19 December 2010 @ 04:31 pm
Tutorial: Split Icons w/ Feathering  
So I was talking to [livejournal.com profile] willow_lives and she said she would appreciate a tutorial for this so here comes a mostly horrible tut! Whoo!

So we are going to take two caps:

and

(both from rawr-caps)

and put em together to make this:


This is using Adobe Photoshop CS5. It should be transferable to earlier versions of Photoshop, and its most likely going to be able to be done in other programs.



So.
I'm not going to tell you how to do your own colouring or what not so lets assume you can do that on your own.
Colour your two caps and crop them down to size.
We want the width to be 100 px, but you can choose your own height.
Here I've done 70 px and 50 px. You want to make sure that there is overlap.



Open a new file that is 100x100 px. Move one of your caps over.



Move the other cap over. You are going to be cutting into one of the caps, it varies per icon or cap, but you should put whichever cap you are going to be cutting into on top.



Using the LASSO tool on straight lines (either right click the LASSO icon or press ctrl/shift L) select the area you are going to remove from your cap.
I don't always do this, sometimes I just feather at a straight edge.
In that case, just select (either with the WAND tool or the MARQUEE tool) the empty area above your top cap.





This is where you feather the selection. In your menu options you want to go to Select > Modify > Feather (on a mac that short form is FN + Shift + F6). Here I've chosen to feather by 1 pixel.



Once you've set up the feathering, you want to clear your selection a few times with delete.
I think I did it two or three times here. This creates a softer edge that overlaps with the cap layer below.



Play around with the heights of the layers until you like it the most.
Make sure that you don't move one too far apart or else you will see the base layer or transparency through the feathering.



And thats the final product!
Tra la la!
 
 
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( Post a new comment )
[identity profile] chosenfire28.livejournal.com on December 19th, 2010 09:47 pm (UTC)
THIS TUTORIAL IS BEAUTIFUL!

as is the icon made from it :D
[identity profile] sucksucksmile.livejournal.com on December 20th, 2010 12:58 pm (UTC)
thanks sugar tits.
hadley and eric thank you for your time.
[identity profile] willow-lives.livejournal.com on December 19th, 2010 10:48 pm (UTC)
This if fantastic! Thank you. I was always trying to set the feather radius too large.

THANK YOU for this! :)

PS--I added you as a friend. I've been thinking about for a bit now and after looking at your profile, we have several things in common (other than my love of your icons). :)
[identity profile] sucksucksmile.livejournal.com on December 20th, 2010 12:59 pm (UTC)
I hope it was okay!
I'm terrible at explaining things lol I tend to just take over and do it for people.

But yeah, I dicked around with feathering a lot before I figured out what works best.
I friended you back of course.
[identity profile] willow-lives.livejournal.com on December 20th, 2010 06:33 pm (UTC)
See what I made using your tutorial...



Clicky-clicky for full size. :P Not the best wall ever, but since I don't really make walls, I love it.
[identity profile] sucksucksmile.livejournal.com on December 20th, 2010 08:29 pm (UTC)
:D YAY!

Everything looks really smooth.
Did you do it with the line tool? Or with the marquee?

Oh I love Penny and Sheldon.
Even if I rarely watch TBBT.

I desperately want to start from the beginning because I'm a spaz like that.
[identity profile] willow-lives.livejournal.com on December 21st, 2010 12:12 am (UTC)
I used the marquee tool on this one because I just wanted to kind of blend the images a bit together.

You should watch TBBT, it's actually really funny! I haven't watched the current season because I only just finished watching season 3. I also usually won't watch a show if I haven't seen the beginning of seasons.

Thanks again! :)
[identity profile] sucksucksmile.livejournal.com on December 21st, 2010 12:19 am (UTC)
Yeah thats exactly the thing lol.
I try to avoid catching later episodes of things because I like to watch from the beginning.
Even if it isn't something super drama and arc driven.

I caught the season premiere of the second season of Fringe and fell in love and MASSIVELY ruined a big thing for myself for all of season 1.
It pretty much sucked and I don't do it anymore lol.
[identity profile] pamsblau.livejournal.com on December 20th, 2010 08:57 am (UTC)
Very nice tut indeed!
[identity profile] sucksucksmile.livejournal.com on December 20th, 2010 12:59 pm (UTC)
Thanks :/
I'm worried about my explanations lol.


*wow typing fail.
i'm glad i can spell when i don't sleep at all.
moron.

Edited 2010-12-20 08:29 pm (UTC)