Iconesque Colouring pt. 1

Photoshop Tutorials

Tutorial

Click on thumbnailed images to enlarge

Icon-esque Colouring 1
Note: I use Photoshop CS, but, I believe that many of these things are also available in PSP. So, it

should be translateable.

Icon #1-

User posted image

Original picture: http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3585/0414nm.jpg

Steps:
1. Opened up my original picture in Photoshop, and then taking my crop tool, and holding down THE

SHIFT BUTTON, I crop out what will soon become my icon. Now, a good suggestion for cropping is not

to always do the center. It looks so dull. If you crop off to the side you can have extra room for brushes

and text and other shtuff.
User posted image

(The base, just by its self is right here: http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/8126/base3fh.jpg )

2. Now, we need to shrink this down to image size. By going Image >> Image Size, and making sure

'Constrain Proportions' is checked, type in 100 in one box, and the other should automatically change to

100 as well. Then hit okay.
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3. Sharpen the icon base
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4. Now comes the coloring. The best part. Create a new layer above your base, and fill it in with a light

yellow color, such as: #FFF8D7, and then set that layer to multiply.
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Oh, if you don't know how to add color hex codes to make it a code, just copy/paste the code up above

and paste it in the number box of your color picker:

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5. Create another new layer, fill it in with #FFE8D7, and then set that to muliply as well. We're getting

some good coloring so far, but, I'd like to keep going for more effects.

6. Now comes the ever so popular exclusion layer. This is something that most people didn't know how

to get and well, now you'll learn. Create a new layer, and fill it in with #07004A, and instead of setting it

to multiply, choose exclusion. See the effect it gives? The whole washed out vintage-y look? It's all the

rage with icons.

7. Now, I like my colors to look even more washed out. So, I create another new layer, fill it in with white,

#FFFFFF, and set it to Color. Now, I don't want it completely black and white so I lower the opacity to

30%.
User posted image

8. Now, you can quit now and just leave it how it is but I want to finish my icon.Add some extra stuff. This

is totally optional. Now, I took one of the standard photoshop brushes and just scribbled my little heart

out.
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And on the icon it looks like this:
User posted image minus the black parts, of course.

9. So far, I have this as my icon:
User posted image
Now, I add some text, the picture explains it all.
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Those are my font settings, and then when I had it all typed out, I hit cntrl + t on my keyboard and

roatated it to fit in my scribbles.

10. And finally, the border. Create a new layer above it all, fit it with any color. Doesn't matter. Then,

instead of lowering the opacity, lower the FILL to 0%. Then, lets add a stroke:
User posted image
User posted image

And, thus ends my icon, and there I get my final result.

Tutorial Comments

Showing latest 2 of 2 comments

I always wanted to know how to create this effect. Very good tutorial!

By nettynono on Jul 11, 2007 10:07 am

i love this tutorial. it really helped and is real cool

By shortcake on Oct 22, 2006 9:21 pm

Tutorial Details

Author technicolour View profile
Submitted on Jun 28, 2006
Page views 25,466
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Comments 2

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