Tutorials::Icon Tutorial 01

Intro

This is an icon tutorial on how to add this effect to your icons (or actually anything you want). This is the effect you will be adding:

Step 1

First, open an image you want to use for your icon and change the size to 100x100. This is the picture of Alexis Bledel that I will start with:

Step 2

Duplicate the layer and sharpen the new layer. Then set the sharpened layer to "Overlay".

Step 3

Now create a new layer (and put it on top) and, using the paint bucket, fill it with a dark bluish color. I used #10092B. Then set the dark blue layer to "Difference".

Step 4

Duplicate the orginal layer (the one on the bottom) and rearrange it so that it is the top layer. Hit Ctrl+U or Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation and completely desaturate it.

This is what my layers window looks like so far:

Step 5

Now set the desaturated layer to "Screen", and woila!
And that's it! After that, just add textures/text/brushes and you're done! You don't have to use this for icons, actually, you can use it on any image. Here are some other images that I used the same effect for:

Other

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Have any questions or comments? E-mail me.
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