TIPS FOR MAKING BASES!
My Tips For Making Great Bases!
(can be applied for icons as well)
(for Photoshop, I don’t know if it is translatable)
- Typically try to use high quality pictures to make your bases. If they are not high quality then it is your responsibility to fix them so that they look like they are. How do you do that? They need to look sharp, clear, yet have flawless skin (when it comes to bases that include people).
o One way is to use the blur tool. If your picture was incredibly pixilated and still looked like that when you resized it this is what I do:
Ctrl + 0, or just zoom in on your image a lot
Take the blur tool and make sure the size of the brush is small - I recommend anywhere between 1 and 10 with a 5%-10% opacity.
Take the blur tool over the cheeks, the forehead, chin, neck, hands, anywhere but ALWAYS avoid touching the lines of the face, those need to stay sharp.
o Also you can always use the Levels tool or the Curve tool to enhance your bases as well as hide the flaws of the picture you are using. Levels would be better for you to use if you are not familiar with the Curve tool. You can find Levels by going to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels (auto levels usually works with HQ). For the Curve tool go to Image >> Adjustments >> Curves.
o Make sure you don't go overboard with the "fixing up" - remember they are bases after all! You need your images as neutral and nice looking as possible so you don't gyp other people out of creativity with their icon. Over saturating and doing too much contrast-work really ruins things. Keep it in mind.
- Sometimes you have no choice but to use a poor quality picture that has horrible coloring (too yellow, too red, etc.) Color correction is very much a judgment call. There are many tools you can use - color balance, variations, selective color etc. (all can be found under Image >> Adjustments) - but all I can tell you is to try and make your colors as neutral as possible so that it doesn’t limit the colors that another person who uses the base might want to try. What you want to aim for is to make the colors look natural and normal.
- CROPPING! Cropping is probably the single most important aspect for any base/icon! Here are the guidelines to cropping that you should always keep in mind:
o DO NOT, EVER, (unless it’s an absolute dire need and there’s no way around it) EVER, EVER, EVER, CENTER YOUR BASE! It’s boring, it looks stupid, and it leaves no room for any kind of creativity and it denies you any chance of creative text placement. Just don’t do it!
o Creative cropping is really what makes an icon what it is. And it all starts with the base. When cropping your icon, try to do something unusual, something that you can visualize being turned into a really amazing icon. Avoid chopping people’s heads off at the neck and centering. Other than that, anything goes! Oh and don’t be afraid to flip the picture if you think it looks better. (Edit >> Transform >> Flip Horizontal)
o When placing your image, try to keep in mind that people will want to add text usually. So leave a space for that.
- Resizing is important. Done wrong, it can throw the ratio aspect out of whack and cause the picture to become squished and weird looking. Worst thing ever! The way I usually do it is go to Image >> Image Size >> and change the width to anything between 140 pixels and 250 pixels (depending on the picture). In Photoshop make sure that the "constrain proportions" box is selected before you do it. Don’t try to change both the width and the height because you end up with a weirdly proportioned picture. It varies so you’ll have to experiment. After that, you drag the icon over to your new blank 100x100 palette and place it in a creative way!
o Rotating is fun too! It breaks things up a bit. (Edit >> Transform >> Rotate)
- Sometimes if you have a blurry picture, sharpen it before you resize it. As a rule I try to avoid sharpening my bases because when colors and textures are added that sharpens the base by itself. So a softness is NOT a bad thing. If you have a REALLY blurry image then of course, sharpen away. But I warn you DON’T EVER OVER SHARPEN YOUR BASE! Screws everything up...
- If you have a dark screen cap, use screen layers. Duplicate the picture and set the layer mode to ‘screen’. Just do this once or twice if the image is really dark. Generally you want to leave it up to the person making the icon to do that. But if you can't even see who's in the image...
- If you are using these bases on LJ save them as .PNG’s. Otherwise they get pixilated and look terrible on LJ (.jpegs especially).
I think that’s everything. If I think of anything additional later, I’ll add it! Any questions, anything you didn’t understand or if you have something to add, don’t hesitate to comment!