Icon tutorial: furuba_awards week 115 entry
This is my first icon tutorial, done on request, on my entry for furuba_awards week 115 a long time ago.

From to in 8 steps :)

I'm using Photoshop CS2, not sure about how it will translate to other applications.

Step 1: Adjust curves

I usually do this whenever I plan to tweak the colors of an icon, or if the icon is a bit too dark for my liking.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Curves... or Cmd+M, and adjust it to the curve below.



You can also use these settings:

Input: 130
Output: 192

Step 2: Apply texture

For this step, make a new layer with the following texture from dearest:



I'm using this texture to give the icon a bit of a grunge, old-photo feel to it. Once the texture is in, set that layer to Linear Burn. Unfortunately, the spike is at the center, which calls too much attention to it. Move the whole layer to the side.



We now end up with a portion that doesn't have the texture. To fix that, just use the Marquee tool (M) to select the whole portion on the left after the upside down "r", then use Free Transform (Cmd+T or Ctrl+T) to so that we can drag the left anchor to the edge of our icon.



If the details of the texture will be very apparent, this usually wouldn't be a good idea since you're distorting the image on the layer, but since we've set the layer to Linear Burn and we have a grunge-y feel going on, it shouldn't matter all that much.



Step 3: Apply texture again

The above looks entirely too drab. Grunge is nice but we need color! So I'm using this colorfully light gradient texture is by colorfilter:



Add the texture as a new layer, and set it to Hard Light.



Step 4: Clear focus

As you can see in the above screenshot, their faces are faded due to our texture in step 3. To fix this, duplicate the layer of the original image, move it above the texture layer in step 3, and set it to Hard Light. Since we only need to bring their faces to sharper focus, brush away the bottom portion of that new layer with a feathered eraser.



Step 5: Add text

Now add the text. I used Century Gothic, bold type, at 9pt, using white as the text color. I set the anti-aliasing to Sharp since we're dealing with a small font size.



Step 6: Add brush

I wanted another level of intricacy to the icon, something not too distracting. I went with a divider brush from Xyberneticos. Create a new layer, set the brush color to #545868, and use it once on the layer, at the bottom portion.



Set that new layer with the brush to linear dodge, so that we have some intricate bright points in the icon.



It's over our text so that it's unreadable, so using the Marquee tool (M), select rectangles over your text, allowing for a pixel's breathing room for the text. Making sure that you're on the brush's layer, hit Delete to remove the selected portion.



If you notice, I also took away some of the divider's tails around Momiji's face, since this distracts too much from them. I just use a plain ol' Eraser tool (E) for this. :)

Step 7: Add white border

There are two ways to create this border -- one is to take the Line tool (U) and create the borders manually on a new layer. The second is take the Paint Bucket tool (G) and fill a new layer with color (any color). Bring up the Blending Options dialog, and under Blending Options: Default, set Fill Opacity to zero (0).



Then click on the Stroke settings to activate it. Use the following settings:

Size: 2
Position: Inside
Fill Type: Color
Color: #ffffff

Step 8: Add dotted border

There really is no way to get around this -- I did this manually, using the Pencil tool (B), with the color #750017 selected.

...or, you can grab this GIF file. ;)



DONE! :D





Please feel free to let me know if the tutorial has helped you, or if additional clarification is needed on any of the above steps. You can also tell me if there's any icon I've previously done which you're interested in for another tutorial. :)