Tutorials for "washed-out" look
vulcanmuse7715 asked me about the "washed out" look in the previous entry (and I guess in most of my icons lately... :D) so here we go.
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This a very basic and quick (read lazy) technique. ;)
Results are free to grab if anyone likes them enough. If you try this out, I'd love to see them. Feedback, comments, questions etc are welcome too.
First, because I happen to have the .psd file for one of the icons mentioned in the request, we go through it step by step.
1. Make a base (crop, sharpen etc. I like to use Curves for lightening things up and deepening shadows, btw.)
2. Add a texture on top of it. (I believe this one is by ashke_icons) and turn that layer to (in this case) Overlay.
3. Here's what it looks like right now.
3. Duplicate the base, drag it on top and turn it to Screen.
4. Add text, brushes etc if you feel like it.
Depending on the lightness/colours of the base, it might be a good idea to change the order of the blendings: "screen" the texture and "overlay" the duplicated base. Sometimes decreasing the opacity of the layers helps too. Experiment!
Okay, I mentioned gaussian blur in my answer, but of course I don't remember using it with that particular icons, so let's make another one.
1. Crop a base.
2. Sharpen, lighten etc.
3. Add the following texture (by me), rotate it and use blur -> motion blur to stretch it a bit. Set to Screen.
4. Duplicate the base, drag it on top of everything, and set it to Overlay.
5. Use blur -> gaussian blur on the duplicated layer, and make it over-the-top.
6. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE after that, go to Edit > Fade. You CAN'T do this later on, so don't make ANY further steps before this. If you forget this step, you have to use history to undo the gaussian blur, do it again and then go to fade. Now, reduce the slider from 100% to what looks good in the preview. Changing the blend mode from "normal" to something else usually destroys the gaussian effect, but sometimes changing it to lighten, screen or overlay produces nice results.
7. Finally, I changed the opacity of the top layer to 70%, added borders (2px inside, screen) and text.
Nah, that was a bad example. It usually works best with "landscapes", ie icons where there are no people (because then you have to fade most of the blurring) and pics with lots of small details/lines etc. It also works nicely with drawn pictures, esp ones that are very detailed and tend to look ugly when made smaller. Let's make another one while we're at it.
1. Crop
2. Sharpen
3. Duplicate layer, use too much gaussian blur on the top layer
4. Fade gaussian blur
5. Paste the following texture by me.
6. Use variations to color it more blue & cyan (Image -> Adjustments -> Variations)
7. Drag the texture layer between the photo layers and turn it to screen. Turn the top layer to Overlay.
8. Use Motion blur for the texture layer to soften it
9. Drop the opacity for the texture layer to make the photo stand out better.
10. Try to figure out something to write on it.
-->
-->
-->
This a very basic and quick (read lazy) technique. ;)
Results are free to grab if anyone likes them enough. If you try this out, I'd love to see them. Feedback, comments, questions etc are welcome too.
First, because I happen to have the .psd file for one of the icons mentioned in the request, we go through it step by step.
1. Make a base (crop, sharpen etc. I like to use Curves for lightening things up and deepening shadows, btw.)
2. Add a texture on top of it. (I believe this one is by ashke_icons) and turn that layer to (in this case) Overlay.
3. Here's what it looks like right now.
3. Duplicate the base, drag it on top and turn it to Screen.
4. Add text, brushes etc if you feel like it.
Depending on the lightness/colours of the base, it might be a good idea to change the order of the blendings: "screen" the texture and "overlay" the duplicated base. Sometimes decreasing the opacity of the layers helps too. Experiment!
Okay, I mentioned gaussian blur in my answer, but of course I don't remember using it with that particular icons, so let's make another one.
1. Crop a base.
2. Sharpen, lighten etc.
3. Add the following texture (by me), rotate it and use blur -> motion blur to stretch it a bit. Set to Screen.
4. Duplicate the base, drag it on top of everything, and set it to Overlay.
5. Use blur -> gaussian blur on the duplicated layer, and make it over-the-top.
6. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE after that, go to Edit > Fade. You CAN'T do this later on, so don't make ANY further steps before this. If you forget this step, you have to use history to undo the gaussian blur, do it again and then go to fade. Now, reduce the slider from 100% to what looks good in the preview. Changing the blend mode from "normal" to something else usually destroys the gaussian effect, but sometimes changing it to lighten, screen or overlay produces nice results.
7. Finally, I changed the opacity of the top layer to 70%, added borders (2px inside, screen) and text.
Nah, that was a bad example. It usually works best with "landscapes", ie icons where there are no people (because then you have to fade most of the blurring) and pics with lots of small details/lines etc. It also works nicely with drawn pictures, esp ones that are very detailed and tend to look ugly when made smaller. Let's make another one while we're at it.
1. Crop
2. Sharpen
3. Duplicate layer, use too much gaussian blur on the top layer
4. Fade gaussian blur
5. Paste the following texture by me.
6. Use variations to color it more blue & cyan (Image -> Adjustments -> Variations)
7. Drag the texture layer between the photo layers and turn it to screen. Turn the top layer to Overlay.
8. Use Motion blur for the texture layer to soften it
9. Drop the opacity for the texture layer to make the photo stand out better.
10. Try to figure out something to write on it.