Icon recipe! (PS8)
For the icon I'm currently using, with pictures.
1. Open your start file. I picked this shot of a passion blossom from my local botanical gardens.
2. Crop and rotate to taste. Make sure to keep the selection square by keeping Shift pressed while making the crop selection.
3. Resize to 100 X 100 pixels.
4. I'm mostly happy with the base image already, so I'm just going to make sure the levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels) are to my liking. In this case, I adjusted the red levels a bit.
5. Using the object tool, draw a rectangle over the whole image, making sure it doesn't expand beyond the canvas.
6. In the Layers menu, click on Layer Styles, then Blending options.
7. On the left menu, choose Styles. Choose 1px border, 0% fill opacity.
8. Again from the left menu, choose Stroke. It should already be checked. In the Stroke menu, set size to 3 px, Inside position, and fill type Gradient.
9. Click on the gradient bar to bring up the gradient editor. Choose Foreground to Background. To customize the colors, on the gradient bar, click on the color stops. The eyedropper will replace your cursor. Choose colors to your liking. I picked a yellow and red from the flower.
10. Play around with the opacity stops until you like your gradient. Mine wound up looking like this.
Click OK.
11. Change the angle so it's a nice diagonal. I like somewhere in the range of -45. Click OK.
12. Now, for text. Choose a suitably passionate font, and add a new text layer reading "Passion". Make sure to do it under the border layer.
13. Change the color to a bright, but soft yellow. I like #FFFF66.
14. Again, under the Layers menu, choose Layer Styles, and Stroke. Play around and find a stroke combination you like. I was happy with stroke size of 2px, outside, normal mode, 75% opacity, #CC0033.
15. Flatten all layers. Save as jpeg, with 8 quality.
Ta-da!
1. Open your start file. I picked this shot of a passion blossom from my local botanical gardens.
2. Crop and rotate to taste. Make sure to keep the selection square by keeping Shift pressed while making the crop selection.
3. Resize to 100 X 100 pixels.
4. I'm mostly happy with the base image already, so I'm just going to make sure the levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels) are to my liking. In this case, I adjusted the red levels a bit.
5. Using the object tool, draw a rectangle over the whole image, making sure it doesn't expand beyond the canvas.
6. In the Layers menu, click on Layer Styles, then Blending options.
7. On the left menu, choose Styles. Choose 1px border, 0% fill opacity.
8. Again from the left menu, choose Stroke. It should already be checked. In the Stroke menu, set size to 3 px, Inside position, and fill type Gradient.
9. Click on the gradient bar to bring up the gradient editor. Choose Foreground to Background. To customize the colors, on the gradient bar, click on the color stops. The eyedropper will replace your cursor. Choose colors to your liking. I picked a yellow and red from the flower.
10. Play around with the opacity stops until you like your gradient. Mine wound up looking like this.
Click OK.
11. Change the angle so it's a nice diagonal. I like somewhere in the range of -45. Click OK.
12. Now, for text. Choose a suitably passionate font, and add a new text layer reading "Passion". Make sure to do it under the border layer.
13. Change the color to a bright, but soft yellow. I like #FFFF66.
14. Again, under the Layers menu, choose Layer Styles, and Stroke. Play around and find a stroke combination you like. I was happy with stroke size of 2px, outside, normal mode, 75% opacity, #CC0033.
15. Flatten all layers. Save as jpeg, with 8 quality.
Ta-da!