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severalplumsThe icon was made in PS5, but is pretty simple, mostly involving some masks, gradient map, blurring and Levels.
I think I knew when I spotted this photo that one of the ways I would icon it would be to blend the faces back to back. I think it's the urge to do something different with the image.
So. I don't use the Crop tool, I use the Selection tool, so I set it to a square ratio and copied two selections of the same size into a new image, then re-set the image size to 100x100. Posh was the second one, so she ended up on top, and I moved the layers sideways and masked off part of the upper layer until I had an arrangement I liked, then I did a Merge layer (New layer, Cmd+alt+caps+E) to get my new base.
The initial intention was to make it black and white, so I did a b/w Gradient map next, then a Levels adjustment to crisp it up and adjust the contrasts.
I didn't like the striped effect behind the heads, so I did another Merge layer and applied quite a lot of Gaussian Blur filter (GB set to 15.4), which gave me a big blurry blob. I masked off the centre of this so that the edges were blurred, and set this layer to Multiply. Another Merge layer and it looks like this:
But, eh, not quite darkened enough, so I did a new layer with a little bit of blurred brushing in the corners. a4a4a4 was the colour, and it's set to Multiply.
Then I added another Levels layer (set to Soft Light), which ups the contrast a bit more.
I was pretty happy with it at various stages, but I kept experimenting anyway, and thought I might have a go at adding some colour back. So I ended up with a colour layer of fce8b7 set on soft light, which gives it a feeling that's somewhat sepia, somewhat like a coin, and seemed to be the right finishing touch. I did toy with the idea of setting it in some kind of bevelled circular frame, but couldn't make that work.
Save for Web and Devices, and there it is.
Here's the Layers palette.
Anything I didn't cover that you'd like to know about?
I think I knew when I spotted this photo that one of the ways I would icon it would be to blend the faces back to back. I think it's the urge to do something different with the image.
So. I don't use the Crop tool, I use the Selection tool, so I set it to a square ratio and copied two selections of the same size into a new image, then re-set the image size to 100x100. Posh was the second one, so she ended up on top, and I moved the layers sideways and masked off part of the upper layer until I had an arrangement I liked, then I did a Merge layer (New layer, Cmd+alt+caps+E) to get my new base.
The initial intention was to make it black and white, so I did a b/w Gradient map next, then a Levels adjustment to crisp it up and adjust the contrasts.
I didn't like the striped effect behind the heads, so I did another Merge layer and applied quite a lot of Gaussian Blur filter (GB set to 15.4), which gave me a big blurry blob. I masked off the centre of this so that the edges were blurred, and set this layer to Multiply. Another Merge layer and it looks like this:
But, eh, not quite darkened enough, so I did a new layer with a little bit of blurred brushing in the corners. a4a4a4 was the colour, and it's set to Multiply.
Then I added another Levels layer (set to Soft Light), which ups the contrast a bit more.
I was pretty happy with it at various stages, but I kept experimenting anyway, and thought I might have a go at adding some colour back. So I ended up with a colour layer of fce8b7 set on soft light, which gives it a feeling that's somewhat sepia, somewhat like a coin, and seemed to be the right finishing touch. I did toy with the idea of setting it in some kind of bevelled circular frame, but couldn't make that work.
Save for Web and Devices, and there it is.
Here's the Layers palette.
Anything I didn't cover that you'd like to know about?