Liz ([info]grrliz) wrote in [info]iconschool,
2005-09-20 20:57:00
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Photoshop 7: Focus on Blend Modes

tutorial08.jpg I call these icons my Red/Green Colour Blindness icons (see them here) because they must be hell for someone suffering from that. Anyway.

This tutorial is for Photoshop 7, although I'm sure you could easily adapt it for Paint Shop Pro and all other related image editing programs. As with most things, this tutorial is only meant to be a guide. I really want to emphasize experimenting with your own versions on this tutorial, because it would be boring to make a whole new set of icons just like these, right? Right.


Just a few notes before we begin:

  1. Layers with a grey border indicate a layer where the item is situated on the layer; I used the border only so that you can see the edges in the tutorial. It's not there in the final icon.
  2. Layers with a black background indicate a layer where there is something white on that layer; it's the only way that particular item will show up!
  3. Each of the images represents a layer in the layers palette; the images at the top are the top most layers, and the layers at the bottom are the bottom most layers.
  4. Each layer is shown at 100% opacity and normal blend mode so you can actually see what I've done.
  5. The Colin Creevey image has already been tweaked to bring it up to basic iconing level, i.e. cropped, sharpened, the copied layers of screen and soft light merged with the base, etc. You need this basic level of understanding to proceed with this tutorial.
tutorial08.jpg Text Layer: 2pt Times New Roman, colour #DA8C60, tracking 600.
tutorial08.jpg Text Layer: 9pt Times New Roman, colour #DA8C60, tracking 100.
Additionally, although you can't see it in the image (for clarity purposes), the text has some layer styles:
Drop Shadow: color #660913, blend mode "colour burn", opacity 100%, angle 120°.
Outer Glow: color #592832, blend mode "multiple", opacity 100%.
tutorial08.jpg Gradient Layer: blend mode "multiply". Gradient by [info]crumblingwalls.
tutorial08.jpg Image Layer: blend mode "overlay", opacity 100%.
tutorial08.jpg Image Layer: blend mode "screen", opacity 100%.
tutorial08.jpg Text Layer: 14pt bold Times New Roman, colour #D8A190.
ALTERNATE METHOD: On most of the other icons I actually set this layer's blend mode to "difference", but because I couldn't see the text very well on this icon, I left the blend mode on "normal".
tutorial08.jpg Brush Layer: colour #D8A190, blend mode "difference". If I remember correctly, this is a couple of brush layers merged together to create a new brush shape.
tutorial08.jpg Shape Layer: custom shape, color #FFFFFF, blend mode "soft light", opacity 50%. This is a default custom shape in Photoshop. The cut out portion was made by holding down the ctrl button and clicking on the Colin image layer above to select that portion of the icon; I then cut that portion of the custom shape from the icon.
tutorial08.jpg Image Layer: blend mode "difference", opacity 80%. Again, the cut out portion was made the same was as in the layer above.
tutorial08.jpg Texture Layer: base made by me, please don't use.

And you're done!

Tags: blends, brushes, coloring, gradients, ps

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  • 8 comments

[info]eirefaerie

September 21 2005, 11:18:16 UTC 6 years ago

Looks like we're having some issues with part of your tutorial (most, actually) not showing up. I'm going to try to work on it later, while at work.

[info]maidofawesome

September 21 2005, 14:32:36 UTC 6 years ago

I was just coming over here to mention that. I think it might be a coding issue - did you use any unusual tables or HTML when you wrote this post? Because I think it might be conflicting with the three column layout somehow.

[info]grrliz

September 22 2005, 02:30:00 UTC 6 years ago

Er, it looks perfectly fine on my end, so I'm not quite sure what the problem might be. (There is a table, yes.)

[info]maidofawesome

September 24 2005, 08:42:27 UTC 6 years ago

Sorry, I meant to reply to this (I suck). I don't know if the problem relies on your ISP, or something, because half the mods can see it, and half can't. Basically, about half your post seems to be sitting behind the middle column on this layout, so it's unreadable. I had to install some overrides to get this layout, so I have a feeling your tables have clashed with the overrides. Is there any way you could format the tutorial without the table? I know it's a pain, but from what I could read of the tutorial, it seemed like it was really good (and I loved the icons), and I'm concerned that half of our members won't be able to see it.

[info]grrliz

September 29 2005, 15:06:38 UTC 6 years ago

I know that this particular layout style has formatting problems in various browsers to begin with (a friend of mine uses it and the right column nearly always overlaps the content column, even though LJ said they fixed the problem), and I do think that may largely be the problem.

Anyway, I'm not relaly willing to change the structure of the tutorial, because the table is what makes it easy to read and organize, but I do have a couple of suggestions.
  1. You can delete the tutorial, no skin off my back. :)
  2. You could allow linking to tutorials in icon journals (rather than requiring that everything be cut to the community) that way the tutorial format won't mess with the layout.
  3. You could change the community settings so that the default LJ individual entry page layout is what the tutorials are viewed in, rather than the custom layout.
I'm personally in favour of the last one, mainly beacuse I think it's easier for users to read tutorials in that format (if someone has a wide tutorial, it automatically kills this layout), but I can understand if you're not really in favour of doing that. I'm not trying to sound harsh because this is just a little bit of constructive criticism, but I'm personally not going to change the table to something else for a single community and all of my future tutorials will be in that format, so depending on what happens this may end up being my only tutorial here, which is fine I suppose. I think this is a great idea for a community, but I find the set-up impedes my use of it to it's fullest potential. :)

[info]maidofawesome

September 29 2005, 15:23:21 UTC 6 years ago

I'll have a chat to the other mods, but I think you may be right. We certainly don't want to put people off posting here, sort of defeats the point of the community. As it is, we only got a paid account to customise the layout in the first place, so sooner or later, the comment pages will be reverting to the default lj style anyway. Therefore, it shouldn't make much difference if I change it back now.

Oh, and you didn't sound harsh at all, don't worry. ;-)

[info]grrliz

September 29 2005, 18:50:36 UTC 6 years ago

Excellent! Really, thank you, I know it seems like a small thing, but I think it really will make your lives easier to have the entry pages like this. (I feel so bossy now, hee.) :D

[info]sarah_jones

January 16 2007, 02:04:39 UTC 5 years ago

great tutorial! Thanks for posting it! :-)
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