Icon Tutorial One for PS7

[jillrenay]

Okay everyone, this is my second tutorial, and because I have a sense to tell things that people already know, please feel free to smack me upside the head and tell me that. Okay, so we're going to make this icon:


Blue-Eyed Girl...

Rules first:
* Do not re-create the same icon
* This icon is snaggable, but if snagged - do not hotlink, do not use on Xanga, and remember to credit

Okay, let's begin.....

....with a picture. This one [link] courtesy of Luminary. I love this picture. Alexis looks absolutely beautiful in it, but for the icon, I wanted to make a shimmery effecton her skin, so I re-vamped it just a bit. Remember, this is all in the picture, not the icon.

Steps for the picture:

• Image - Adjustments - Auto Contrast
• Layer - Duplicate Layer - Set to Screen @ 75%
• Merge the Layers (Ctrl + E)
• Layer - Duplicate Layer - Soft Light @ 100%
• Merge again (Ctrl + E)
• Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen

Doesn't it look all spectacular now? Not that it didn't before, but no I can really see how blue her eyes actually are and it saves us the trouble of blurring her skin with the blur tool. Okay, next item on the list: the icon.

Make yourself a pretty 100x100 box or smaller, your choice. And your steps:

• Layer - Fill Layer - #000000
• Layer - New Layer - Layer; Leave this Blank
• Brush - Swiggle Line by 77 words [link] - Place this anywhere
• 
  
• Take your picture and drag it into your icon box, resize it. Now place it under the swiggle line.
• 
  
• You have it where you want it? Good. Now duplicate it and move it around to another location/position. I chose to place it below and lined it up with the previous picture. I also resized it, so the iamge is a bit smaller than the top one.
• 
  
• Cut the excess of the bottom picture away
• 
  

I still wanted to accentuate Alexis' blue eyes, so here's our coloring part:

• Desaturate the bottom picture - Duplicate it - Set it Linear Burn @ 50%
• Merge the bottom layers together
• Layer - New Fill Layer - link the layer to the top picture only - #084598 - Overlay @ 100%

Brushes:

• 
  chouchoune [link]
• 
  even_art [link]
• Duplicate the brushes once, set them to Color Burn

Viola! Beautiful and Blue-Eyed Alexis: