First time posting.

Simple tutorial. No grunge-ish-fancy-stuff here.

This is a tutorial on how to make this icon with PSP 8:

I recommend using the base picture and follow along:

Base picture:

(snatched from www.falling-forever.com)

1. Make a new image, 100 x 100. Take out the paintbrush tool, choose a light color, make sure the size of it is 15. Make a checkerboard pattern. Then take the color black and fill the rest of the squares up, thereby ending up with this:

2. Take the base image and go to "adjust", then "color balance", then "fade correction" to make it brighter. I suggest around 80 to 95. This will help in erasing the background of it.

3. Resize the image (make sure "resample using" has Smart Size, or else it will look ewwy) so most of it can fit in the background image you made earlier.

4. This is the fun part. Okay, go to where the eraser button is:

and click the small arrow. Go to the other erasing option. It says, Background Eeaser. Click on it. Now, erase the background carefully. (I suggest zooming to 300%). (Click Ctrl + Z if you mess up to undo.) You will end up with something like this:

Change the original eraser option to clean up any extra bits.

5. Go to layers, new raster layer. This is the gradient part.

Click on the color box. (The black one I have in my example) It should bring up another box. Go to "gradient", then "edit." Then for the example, use "landscape sunset."

If you know what to do, fiddle with it. If you don't, just click okay, and then okay again.

6. bucket fill the Amy image. It should look like this now:

Go to Layers, Properties, then Overlay. Then go to Layers again, then Merge, then Merge all layers. You should end up with a rainbow colored Amy image with a rainbow background.

7. Use the background eraser tool to erase the background of it once more. Then using the eraser tool to clean up extra bits. Then go to Edit, copy. Paste it as a new layer on the checkerboard background image. (You might have to resize it even more.) Move it around if you wish. It should look like this:

8. Take the selection tool, and make the rectangle selection at the bottom of the Amy picture, also over the checkerboard background. It should look like this: (I suggest the rectangle being reaaaaally smaller than my example though)

9. Go to Selections, Modify, then feather. Make sure the strength is at 20. Click okay, then press the delete key on your keyboard one or two times.

10. Now for the text. Open up another image, 100 x 100. Bucket Fill it black. (By clicking on the rainbow color box then clicking "color" and then "okay") On the materials window, make sure that both of the colors are landscape sunsets. (Repeating Step Five) Like this:

Gotcha?

11. Pick a pretty font. I'm using Bustamalaka which you can find at www.dafont.com -- ok? The text of mine is going to be "broken." MAKE SURE NEXT TO THE FONT YOU CHOSE, IT SAYS "CREATE AS: floating." If it doesn't say that...change it. Now click on the black image and type whatever you want the text to be. It should come out gradient filled. Click "apply". It should come out like this:

12. Go to Selections, Modify, then Expand by 3 pixels. Then go to Selections once more, modify, then Feather by five pixels.

13. Copy and paste it onto your icon. To finish it up, use the softening tool to soften the edges around Amy.

This is your result:

Feedback or comments is appreciated.

*crossposted in Ev_Icons*