An Icon Tutorial! (With Pictures)
Mar. 22nd, 2007 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jheti
I totally figured something cool out ALL BY MYSELF and I'm so excited I'm ready to have kittens or explode or throw up or something. XD
But anyways! This should work in most kinds of Photoshop!
For a while now I have been surfing around, gazing with longing at those icons with the cool lighty effect things! (You know, the ones with the circles and lines and such, and the ones that look like they're on an instant photo left in the sun.)
And I was jealous. Insanely jealous. No lie. I sat around and felt sorry for myself and listened to Billy Idol a lot. And, like, moped and stuff. Totally.
Then I decided that I don't need to go skulking around in other people's tutorials feeling inadequate and lost...I could flail around by myself and see what happened. And, if it sucked, I could just disavow all knowledge.
Happily, my results were the opposite of suck. ^_^
And it's really simple to do! ^___^
From the ground up with every single hint I could think of and detail that came to mind. Especially because, when I was first reading tutorials, I had NO IDEA what the shorthand meant. This doesn't have most of that shorthand.
Pick your picture. Usually, it's some bigger picture that you want an LJ-sized version of, so do your cropping. Press the Shift key and hold it down when you crop, and the box will already be a PERFECT square! (I think![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nyohah was the first person to tell me that. It's so helpful. *<3's*) You want it to be a perfect square because it's easier to make a picture the 100x100 pixel LJ size that way.
My picture of Bjork looked like this:
//
\\
That's okay by itself, really, but I wanted to do the fancy lighting glowy type stuff.
So I scrolled my mouse across the top gray bar to Layer and chose Duplicate. It makes a copy of the picture and stacks it on top. This duplicate usually says "Background copy" on it. Make sure this layer is selected. (The "Background copy" box turns blue when you have it selected.)
Scroll across the top grey bar with your mouse again, and pick Filter, then Distort, then Liquify. This takes you to a funky screen where the little circle pointer will kind of grab onto the image and sling it around like it's made of wet paint. Just play with it until you have an abstract shape that you like.
Mine looks like this:
//
\\
But you can make yours look any way you want. That's part of the fun. Different pictures will do different stuff, and pulling on them different ways changes the patterns. Just make sure you fill up the whole square.
Now what? Okay: click on the Background layer (the box next to it turns blue when you have it selected). Duplicate it two more times. Drag both of those layers to the top, over the squiggly one that you made. OMG it disappeared!
Not really. It's just "hiding" underneath there. To get it to show through, pick the first layer on top of it in the Layers window thing. There's a roll-down menu on the window. It says "Normal". Go down the list to "Overlay" instead.
Now pick the very top layer, and change it to "Soft Light".
Finally, go back to the squiggly layer and change it to "Linear Burn".
Choose a file format (I LOVE .pngs, but .jpgs are nice too), and save it. You're done!
Obviously, you can change all the settings around, as this won't work the same way with every picture, or with every squiggle. Be creative, and have fun.
But anyways! This should work in most kinds of Photoshop!
For a while now I have been surfing around, gazing with longing at those icons with the cool lighty effect things! (You know, the ones with the circles and lines and such, and the ones that look like they're on an instant photo left in the sun.)
And I was jealous. Insanely jealous. No lie. I sat around and felt sorry for myself and listened to Billy Idol a lot. And, like, moped and stuff. Totally.
Then I decided that I don't need to go skulking around in other people's tutorials feeling inadequate and lost...I could flail around by myself and see what happened. And, if it sucked, I could just disavow all knowledge.
Happily, my results were the opposite of suck. ^_^
And it's really simple to do! ^___^
From the ground up with every single hint I could think of and detail that came to mind. Especially because, when I was first reading tutorials, I had NO IDEA what the shorthand meant. This doesn't have most of that shorthand.
Pick your picture. Usually, it's some bigger picture that you want an LJ-sized version of, so do your cropping. Press the Shift key and hold it down when you crop, and the box will already be a PERFECT square! (I think
nyohah was the first person to tell me that. It's so helpful. *<3's*) You want it to be a perfect square because it's easier to make a picture the 100x100 pixel LJ size that way.My picture of Bjork looked like this:
//
\\That's okay by itself, really, but I wanted to do the fancy lighting glowy type stuff.
So I scrolled my mouse across the top gray bar to Layer and chose Duplicate. It makes a copy of the picture and stacks it on top. This duplicate usually says "Background copy" on it. Make sure this layer is selected. (The "Background copy" box turns blue when you have it selected.)
Scroll across the top grey bar with your mouse again, and pick Filter, then Distort, then Liquify. This takes you to a funky screen where the little circle pointer will kind of grab onto the image and sling it around like it's made of wet paint. Just play with it until you have an abstract shape that you like.
Mine looks like this:
//
\\But you can make yours look any way you want. That's part of the fun. Different pictures will do different stuff, and pulling on them different ways changes the patterns. Just make sure you fill up the whole square.
Now what? Okay: click on the Background layer (the box next to it turns blue when you have it selected). Duplicate it two more times. Drag both of those layers to the top, over the squiggly one that you made. OMG it disappeared!
Not really. It's just "hiding" underneath there. To get it to show through, pick the first layer on top of it in the Layers window thing. There's a roll-down menu on the window. It says "Normal". Go down the list to "Overlay" instead.
Now pick the very top layer, and change it to "Soft Light".
Finally, go back to the squiggly layer and change it to "Linear Burn".
Choose a file format (I LOVE .pngs, but .jpgs are nice too), and save it. You're done!
Obviously, you can change all the settings around, as this won't work the same way with every picture, or with every squiggle. Be creative, and have fun.
