First Tut.
Vintage/Soft Light Icon tutorial
I made this icon in PSP 9. It's not translatable, but it should work in older versions of PSP.
1. Open your picture in PSP. Crop it to base-size.
2. Duplicate your base; set it to Screen at 49% opacity. (this is just a guideline, as the setting needed for pictures varies.)
3. Go to Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast. Leave the brightness default 0, but notch the contrast up to 11. (again, this varies. Play around, but it should be a low numeral of contrast, as the screen layer brightened your image up considerably.)
Your image should now look something similar to this:
Good? Let's continue.
4. Open up Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. Fill in these settings: Shadows - Midtones - Highlights
This is just to enhance the coloring very subtly, also giving it a very polished and "done" look.
5. Go to Layers > Merge > Merge Visible.
6. Go to Layers > New Raster Layers. Fill it with (#293b4f) on Exclusion 100%. Make two more layers. Fill the first with (#fcf3e2) on Multiply 68%. Fill the second with (#e2f8fc) on Burn 100%. Merge all visible layers.
7. Phew. Just one more layer step to go, I promise. Duplicate your layer, and set it to Soft Light at 100%. Merge those, and repeat.
This is what I have at the moment:
At this point, you can either leave it like this, or you can add some color to it by adding this texture on Lighten at 100%. Feel free to play around with brushes and textures.
this is what I ended up with:
There you have it! Please let me know if this tutorial was helpful, or if you have any suggestions. Feel free to use this, no credit necessary, just don't copy it word for word. Try out the techniques and get a feel for icon-making on your own.