A non exclusion involving tutorial.

Okay. This is PSP 8 tutorial on how to make this icon:

It’s a pretty good tutorial for pictures/screen caps of peope close ups with pretty lips. It's not for beginners who just got PSP two days ago, though.

This was my original screencap if you want to follow along precisely.

1. Crop it, but not so the object is entirely in the middle. Make sure the size is 200 x 200 for bigger images such as these.

Resize it so it’s 50 percent of the image. This is my base now:

2. Duplicate the image (Layers, Duplicate) then go to Layers, Properties and set the Blend Mode to Screen. It should look like this:

3. Go to Layers, Merge, Marge All (Flatten.) Duplicate the image once more. Go to Adjust, Hue and Saturation, Hue/Saturation/Lightness and make sure Hue and Lightness are set at 0, and Saturation is set at -100. Go to Layer Properties and make sure that Opacity is set at 50. Your icon should now look like this:

4. Don’t merge layers. Use the eraser tool to erase the lips to give that pinkish tone. Now merge all layers. It should now look like this:

5. Merge all layers. Use the softening tool to soften the skin, but stay away from the defined areas such as the nose or eyes. If you want to, even out the gray background too.

6. Go to Layers, New Raster Layer. Now use a yellow/green diagonal gradient and fill it in with the bucket fill tool. This is my gradient for a mental picture:

7. Go into the layer properties and set the Blend Mode to Color (Legacy) at 15% opacity.

8. Go to Adjust, Hue/Saturation, Hue/Saturation/Lightness once again and set everything except Hue to 0. Set hue at 108. Click OK. Now, hold down Ctrl and click Y again and again until you get the pink gradient I got:

9. Merge layers.

10. Duplicate the icon just in case. Then use the freehand selection tool to trace around one eye pupil like this: Now go to Adjust, Brightness/Contrast, Brightness/Contrast and play around with the settings. I used 20 for brightness and 20 for contrast. Your icon should now look like this after doing the same thing with the other eye: Merge all layers, or make the opacity of the eyes lower and then merge the layers.

11. Now for more girly coloring. I used a color from Violet’s lips. #DCBBBF. Then I created a new raster layer, filled it in, and set it at soft light, 70%. I used the eraser tool to erase the background so it was darker. Merge all layers. Your icon should now look like this:

12. Duplicate the layer. Set it to screen at 40%, then erase the lips. Merge.

13. Copy the icon and paste as new image. Use the crop tool to crop a piece of Violet, 100 should be the height and 25 should be the width. I cropped this piece:

Paste as new layer. Set properties to Hard Light at 50%. This is my icon now:

Merge.

14. Use the paintbrush tool, square, opacity at 100, step at 32, density at 100, and size at 5. Use the same color that you took from Violet’s lips. Now create a new raster layer and draw a line in the middle of where the two pictures meet. This is what I have now:

 Set the raster layer at soft light, then go to layers, duplicate. Merge layers.

15. Repeat the steps above, except the line has to be right next to the first line, and it has to be a noticeably darker or lighter shade. I used #F5DBE0. This is what I have now: Merge and create a new raster layer.

17. Add text on the star if you want. Icons without text are cool too sometimes. I’m leaving it without text.

18. Now. A border. If you want to play with the opacity of it, make a new raster layer. I am. Ok, choose another color in her lips. I’m using this border:

Ok, so stamp the border on the icon but of course. Play with the opacity and blend modes. I just set it to soft light and duplicated the soft light layer. Merge.

19. New Raster Layer. In the color black, type random letters in JohannSparklingITC in font 5. Set it to hard light or soft light to finish it off.

20. Merge. Soften the edges where the star meets the skin. You’re done, but try to customize it even further. In non exclusion icons such as these, brushes are your best friends.

Example of customizing it even further:

To make it look like that, you need to make another tiny text line in the same font and size. Make a new raster layer, and stamp a butterfly brush in the color black and set it to soft light, then duplicate the soft light layer. I added sparkles near the butterfly with this brush:

The butterfly brush is this:

Blah blah blah with more merging. Then I added a text brush with black:

set to soft light and played with the opacity, but of course.

Remember the five sized line brushes I put to make the two images blend more naturally? I added another one, except near the bottom as you can see. You SHOULD get this:

Experiment even more!

Tell me what you think. I'm guessing a lot of people will be confused though.