Full Icon Tutorial for PSP 7
Behind the cut is a full tutorial for PSP 7. It may work for PSP 8, and maybe even Photoshop. It has exclusion blend modes, overlay modes, borders, low opacities, and tinting.
This is my first tutorial, so if anything needs to be cleared up, please let me know!
How to make this icon:
I start out with this picture from
captainxobvious's website, which can be found here. In case you aren't familiar with Degrassi, the character here is Ellie. In this cap, she is just about ready to cut herself with a compass (The math one, not the directional one).
I cropped it and sharpened it (Effects-->Sharpen-->Sharpen More) to come up with this.
As you can see, the The-N logo is in the lower right-hand corner, so I used the Eyedropper to select the blackish color in the background to cover it up, and the whitish color to continue the white streak. I used the Airbrush tool set on Vertical size 15, hardness 24, opacity 19, step 25, density 100, which was what I had it on from a previous icon. I just had to keep pressing it to get it to cover enough. I ended up with this.
I then used the Lasso tool to select Ellie only (It doesn't have to be exact, you will see why shortly), and promoted it to a layer (Selections --> Promote to Layer). I named this layer Ellie.
Then, view the current layer only ( Layers-->View-->Current Only). There may still be a selection around Ellie. If so, go to Selections-->Select None.
Now, use the eraser tool (With settings Round, Size 20, Hardness 15, Opacity 100, Step 25, Density 100) to erase the excess around Ellie to make it smooth. Don't over-erase, otherwise it will look bad. The layer now should look something like this.
Now it's time for the fun part-- Brightness/Contrast. Go to Colors-->Adjust-->Brightness/Contrast. For this, I go by the not-so-old saying "Click on stuff, see what it does." I decide to go with Brightness -21, and Contrast% 15. I think it still needs a bit more, so I do the same, except with Brightness 16, and Contrast% 15.
Now, Ellie's face looks a little over-pixelated, so I used the Retouch tool on Soften (Settings: Round, Size 10, Hardness 1, Opacity 34, Step 14, Density 100) to smooth out her face, particularly her cheek and right under her eye. It should now look something like this. Now go to Layers-->View-->All. It should now look something like this.
Next, my favorite thing to do, exclusion layers. Go to Layers-->New Raster Layer. Name the layer something like "Exclusion", and then press OK. (This whole gradient thing I learned from a tutorial fromsyndarys. I already did exclusion layers, though.) Now we make a gradient using the colors #3EAFDE and #080A5E. Make sure you have "Invert Gradient" checked, so that the light blue is on the inside. The angle I'm using is 315, with 1 repeat. Flood-fill this gradient, and then on the layer palette, make the layer blend mode "Exclusion". Eesh..Scary. For this, I set the opacity on 47%, making the image look like this.
It's cool, yes, but a little..blah. So, create a new layer, and name it something like Blue Tint. Use the light blue from the gradient and floodfill the new layer. Set the layer blend mode on Overlay. This was nice, but a little too bright for what I was going for. So I set the opacity to 71%. It should now look similar to this.
You know what we forgot to do? Blend the background. So go back to your layer pallete, and make the background your current layer. Go to Effects-->Blur-->Blur More, and do that 3 times.
Now it's time for texture. Create a new layer on top of all the others, and call it something like "Texture". After finally choosing a texture, I chose this one, bykayt, even though it is a base. I find that it works wonderfully for a texture brush. So brush it on there in the same light blue, and set the opacity to 39% or so. I found this really covered up some of Ellie's face, so I used the eraser brush to erace part of it by her face. Your image should now look similar to this.
Now it's time for borders. Create a new layer, named "Border", on top of all the other ones. I'm looking for one that won't cover up Ellie's face, worked with the overall theme, and didn't limit my text space, so I chose the one below, and flipped it, then brushed it again unflipped. This makes it nice and symmetrical (but you can't really tell at first look, which I like) and it adds a nice little touch to it. I set the opacity to 88%, because I wanted it to be noticeable, but not too "Hey look, I'm a border!", for lack of a better word. I then decided it was too pixelly, so I went to Effects-->Blur-->Gaussian Blur, with a radius of 0.48. It is subtle, but a big difference. I also decided to add another border to make the edge more defined. I set the opacity of the brush to 80. My icon now looks like this:
Brushes:
As I was staring at it thinking of text to put on it, I noticed that the texture wasn't very noticeable, so I changed my active layer to the background and brushed on my texture brush at around 10% opacity a couple of clicks. It now looks like this:
And now, for the hardest part of any icon, the text. The first lyrics that come to mind are "This pain is just too real" or "These wounds won't seem to heal", from "My Immortal" by Evanescence. But I think they're too over-used, and I want someone who sees the icon to say "Whoa, I like the words on that! It fits it perfectly!", as opposed to "Oh, THOSE lyrics again? I wish they'd be more creative." Some other lyrics that come to mind are "All the pain I put you through", from "The Reason" by Hoobastank, but I already used those in an Ellie icon (for
degrassi_quoted). Then, all of a sudden, the lyrics to "Hold On" by Good Charlotte popped into my head. "Hold on if you feel like letting go," specifically. I thought they would fit this rather nicely. So in pops a new layer, entitled "Text". For the words "hold on", I used LainieDaySH, in 14 or 16 point. I then added a drop shadow (Effects-->3D Effects-->Drop Shadow, with 100 Opacity, vertical & horizontal offset 1 each, and blur of 4.7). For the rest of the words, I used Arial Black in size 5, and added a drop shadow for each line. I used the border color for the color of the text. My icon now:
I think the text is a little hard to read, so I create a new layer under the text layer named "Behind Text", and use a vertical brush with the same settings as way above. I brushed in on in a criss-crossy pattern, as to make it more appealing. I thought this was a bit too bold, so I reduced the layer opacity to 88. My icon as of now:
As I was just about to save it, I noticed Ellie was a bit washed out. So I went to the Ellie layer and went to Colors-->Adjust-->Brightness/Contrast. I made the brightness -23 and the contrast 15. I also noticed that the text was a bit too bold, so I reduced the text layer opacity to 82, and the behind text opacity to 73.
See what a huge difference that made?
I then went to File-->Export-->JPEG Optimizer, to condense the file. I used the wizard, and set it right above the first notch below the top.
The finished icon:
The finished layer palette:
This is my first tutorial, so if anything needs to be cleared up, please let me know!
How to make this icon:
I start out with this picture from
captainxobvious's website, which can be found here. In case you aren't familiar with Degrassi, the character here is Ellie. In this cap, she is just about ready to cut herself with a compass (The math one, not the directional one). I cropped it and sharpened it (Effects-->Sharpen-->Sharpen More) to come up with this.
As you can see, the The-N logo is in the lower right-hand corner, so I used the Eyedropper to select the blackish color in the background to cover it up, and the whitish color to continue the white streak. I used the Airbrush tool set on Vertical size 15, hardness 24, opacity 19, step 25, density 100, which was what I had it on from a previous icon. I just had to keep pressing it to get it to cover enough. I ended up with this.
I then used the Lasso tool to select Ellie only (It doesn't have to be exact, you will see why shortly), and promoted it to a layer (Selections --> Promote to Layer). I named this layer Ellie.
Then, view the current layer only ( Layers-->View-->Current Only). There may still be a selection around Ellie. If so, go to Selections-->Select None.
Now, use the eraser tool (With settings Round, Size 20, Hardness 15, Opacity 100, Step 25, Density 100) to erase the excess around Ellie to make it smooth. Don't over-erase, otherwise it will look bad. The layer now should look something like this.
Now it's time for the fun part-- Brightness/Contrast. Go to Colors-->Adjust-->Brightness/Contrast. For this, I go by the not-so-old saying "Click on stuff, see what it does." I decide to go with Brightness -21, and Contrast% 15. I think it still needs a bit more, so I do the same, except with Brightness 16, and Contrast% 15.
Now, Ellie's face looks a little over-pixelated, so I used the Retouch tool on Soften (Settings: Round, Size 10, Hardness 1, Opacity 34, Step 14, Density 100) to smooth out her face, particularly her cheek and right under her eye. It should now look something like this. Now go to Layers-->View-->All. It should now look something like this.
Next, my favorite thing to do, exclusion layers. Go to Layers-->New Raster Layer. Name the layer something like "Exclusion", and then press OK. (This whole gradient thing I learned from a tutorial from
syndarys. I already did exclusion layers, though.) Now we make a gradient using the colors #3EAFDE and #080A5E. Make sure you have "Invert Gradient" checked, so that the light blue is on the inside. The angle I'm using is 315, with 1 repeat. Flood-fill this gradient, and then on the layer palette, make the layer blend mode "Exclusion". Eesh..Scary. For this, I set the opacity on 47%, making the image look like this.It's cool, yes, but a little..blah. So, create a new layer, and name it something like Blue Tint. Use the light blue from the gradient and floodfill the new layer. Set the layer blend mode on Overlay. This was nice, but a little too bright for what I was going for. So I set the opacity to 71%. It should now look similar to this.
You know what we forgot to do? Blend the background. So go back to your layer pallete, and make the background your current layer. Go to Effects-->Blur-->Blur More, and do that 3 times.
Now it's time for texture. Create a new layer on top of all the others, and call it something like "Texture". After finally choosing a texture, I chose this one, by
kayt, even though it is a base. I find that it works wonderfully for a texture brush. So brush it on there in the same light blue, and set the opacity to 39% or so. I found this really covered up some of Ellie's face, so I used the eraser brush to erace part of it by her face. Your image should now look similar to this.Now it's time for borders. Create a new layer, named "Border", on top of all the other ones. I'm looking for one that won't cover up Ellie's face, worked with the overall theme, and didn't limit my text space, so I chose the one below, and flipped it, then brushed it again unflipped. This makes it nice and symmetrical (but you can't really tell at first look, which I like) and it adds a nice little touch to it. I set the opacity to 88%, because I wanted it to be noticeable, but not too "Hey look, I'm a border!", for lack of a better word. I then decided it was too pixelly, so I went to Effects-->Blur-->Gaussian Blur, with a radius of 0.48. It is subtle, but a big difference. I also decided to add another border to make the edge more defined. I set the opacity of the brush to 80. My icon now looks like this:
Brushes:
As I was staring at it thinking of text to put on it, I noticed that the texture wasn't very noticeable, so I changed my active layer to the background and brushed on my texture brush at around 10% opacity a couple of clicks. It now looks like this:
And now, for the hardest part of any icon, the text. The first lyrics that come to mind are "This pain is just too real" or "These wounds won't seem to heal", from "My Immortal" by Evanescence. But I think they're too over-used, and I want someone who sees the icon to say "Whoa, I like the words on that! It fits it perfectly!", as opposed to "Oh, THOSE lyrics again? I wish they'd be more creative." Some other lyrics that come to mind are "All the pain I put you through", from "The Reason" by Hoobastank, but I already used those in an Ellie icon (for
degrassi_quoted). Then, all of a sudden, the lyrics to "Hold On" by Good Charlotte popped into my head. "Hold on if you feel like letting go," specifically. I thought they would fit this rather nicely. So in pops a new layer, entitled "Text". For the words "hold on", I used LainieDaySH, in 14 or 16 point. I then added a drop shadow (Effects-->3D Effects-->Drop Shadow, with 100 Opacity, vertical & horizontal offset 1 each, and blur of 4.7). For the rest of the words, I used Arial Black in size 5, and added a drop shadow for each line. I used the border color for the color of the text. My icon now:I think the text is a little hard to read, so I create a new layer under the text layer named "Behind Text", and use a vertical brush with the same settings as way above. I brushed in on in a criss-crossy pattern, as to make it more appealing. I thought this was a bit too bold, so I reduced the layer opacity to 88. My icon as of now:
As I was just about to save it, I noticed Ellie was a bit washed out. So I went to the Ellie layer and went to Colors-->Adjust-->Brightness/Contrast. I made the brightness -23 and the contrast 15. I also noticed that the text was a bit too bold, so I reduced the text layer opacity to 82, and the behind text opacity to 73.
See what a huge difference that made?
I then went to File-->Export-->JPEG Optimizer, to condense the file. I used the wizard, and set it right above the first notch below the top.
The finished icon:
The finished layer palette: