Photoshop 7 Basic Tutorial: Making an Icon
First, select your image. Our image is rectangular, rather than square, which is unlikely to result in an attractive icon, so our first step is to make it square.
Crtl + a then crtl + c
You may now close the original image if you wish.
Ctrl + n
This should bring up a dialogue box:
Click into “Height” and change it from 170 to 120, or so that both numbers read the same – always aim for the lower of the two numbers.
Enter, then crtl + v
In this image the picture is more or less where we want it to be.
In order to intensify the colours, go to:
Layer > Duplicate layer
Then go to the layers dialogue box and change the blending drop-down to
Soft Light
Then flatten your image to avoid having to deal with too many layers:
Layer > Flatten image
Now you will want to reduce your icon to LJ size so that you know how it will look when it is uploaded:
Image > Image Size
Change 120 to 100. You only need to do this once if the little chain symbol is visible.
Now we get onto the part where we faff in order to make things pretty. You can skip this bit if you like.
Open a pattern image like this one:
Crtl + a then crtl + c
Close the image, click onto your icon and then:
Crtl + v
It should come up as a new layer. Go to the layer dialogue box and change the blending option to Color Burn.
Your icon should look something like this:
Open a new file with a twiddly bit in it (technical term!), like this one:
As you can see, this is a very large file. Reduce the image size to about 200px. Then copy and paste it onto the icon file. You should end up with something that looks a bit like this:
Now that’s pretty, but that’s not what we want. Go to the tool bar and select the moving tool:
Now, click on the heart, hold down the mouse button and drag until you have the picture in a better position, like this:
Now:
Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal
And then:
Go to the layer dialogue and set the hearts layer to Multiply.
Your icon should now look something like this:
Pretty, but a bit crowded! The jar is almost hidden! Not to worry, though, there is a way around this. We will apply a layer mask.
Click on the little circle inside the square.
Make sure you have selected the second square on Layer Two – this is the layer mask. Choose a small brush size – about 5px or 3px and a colour like this:
Or a little darker. The darker the colour, the more transparent the hearts layer will become.
Now, start painting over the bits of the picture you want to be able to see clearly. Make absolutely sure that you are painting on the layer mask and not the layer.
The places where the spirals are paler here are where I have been painting on the layer mask. In order to make them disappear entirely, set the brush colour to black. To make them reappear, paint over the layer mask in white.
Your image should end up looking like this:
And your layer dialogue like this:
The hearts are still a bit obtrusive, so click onto the layer – the little box where the hearts are, rather than the layer mask – and set the Opacity to a lower number:
The image looks okay now, so flatten it before proceeding (this helps stop Photoshop from eating so much of your computer’s processing power).
Layer > Flatten Image
Now to put your name on the icon! There are plenty of tutorials online on how to install fonts, so I shan’t bore you with that here.
I have chosen “Distorted and Scratchy” from the drop-down menu (as you can see, I have a lot of fonts. I downloaded most of them from dafont.com).
Click on the image and type out your name. On your icon the font is set to size 14pt.
Your name kind of disappears into nothingness, there, and black is such an unbecoming colour! Fortunately I’m about to change all that.
Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay
To change the colour from red, which is the default, click on the little coloured box and it will bring up a colour dialogue to choose from.
Next, click on Drop Shadow (on the words, not the little box) and set Distance to 1px, Spread to 50px and Size to 1px, then click OK.
Your icon should now look a bit like this:
Now all you need to do is flatten the image one last time:
Layer > Flatten Image
And save it as a .jpg or .png!
