heavy the stripe is, so I rasterize it a use gaussian blur on it, making it a lot softer. I then select group with previous when the gradiant is above my arrow, and lower the opacity to 79%.11. Now, I add my main text to the icon. Using butterbrotpapier (which can be found at dafont, I type my text "GO EAST YOUNG MAN" in a dark olive gray. I thought it looked to far apart when I floated it over the arrow, so I rasterized the text, and moved the lines closer together.
Finis.
A rough overview:
If anyone wants to use that icon, just comment and credit.