First tutorial. For Photoshop.
I got bored? I hope it's alright... cause it's nothing too special.
I use Photoshop 5.5, so please excuse the images that won't look exaclty like yours. But things should translate alright. And I can't seem to find the font I used (BodoCapsDB) anywhere online, so you could probably just use any font like Times New Roman or Georgia in caps to get the same effect.
I used this base image of Andrew McMahon from MTV.com. And the text ("Step into my quiet violence") is from the song Letters to Noelle by Something Corporate, even though the STEP looks like STOP.
I cropped the picture from the edge of his mic over to the side of his head (so there's just hair and no black background). I then resized it and sharpened it (Filter> Sharpen> Sharpen).
I made a new layer and filled it with a blue-ish color (#1A6E8A) and set it to Exclusion at 70% opacity. Then I made a new layer on top of that one, filled it with the same color, and set it at Soft Light with 50% opacity.
Then I chose the bottom layer and adjusted the curves (Image> Adjust> Curves) and set it to something like this. That was a little too bright, though, so I faded it 60% (Filter> Fade Curves).
I made a new layer on top of the bottom layer. You should have two color layers, one blank, and then the image. I took this brush (From HERE, I think) and matched up the right top corner of the paper to the right top corner of the image. THEN I used a 100pt soft-edged brush at 75% opacity and erased the area around Andrew's head. I set that layer to 80% opacity.
Now for the border (since I like to do the border before the text). I made another layer on top of all the other ones. I used this brush (from
quebelly) in black with wet edges. That layer was set at 80% opacity. And then I made a new layer and used the same brush in that blue-ish color (#1A6E8A) without wet edges, set to Overlay and 50% opacity.
TEXT. I used a font called BodoCapsDB at 15px in a light pink (#E5AC9C) and a strong anti-alias with -30 tracking and typed "quiet violence". Then I free transformed it (Edit> Free Transform): rotated (so it was at the same angle as the border) and moved to the side, so that it was kind of sitting on top of the border.
Then I typed "step into my" in Arial Black at 9px with a lighter pink (#FFC7B6), crisp anti-alias and normal tracking. I free transformed it again (Edit> Free Transform), rotated in the same way and moved so it was just above "quiet violence" and as close to the top border as possible.
I added an outer glow (Layer> Effects> Outer Glow) to both with these settings. And... Voila! A pretty icon.
