my first icon tutorial :-x

soo...i figured since i make icons differently than everyone else, i'm sure...lol (me and my ghetto ways :-P) i'd share with everyone, just exactly how i do it. i'm sure i go through a bazillion more steps than everyone else...but it's how i'm used to making them, and it's perfectly fine for me :)

this is how i made this icon :)



step 1 i find a picture from somewhere that i'd like to use. in this instance, i'm using a cap from edward scissorhands, as provided by indilime



i go into my microsoft photo draw, go to new, and click on "3.5 diskette label" it gives you the perfect shape to make an icon. after that, i drag and drop the picture i'd like to use into my photodraw.



then i resize the picture and get it so it fills the entire square and is positioned just thew ay i want it for the icon.



then i save the picture as a .JPG file so i can do some more editing in microsoft paint.



after that, i open microsoft paint, and open the picture that i saved it as.



then, i hit ctrl+w to bring up the strech/skew window. i type in to skew it 24x24 because that'll make it exactly 100x100.



i save that icon, because now it's the perfect base.



then i open adobe photoshop 6.0 and drag and drop the picture so that it opens in there.



i double click on the toolbar down on the bottom to make my base into a layer. then when it brings up the layer style window, i click on "color overlay"



then when it brings up the layer style window, i click on "color overlay"



i then choose the color i want, how i want it to look, and the opacity for the color as well.



then i take a brush/border and i will put it over the picture to give it a little bit more spark :)



then i choose what i want it to say, and i choose the font/size/color as well.



then i will go to the layer style window again, this time for the text and do some kind of overlay. in this case it was just an outer glow (black) that was spread and sized with an opacity of 54%.



then, now that the icon looks exactly how i want it to, i save it as a jpeg file...writing over the file that i saved as the base.



and then you end up with this icon:


I suck at writing tutorials, so forgive me :-P