Ask a Maker

[immortalje]

I've been considering doing a post like this for a while, but am not sure if it's really going to garner much interest. Well, unlike all the other times, I thought of it while actually sitting in front of my computer and decided to go ahead with it...

Anyway, years ago (while I was still on livejournal), I participated in an icon challenge that required winners (and invited mod's choice) to write a tutorial for the winning icon and I really enjoyed doing that. I've been missing doing that and have thought about writing tutorials again. I just can't decide for what icon I should do it. I've started some general ones, but feel kind of direction less with them. So, I figured I'd just open up the choice to other people and let them request tutorials for icons - provided that I still have the .psd file for it.

TL;DR: If you'd like to know how I made an icon, feel free to request a tutorial here! :)

Notes about tutorials:
• I primarily use Photoshop CS5 to make icons and therefore tutorials will be based on that tool.
• I tend to have psd for most of my icons, but I don't feel comfortable promising that this is true for 100% of the icons I made.
• Not all steps might have exact values (especially with blurring / sharpening).
• All tutorials will be written instructions.

How to request a tutorial:
• Link or embed the icon you want a tutorial for
• Alternatively, if used as a userpic, feel free to use it as the icon for the comment.
• If you want a more generic tutorial (e.g. how I handle dark icons or tips for cropping), you're welcome to do that as well.

Comments

[immortalje]

I have no idea if any Photoshop version is available for free or cheap somewhere. I got mine about 10 years or so ago while I was still a student and able to get a discount that way (and unless my memory gets it wrong, I think it reduced it from ~1200€ to ~200€). I remember trying GIMP around that time since it's free, but I'd already gotten way too used to Photoshop (due to using it in a class for university) and caved. It probably helped that I also suggested it to family members as a present for me (at the reduced price).

I had used Photoshop 7 prior to getting CS5 and while there (obviously) were some newer features in CS5, there were a lot of similarities. So, tutorials should be able to translate to other versions.


As for requesting tutorials - I haven't really considered limiting how many get requested, but the more you request, the longer I'll need to get to every one (assuming I hadn't gotten lazy with keeping track of what I did for any of them)