Full Icon Tutorial
My first icon tutorial, using PS7. This will benefit mostly newbies, since seasoned icon makers can make this in like 5 minutes, no problem.
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Layer 1: Background Starting with this lovely promotional photo from Yahoo!Movies I crop and resize the image to 100x100. |
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Layer 2: sharp fade 50 It's a little blurry, so I duplicate the layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer) and sharpen it (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen). This is so sharp it hurts the eyes, so I lower the sharpness to 50% (Before you click anything else: Edit > Fade Sharpen > 50%). |
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Layer 3: screen 30 This is quite dark, so I duplicate the layer and set the blending mode to Screen. Augh! It's blinding!! I lower the opacity to 30% |
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Layer 4: exclusion mode I want to mute the colors a bit so I create a new layer (Layer > New Layer or Shift+Ctrl+N) and fill it with a dark green-blue color (#0E1E29), setting the blending mode to Exclusion. |
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Layer 5: Selective Color This is a bit boring, so I use a trick I picked up from  dtissagirl (who learned it from saava). I create a new Adjustment later (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Color > OK). Choosing the "Blacks" from the pulldown menu, I add 15-20% more black. (Silly, I'm making this tutorial long after I made the icon; I've forgotten.) You can play around with this. |
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Layer 6: Text part 1 Time for the text. I chose the photo with the text in mind, so this part's easy. HUBRIS is in all-caps, Rapid 15 pt, anti-alias Smooth. Then I rotate the text so it lies on the armor. (Edit > Free Transform*, then rotate, and move with the Move Tool as desired.) |
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Layers 6: color box & Layer 7: Text part 2 It's a bit hard to read, so I duplicate the text layer (Layer 7: HUBRIS copy) and rasterize the bottom text layer (Layer 6: HUBRIS -- Layer > Rasterize > Layer). I am still at Layer 6 now. Using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, I select the area just behind the text and , using the Brush Tool set at 50% Opacity, cover the selected area in white (#FFFFFF). Now the rectangle's very obvious, so I lower the Brightness to -30 (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast) and use the Blur Tool to smudge the edges. (I left the Layer seven text as is.) The text is now clearer. |
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Layer 8: border brush 60 To add the finishing touch, I use a thin border brush by quebelly, the same color as the exclusion blend (#0E1E29), set at 60% opacity. Then save the icon as either a .jpg (much smaller file size, at 5.88 KB) or a .png (for better color retention at 28.6 KB). |
I hope that was coherent enough. I'd appreciate any further suggestions on the method. Comment with any questions you might have, and I'll try my best to asnwer them.
Icon is shareable, just credit to 
psychoicons. The usual rules apply.
*EDIT: Layer 6 (Text part 1-part) -- Image > Free Transfrom should be Edit > Free Transform. (Thank you nachtschade for noticing!)