Dappled Light

Finding the Perfect Picture, Base and Text
By: Dappled Light

Not to date myself, but back when AOL, Angelfire, and Geocities were kings (circa 1999-2000 - twenty-somethings know what I'm talking about), icon makers were rare. They were this elite group who owned $80 image editing programs while the rest of us struggled with Paint in Accessories. Now everyone makes their own icons, and it's hard to have yours stand out. One way to really get them noticed today isn't through fancy layers, blends or brushes. It's to choose a great base and add a fitting caption.

Take for example these three pictures of Kaoru, from Rurouni Kenshin.

All are excellent resolution and would be fine as icons. (The first base-killer is size distortion or graininess.) Two of them have white backgrounds, which make extraction (where you select and remove parts) easy. You can replace the white with highly-stylized, eye-grabbing, pre-made (or self-created) backgrounds. The first two pictures have Kaoru with facial expressions perfect for text. When you choose the "perfect picture", image quality, background color and "text-friendliness" are all things to consider. For this tutorial, I've picked the first image. It's funny and cute (folks who watch RK know it's very "un-Kaoru" like). Plus none of her is cut off in the picture (besides the bottom), so I can do a lot with it.

Here are some possible bases:

Each has merit, but some are better than others. When resizing your picture for a base, try to avoid pasting it smack in the middle. Placing it off to one side makes it less symmetrical and plays on the strength of 100x100 as a frame.

Once you've created your base, add your effects and text. For poetic or serious text, Jane Austen is a killer font. I'm sure you all have your favorites of course, but for those just starting out, http://dafonts.com can help you build a great font library.

When you have a selection to choose from, mixing fonts on one icon is an easy way to grab attention.

When you're ready to add captions, it's a good idea to use your dropper and take a color from the actual icon. If the text is standard black, or standard blue, it might be too stark and look like you just stuck your words on as an afterthought. Placing your text before the final layer or effect can also help it blend and match better.

For my Kaoru icon, I used a color from her hair before adding tons of layers. I used Aharoni (size 7, tilted to the left 10 degrees) and A bite (size 8), both set in my layer palette to Hard Light.

After adding my effects, Kaoru looks like this.

I don't really like how the Aharoni turned out, so I played with some other fonts. If you've found a great picture, don't be afraid to use your base more than once.

Good luck and have fun =).