My first icon tutorial!

[agilebrit]

Go from this:


To this:


in PSP8.


First, go to "Enhance Photo" and do the "One Step Photo Fix," which will give you this:


Resize to 100x100 using "Smart size."


Sharpen once, then go to Automatic Saturation Enhancement and do that with both "normal" boxes checked and the "skintones present" box unchecked. Do an "Edge Preserving Smooth" with the setting on 2, then sharpen twice more, to get this:


This will be your Base. Copy and "Paste as new image" three times.

On one of the copies, go up to "Effects," "Edge Effects," "Find all." Then go to "Adjust," "Negative Image." Then do the Automatic Saturation Enhancement, with the "more colorful" and "strong" boxes checked. Go to Automatic Contrast Enhancement, check the "neutral," "mild," and "bold" boxes, to get this, which we will call Edged:


Grab another copy, go up to the Effect Browser, and click "Contours" under "Artistic Effects." Click on "Custom 2," and put the settings on Luminence, 65; Blur, 1; Detail, 3; and Intensity, 13. Leave the color black. This should give you this, which we will call Contoured:


Take the third copy and do an Automatic Saturation Enhancement with the "more colorful" and "strong" boxes checked, to get this, which we will call Saturated:


I also used this Gradient


and a plain white 100x100 box.

Now, create a 100x100 new image with a transparent background and go into the Picture Tube tool. Select Long Stem Roses at Scale 46 and find one you like, putting it on the new background to get this:

I erased the leaf that sticks out.

You're ready to start copying and pasting. Take the Base, C&P Contoured on top of it, and set the opacity to 31. C&P Edged on top of that, setting the opacity to 9. C&P the Gradient on top of that, and set the opacity to 25. C&P Saturated on top of that and set the opacity to 40, then C&P the white box on that, setting the opacity to 23, to get this:


C&P the rose, moving it over to the side and down to the corner. Use the Straighten Tool to angle it, and then move it where you want it. Set the opacity to 40, to get this:


Now you're ready to add text. I used the Staccato222 BT font, set to 11, with the color as R: 64, G: 0, B: 0, H: 255, S: 255, L 32. Anti-alias is on, and the stroke width is 0.0. Set the opacity to 26, to get this:


And you're done. :-)

Comments

[wisewoman.livejournal.com]

Great job! I love what you did with it. (And I love PSP!)

;o)

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks! I made that icon yesterday, and then I looked back at the cap I started with and thought "Whoa, that's a CRAPPY cap; I wonder if other people looked at it and thought they couldn't do anything with it." PSP is magic, and I used the basic-est of basic tools, really.

[whirligigged.livejournal.com]

I always wondered how people got icons out of those impossible caps. I always assumed that there was some secret cap site somewhere that I didn't know about where all the icon makers went. I don't have PS, but hopefully some of these will apply to GIMP (a.k.a. PS Lite). ^_^

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

That method doesn't work for every cap, obviously, and the bigger the image, the better it works. For some reason, it doesn't work very well on caps of Illyria.

Hope you can convert the method over to GIMP. :)

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

I was delighted to see your tutorial, and I appreciate you sharing your expertise. I was happy to see how to take such a dark photo and make it decent. Much of Buffy occurred at night, and the caps are usually very dark, and I thought they were practically unusable. Silly me.

I haven't had any luck with Photoshop since we upgraded to CS2. I knew our old photoshop and could do some simple things with it, but we waited too many upgrades between. CS2 is beyond me. However, following your instructions I was able to figure out a few things, which is 100% better than I was before.

I can't figure out how to merge all my layers. Cut and paste doesn't do it on my version. Any ideas? I was able to make the base and three copies, but they just sit there separately and won't play together.

I'm sure CS2 is great, but I wish I could find my old Photoshop discs and I would reinstall the old program.

Enough grumbling...

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Argh, sorry, I have no idea what to do with PhotoShop. With PSP, you have the option of "paste as new image" or "paste as new layer." You have to actually right-click on the image you want to paste it onto to get that option to come up, though. Maybe check the Help file under "Layers"?

I'm glad I could help a little. I checked prices on PSP and PS, and PS was way beyond my means.