We're going to make a really basic, beginner icon. This is going to help you make a simple prepare image --> add text icon. Here is the icon I speak of:
This is made for Photoshop 7+.
This is graphic intensive.
First, crop the base to however you like. If you don't know how, here are a few tutorials by other great people from before me to help.
Good Aspect Ratios
Good Cropping Perspectives
And my favorite, Image Positioning and Art Theory Tutorial. This one is THE definitive tutorial on cropping around right now.
Anyway, we've started from this image:
I've cropped it to become this following image.
All right. Now here's some basic image preparation and I'll walk you through the how and why. First of all, Haruna looks a little blurry, and we want the image to be nice and clear. Because of this, we go to the main toolbar and select Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen. You can try out other settings and tools from the Sharpen menu, but for now we'll just use Sharpen since it's the easiest.
There is a very subtle difference. But it is important.
-> 
Next, we notice the image doesn't have much contrast and it's dark. It's really rather flat. That's why we open up the Layers Window, accessible from Window -> Layers, if you don't already have it open.
You then right click on the layer you have (which should be the background layer) and click "Duplicate Layer."
On the new later on top, select it, and go to the dropdown menu near the top of the layers window that says "Normal." When you click on the dropdown menu, lots of different "blend modes" will appear. Select Screen. This should make your image signicantly brighter. Remember where this drop-down menu is. We're going to refer to it a lot!
Your layer window should look like this.
And the image now looks different!
-> 
Now, I'd like there to be more dramatic contrast on Haruna. I duplicate the image on top (my Background copy), go to the dropdown menu again, but set the new layer (background copy 2) this time to "Soft Light."
-> 
Now the image looks like a really nice, bright image. But I don't like how bright and TOO colorful the image is. I keep this background copy 2 selected, and go to the Image toolbar -> Adjustments -> Desaturate. OR you can just use your keyboard shortcut and enter Shift+Ctrl+U. There's now a subtle difference in color.
-> 
Now, this image comes from a music video called "Mienai Tsubasa," so I'm going to use that as the text. I use the eyedrop tool (1 in the image below), and click on part of the dark part of the ocean with it. The color thingy should show up with the color of that part of the image now (2).
I then use the Text tool (it looks like a T in the same toolbar as the eyedropper tool), and click on a spot in the empty sky next to Haruna. I type in Mienai Tsubasa in all capital letters (on two different lines, with some spaces before "Tsubasa" to make it shift right some). I've screenshotted the text window for you (it is accessible by Window -> Character) so I can further explain the text formatting.
This would be a good time to familiarize yourself with the Character window. In this image, Circle 1 points to the font name. This pretty self-explanatory, right? Circle two is the font size. I've set this to 7, obviously. Circle 3 is line spacing, which determines how far the lines of text are apart vertically. Circle 4 is the character spacing, which determines how far apart each letter/character is horizontally. Near the bottom, Circle 5 enable us to convert the text selected to all caps, which we've done.
The icon ought to look like this:
-> 
I'm no too happy with the text. I click on the text and select "TSUBASA." I change the style of the word---I click on the drop-down menu in the Character window that says "Regular" and change it to bold, then I change the color to a sightly lighter blue. I do this by going back to the little square with my current blue color below:
Click on the blue square, and a window will pop up with ranges of colors you can play with.
You can click around and find a color you like. I've chosen a lighter color and you can tell what color you had BEFORE you opened this window by looking at the two colors on the right of this image in the rectangles--the color you had before is the darker on on the bottom, and the newer one you've chosen is on the top. Click OK and your text should change (as long as it is selected still with the text tool!).
Your icon should look like this:
->
And we're done. You can add a border by playing around with the line tool or downloading border brushes, but this is a tutorial for image preparation and basic stuff. So hopefully that helped out a little. :)
This is made for Photoshop 7+.
This is graphic intensive.
First, crop the base to however you like. If you don't know how, here are a few tutorials by other great people from before me to help.
Good Aspect Ratios
Good Cropping Perspectives
And my favorite, Image Positioning and Art Theory Tutorial. This one is THE definitive tutorial on cropping around right now.
Anyway, we've started from this image:
I've cropped it to become this following image.
All right. Now here's some basic image preparation and I'll walk you through the how and why. First of all, Haruna looks a little blurry, and we want the image to be nice and clear. Because of this, we go to the main toolbar and select Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen. You can try out other settings and tools from the Sharpen menu, but for now we'll just use Sharpen since it's the easiest.
There is a very subtle difference. But it is important.
Next, we notice the image doesn't have much contrast and it's dark. It's really rather flat. That's why we open up the Layers Window, accessible from Window -> Layers, if you don't already have it open.
You then right click on the layer you have (which should be the background layer) and click "Duplicate Layer."
On the new later on top, select it, and go to the dropdown menu near the top of the layers window that says "Normal." When you click on the dropdown menu, lots of different "blend modes" will appear. Select Screen. This should make your image signicantly brighter. Remember where this drop-down menu is. We're going to refer to it a lot!
Your layer window should look like this.
And the image now looks different!
Now, I'd like there to be more dramatic contrast on Haruna. I duplicate the image on top (my Background copy), go to the dropdown menu again, but set the new layer (background copy 2) this time to "Soft Light."
Now the image looks like a really nice, bright image. But I don't like how bright and TOO colorful the image is. I keep this background copy 2 selected, and go to the Image toolbar -> Adjustments -> Desaturate. OR you can just use your keyboard shortcut and enter Shift+Ctrl+U. There's now a subtle difference in color.
Now, this image comes from a music video called "Mienai Tsubasa," so I'm going to use that as the text. I use the eyedrop tool (1 in the image below), and click on part of the dark part of the ocean with it. The color thingy should show up with the color of that part of the image now (2).
I then use the Text tool (it looks like a T in the same toolbar as the eyedropper tool), and click on a spot in the empty sky next to Haruna. I type in Mienai Tsubasa in all capital letters (on two different lines, with some spaces before "Tsubasa" to make it shift right some). I've screenshotted the text window for you (it is accessible by Window -> Character) so I can further explain the text formatting.
This would be a good time to familiarize yourself with the Character window. In this image, Circle 1 points to the font name. This pretty self-explanatory, right? Circle two is the font size. I've set this to 7, obviously. Circle 3 is line spacing, which determines how far the lines of text are apart vertically. Circle 4 is the character spacing, which determines how far apart each letter/character is horizontally. Near the bottom, Circle 5 enable us to convert the text selected to all caps, which we've done.
The icon ought to look like this:
I'm no too happy with the text. I click on the text and select "TSUBASA." I change the style of the word---I click on the drop-down menu in the Character window that says "Regular" and change it to bold, then I change the color to a sightly lighter blue. I do this by going back to the little square with my current blue color below:
Click on the blue square, and a window will pop up with ranges of colors you can play with.
You can click around and find a color you like. I've chosen a lighter color and you can tell what color you had BEFORE you opened this window by looking at the two colors on the right of this image in the rectangles--the color you had before is the darker on on the bottom, and the newer one you've chosen is on the top. Click OK and your text should change (as long as it is selected still with the text tool!).
Your icon should look like this:
And we're done. You can add a border by playing around with the line tool or downloading border brushes, but this is a tutorial for image preparation and basic stuff. So hopefully that helped out a little. :)