pensnest: Pullo looks disbelieving, says SRSLY? (Rome SRSLY says Pullo)
[personal profile] pensnest posting in [community profile] severalplums


This icon was made in PS CS3 on a Mac. It uses a couple of filters.


Now this was quite interesting, being one of those happy accidents that just come along sometimes.

In order to get the crop I wanted, I selected quite a large area including his head, opened a 100x100 new document, copied in my selection, and resized and rotated it until I got this base.



I copied the base three times. The lowest layer was set to Multiply; to the next I applied a Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) at 4.0; the uppermost I desaturated (Image>Adjustments>Desaturate) and set to Soft Light. This is a base-refining technique I picked up a long time ago, and I'm usually pretty happy with how it turns out. The Gaussian Blur adds a sort of luminous quality and the desaturation stops it getting too vivid.



I did an Amalgamation layer to merge everything so far (Cmd, Alt, Shift+E on a new layer), then copied this amalgamated layer and played about with Filters. In fact, I copied the amalgamated layer a few times, applying a Filter to the copy, until I had something I was pleased with. I was looking for some kind of 'artistic' effect to give the impression of a painting.

What I ended up using was the Filter>Artistic>Rough Pastels filter, with the background set to Brick and a Stroke of 4. Somewhat to my surprise it gave an effect as though there were almost-legible writing on the face, and I liked it.



I then decided on a Gradient Map (I'm very fond of these), and used 2a3561 (a purplish dark blue)/f2e8cb (cream). Here's the effect, on the layers without the filter.



I moved the Filtered layer over the Gradient Map, set it to Soft Light, and decided it was pretty cool. So there we are.



Date: 2010-05-28 11:55 am (UTC)
stripped: (Default)
From: [personal profile] stripped
I have to try that technique you used to create the base (and thank you for the keystroke to create the new amalgam layer). I've also never used gradient maps which I think I'm going to have to play with and see what they do.

I love how this icon came out, and thank you so very much for the deconstruction of it. I can see several new techniques I'm going to have to try out at some point!

Date: 2010-05-28 03:13 pm (UTC)
stripped: (Default)
From: [personal profile] stripped
That gaussian blur layer -- is it completely opaque and normal blending, or is it set to something to allow the layer below it to bleed through at all?

Date: 2010-05-28 03:31 pm (UTC)
stripped: (Default)
From: [personal profile] stripped
Awesome thank you! Lunch starts shortly so I wanted to ask so I can play. :)

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