Show us your psds!
Aug. 30th, 2013 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laisserais posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
smallbatchicons
Here's how it works:
*If you make icons, you can play!
*Make a post that shows or describes the steps in your process for one icon.
*It can be from Photoshop,GIMP, Corel, etc.
*It can be a link to your journal, or posted here at the comm
*We are giving cut tag amnesty for this challenge, cuz the discussion can get LARGE.
*Show us your favorite tricks! What are your go-to textures? What's the newest technical thing you've learned?
*It's a free-for-all, starting on Friday, the 13th (whenever that day starts for you) and ending the 15th. Post as often as you'd like!
Boosting the signal would be Awesome:
Here's an example to get you in the mood:
[I used PS 4 and 5 to make this banner.]
Step 1: The most important part of any icon: Crop choice! In this case, I knew I wanted to get the mirror in the background, a good amount of leg, and their expressions.
Step 2: Do a curves layer, boost saturation of all colors, and do a selective color layer to bring out the yellow.
Step 3: That left some weird artifacts in the blacks, so now I copy all layers and merge as a new layer (ctrl + alt+ shift + E). Then I do a gaussian blur filter of 1.5 pixels on this layer, and set it to soft light, with 64% opacity. This smooths out the rough edges while saturating the blacks.
Step 4: But now it's blurry kind of. I do another copy all-merge layer, and this one I do an unsharp mask on, 110%, normal layer at 100% opacity.
Step 5: There's still not enough depth to the contrasts, and I want to capture the lighting in the mirror behind them, so I do a copy-all merge layer (I don't usually do so many of these, I don't know why they show up so much in this) and do a High Pass filter. I set it to Hard Light, opacity 14%. This gives it just a little more clarity.
Step 6: Color fill a rectangle in a new layer. I did a dark navy blue, then set it to exclusion 100%. I knew I wanted to have a different background for the text, so it would pop. I spent quite a bit of time deciding how wide this rectangle would be, and where it would be placed. I settled on lining it up with the bench they are sitting on.
Step 7: exclusion is a neat effect, but the box doesn't stand out. So I made a clipping mask--meaning that the next adjustment only affects the rectangle--and added a gradient map. I made the gradient a rainbow and set it to exclusion 75%. As you can see, it made the rectangle more vivid.
Step 8: start adding text. I knew I wanted this goofy font because it reminds me of entertainers, like the circus and such. Which I felt went with the image nicely. But all by itself, it didn't stand out enough against the background. I tried a bunch of different colors, and decided to pick up the dark brown in their outfits.
Then I added effects to the layer: I added an inner shadow, outer glow (and changed the glow to turquoise), an inner glow (stayed yellow to brighten it up) and a 1 pixel stroke outline, to sort of tidy it up.
Step 9: more text. I fiddled a lot, as you can see, with the comm name. I'm a sucker for rainbows, but ultimately decided it made the banner too busy. I ended up changing it in the final version. Also, I was using two different versions of PS, so I started out with Helvetica, but then had to change it to Myriad Pro because the other PS doesn't have Helvetica for some reason. :(
I went through and kerned the letters, centering them over the eyes and faces of the ladies so no weird parts popped out. Then I rasterized all the text and merged all visible layers.
Final product: I took that image and stuck in on a larger square and slapped on the challenge details below. Ta da!
If you have any questions about this exchange, please feel free to comment or PM either myself or
goodbyebird.Start saving those psds!
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Date: 2013-08-31 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-31 03:34 pm (UTC)