there's a first time for everything

Tutorial time. It was bound to happen one day, that Yuki would finally make a tutorial.

This is that day!

So, for a tutoial on how to make this icon:

Using PaintShop Pro 8
Follow me behind the cut



Okay. Now, I started off with this screencap from Oritsuru
I cropped it down to 100x100 pixels:


A bit too choppy for my taste, so let us soften a bit.
>Adjust
>>Softness
>>>Soft focus...

I used the preset 'Very Soft' setting, but whatever floats your boat..

Now, duplicate your background layer. Set the copy onto Soft Light, opacity 100


Go up to
>Adjust
>>Brightness and Contrast
>>>Brightness/Contrast
Set the Brightness to -8 and the contrast to -11


Then make a new Raster layer and fill it with a dusty blue like this

Set onto exclusion, opacity 60, resulting in:


I like to merge the layers round about now, as working with too many confuses me and I'm always forgetting where I am. But if you don't have the memory span of a goldfish, like me, you can just leave them seperate.

Regardless if you merged or not, create a new raster layer.
Fill it with a gradient such as this:

Set it on soft light, opacity 100, resulting in:


Now, duplicate the layer that the rainbow gradient is on and set the copy onto Soft Light, opacity 100:


That big splotch of yellow on Yunas arm is annoying me and take the focus from the picture, so we're going to dull it a bit.
Click on the layer you just duplicated. Select the eraser tool, set the size to 50 and opacity set on 45. Dab it over Yunas arm. And when I say dab, clikc once and don't hold the mouse down. You can erase as much as you want, but I didn't go too crazy:


Now, I want to put a bit more focus onto Yuna And Tidus, so I'm going to use this frame that I made earlier:

Make a new raster layer, always paint on another layer
Set the colour on white, size 100, opacity 100, and just click to frame it.


Much better.  Still not the way I like it, so we'll add another frame that I also made:

Leave the colour on black, and leave the opacity and size on 100. Frame the picture. Set the blend mode to soft light, opacity 100.


Looking good! Now, I need some text.
Yuki's icon weirdness time!
Create a new raster layer
>Freehand Selection Tool
>>Selection Type = Point to point
Now. Using the selection tool, made a shape looking something like this:

Note: I used prnt scrn for that, not accurate, just an example..
USing the fill tool, fill the selected shape with whatever colour you choose, I chose white, with an opacity of 68, resulting in:


Needs a bit more.. jazzing up, so we're going to add this brush, colour white, opacity 100, to the corner of the box thingie.

resulting in:


I like that ^_^

Now, you can add whatever text you like, But I used 'a thousand words' from the song with the same title from FFX-2.
I used font: Engravers MT on size 8, but I squished it up to fit in the box. I used the colour black, but thought it was a bit to strong so I reduced the text layers opacity down to 50.
And there we have it.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.. and if you find something wrong with it, please tell me. It's the first time I've done a tutorial, so there's bound to be something wrong with it in some way ^-^