A basic tutorial on how to get a clean base.

[indefiance]

Um. My first tutorial, I'm not really sure how to go about this, buuuut....I know how much a base/image quality can really affect an icon. So:

To go from this to

What I use: Adobe Photoshop C.S.
Requires: basic knowledge of layers, cropping, and resizing.



1. First, we'll start off with this screencap (credit to: http://www.avatarspirit.net)



2. You want to crop just a bit of that. So the watermarks/stamps don't get in the way. ^_^

Here's what I got:



3. Do not resize it!

4. Image > adjustments > hue/saturation > set saturation to -44

Here's what I got:



5. Duplicate it > set it to screen 100%

6. Duplicate it again > set to screen 100%

7. layer > create new layer > fill it with a dark blue color > set it to exclusion 100%

8. Still with me? Good! It should look like this so far:



9. Now take the original, duplicate it. Set it to screen 100%. Drag it on top of the blue layer.

Like so:



10. Duplicate the screen layer. Put it to soft light.

You should get this:



11. image > adjustments > image size > set width to 100

12. You might want to crop the length (NOT THE WIDTH) a little bit, to get 100x100.

But you'll get this:



And there you go!

Hope that was simple? ^^

And in case you don't know how to create layers:

Go to layer > new > layer...

To duplicate:

layer > duplicate layer

That is all! ♥