Icons by Curtana

sweetalexiel asked for this tutorial - I hope it's helpful :) If there are any questions, please ask! This is using Photoshop CS3, but it should work for earlier versions of Photoshop as well. There's a selective colour layer, but you could leave it out and get close to the same look, so it might be semi-translateable.

to

( How'd I do it? I'm glad you asked )

Three tutorials on colouring techniques, using CS3 - Levels, Selective Colour, and Curves are involved at various stages, so I suspect they won't be translateable, alas. I'd say these are intermediate to advanced; I won't be explaining really basic Photoshop terms and concepts here. These ideas can work for many dark or low-contrast images to help brighten them up, but I don't advise punching in exactly the same numbers I've used, because your results will depend on the base you're using. Instead, I'll try to explain what I was aiming for with each step, and you can adapt it to suit your own image. That said, I'd love to see what results you can come up with! I hope this is helpful - let me know if there's anything that's unclear.

From to

( Tutorial 1 )

From to

( Tutorial 2 )

From to

( Tutorial 3 )

I hope you found these helpful. Like I said, if you have any questions or if something isn't clear, just let me know :)

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Various people have asked how I go about making my text-only icons. This isn't really a tutorial for any specific icon, more of a general guide. I use Photoshop CS3, so any specific directions are for that program, but the general ideas should be quite translateable.

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I'm far from an expert in making animated icons, but I'm willing to let you know how I do it, since people seem interested :) This is using Photoshop CS2 and Image Ready, or Photoshop CS3. Let me know if anything doesn't make sense, or if you have any questions!

( Animated gifs )

I hope this was helpful to some of you - like I said, let me know if you have any questions or problems :) Oh, and I'm still happy to do tutorials for any of my other icons. Just make a request if you're interested!

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whatifoundthere asked for a tutorial on cartoon images, and since I've not found many myself that aren't anime or Disney, I figured I could throw a little something together. This is using Photoshop CS2, I don't know how it works in other programs.

Some general tips, plus a specific tutorial for going from
to

( Making cartoon icons )

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Going from to , using Photoshop CS2. Should be translateable, I think, and relatively simple - no selective colouring, no curves or levels, etc. Just some layer masks.

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I hope you found this useful. If you have any questions or if anything is confusing, please ask me! And if you'd like to request tutorials for any of my other icons, I'd be happy to make more :)

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I've had several people ask about how I achieved the colouring on these icons, so I figured I would do tutorials for them. All of them are based on a similar technique, using textures largely for colouring, so I'm grouping them together. These tuts are all for Photoshop CS2, but the basic ideas about texture use should be translateable. These techniques won't work for every single image, and shouldn't be copied directly, but hopefully they will give you some ideas. Play around and see what you can come up with - I'd love to see what you make :)

From to

( Read more )

From to

( Read more )

From to

( Read more )

From to

( Read more )

I hope you found this useful. If you have any questions or if anything is confusing, please ask me! And if you'd like to request tutorials for any of my other icons, I'd be happy to make more :)

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Going from this to this: . For Photoshop CS2 - not sure how translatable this is (if you get it to work in another program, let me know! :) Basic to Intermediate difficulty - I hope I've explained things clearly enough that even a fairly new Photoshop user can figure it out :)

Sometimes I want to put the main focus of my icon way off-centre, either to leave room for text, brushwork, or textures, or just because I think it looks nicer that way. However, when you're working with screencaps, it can often be hard to find a shot with enough space left around the subject to crop it so dramatically. But! You can get around this problem by extending your background using the Transform > Scale tool.

( I'll show you how... )

If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them. And I'd love to see what results you get from this tutorial, too :)

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I figured I'd make a tutorial explaining some of the techniques I use to make text stand out on my icons. All of this is assuming, of course, that you want your text to be readable - if that's not what you're aiming for, this probably won't be much help! I use Photoshop CS2, but many of these tips are applicable to any graphics program. I've tried to go from the most basic topics to the most complex. The eccentric assortment of examples I'm using are just drawn semi-randomly from a variety of icon sets I've made. Please let me know if you find anything confusing or have any other questions!

( The mysteries of text UNVEILED! )

Well, I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, so please don't hesitate to ask if you have a question. I hope this was useful to someone :)

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This is my first tutorial, so please let me know if anything is unclear or confusing!

Today we'll be going from this: to this: or this: (or several other background effects) using Photoshop CS2. No curves or selective coloring required, so it might be translateable to other programs? I'd say it's an Intermediate difficulty level.

( Background effects tutorial )

Other icons made this way:

If you try it, I'd love to see what you produce! I hope this was helpful to someone :)

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