General Icon making tutorial for Photoshop 5.0
I don't know how this will work in higher versions, but hopefully it'll just be a little different.
1. Open the picture you're going to use. For this tutorial, I'm using a picture of Kiera Knightley from Elle magazine, which I think I downloaded from Kiera Knightly Wavefront.
2. Select the Crop tool from the toolbar.
The image should look like this:
Right click anywhere inside the dashed square. You'll get an option for "Crop" or "Cancel." Select "Crop."
3. Play around with the size of the image by cropping and by changing the percentage. Go to Image>Image Size to check the dimensions. You want your "final product" to be 98x98
4. Adjust the Brightness/Contrast of your picture. Go to Layer>New>Adjustment Layer:
Select the Brightness/Contrast level:
Play around with the levels until you get your desired effect. I used 20 Brightness, and 20 Contrast on this image. Your final layers should look like this:
After this, flatten the image. Layer>Flatten
5. Next, duplicate the layer. Layer>Duplicate Layer
Layers window should look like this:
6. Now we're going to take a little detour to show one of the many ways you can add effects to your picture. I'm going to add a Grid effect to this picture. But since Photoshop doesn't have the Grid effect as a filter, I have to make my own pattern. To do so, I open a new window (File>New) that is 2 pixels by 2 pixels and transparent. (
anesthezea also made an excellent tutorial just on these "blinds," so check that out if you miss a step here)
6b. Using the eyedropper tool, select two colors. I used black and a pinky color. Filled in one square with black, two squares with pink, and left the last square transparent. Then Select all.
Go to Edit>Define Pattern.
6c. On your keyboard, push Shift+Backspace. the Fill dialogue box will pop up. Select Pattern from the "Use" menu, and then I use Overlay in the "Mode" menu. The "Opacity" is up for grabs, just play around and see what happens.
Your image should look like this:
6d. In the Layers window, select Add Layer Mask.
With a layer mask, you can do all sorts of things, but for this tutorial, I'm just going to use the Gradient tool.
Start at a point on the picture that you want the grid to be on and drag the other point to where you don't want the grid to be.
The Layers window should look like this:
Flatten the layers again, so you just have one image.
7. To make a border, select the entire image, and copy it. Then open a new file 100 by 100 pixels, and use the background color (make sure the background color is whatever color you want the border to be).
The final image should look like this:
8. When saving the image, select the highest quality to reduce any funkiness that might occur when you upload the picture. This will increase the file size, though, so if you're planning on using this icon in an animated icon, you might want to choose a lower quality, like 6 or 7.
1. Open the picture you're going to use. For this tutorial, I'm using a picture of Kiera Knightley from Elle magazine, which I think I downloaded from Kiera Knightly Wavefront.
2. Select the Crop tool from the toolbar.
The image should look like this:
Right click anywhere inside the dashed square. You'll get an option for "Crop" or "Cancel." Select "Crop."
3. Play around with the size of the image by cropping and by changing the percentage. Go to Image>Image Size to check the dimensions. You want your "final product" to be 98x98
4. Adjust the Brightness/Contrast of your picture. Go to Layer>New>Adjustment Layer:
Select the Brightness/Contrast level:
Play around with the levels until you get your desired effect. I used 20 Brightness, and 20 Contrast on this image. Your final layers should look like this:
After this, flatten the image. Layer>Flatten
5. Next, duplicate the layer. Layer>Duplicate Layer
Layers window should look like this:
6. Now we're going to take a little detour to show one of the many ways you can add effects to your picture. I'm going to add a Grid effect to this picture. But since Photoshop doesn't have the Grid effect as a filter, I have to make my own pattern. To do so, I open a new window (File>New) that is 2 pixels by 2 pixels and transparent. (
anesthezea also made an excellent tutorial just on these "blinds," so check that out if you miss a step here) 6b. Using the eyedropper tool, select two colors. I used black and a pinky color. Filled in one square with black, two squares with pink, and left the last square transparent. Then Select all.
Go to Edit>Define Pattern.
6c. On your keyboard, push Shift+Backspace. the Fill dialogue box will pop up. Select Pattern from the "Use" menu, and then I use Overlay in the "Mode" menu. The "Opacity" is up for grabs, just play around and see what happens.
Your image should look like this:
6d. In the Layers window, select Add Layer Mask.
With a layer mask, you can do all sorts of things, but for this tutorial, I'm just going to use the Gradient tool.
Start at a point on the picture that you want the grid to be on and drag the other point to where you don't want the grid to be.
The Layers window should look like this:
Flatten the layers again, so you just have one image.
7. To make a border, select the entire image, and copy it. Then open a new file 100 by 100 pixels, and use the background color (make sure the background color is whatever color you want the border to be).
The final image should look like this:
8. When saving the image, select the highest quality to reduce any funkiness that might occur when you upload the picture. This will increase the file size, though, so if you're planning on using this icon in an animated icon, you might want to choose a lower quality, like 6 or 7.