Let's make a basic Icon.

Let's pretend that we have nothing to start with, just an idea in our head. What to do? The first thing we need is an icon base.

What is a base?

An icon base is a basic 100x100 pixel (for our purposes) icon, with a background image and no borders or text or special effects. It is ready and waiting for your creativity to enhance it.

Where to get a base?

You have several choices, as many as you can imagine. Here are a few ways:
* Can you draw? Draw your own base.
* Do you take photos? Use them for you base..
* There are several communities on LJ and GJ where ready-made icon bases can be found.
* Find a place on the web to get free graphics.

So, pretend we have our perfect image now, but it is too large. LiveJournal and GreatestJournal icons need to be 100 pixels by 100 pixels or less. LJ icons need to be 39k or less, GJ needs to be 59k or less. What to do?

Make it smaller.

There are two main ways to do this, cropping and resizing. Either way, the first thing we need to do is open the image in PhotoShop. I am using PS7, if you have a different version, some tools or other things may be different from the examples..

Here is my set up when I am making icons. I use the layers (right) and the tool palette (left) the most, so I have them the most accessible. I keep the brushes palette loaded in the docking well on the top right.

Here the crop tool is selected, because using the crop tool is my favorite way to make most images smaller for icons.

Page 2 - Cropping -->

Base | Cropping | Resizing | Unsharp Mask | Adding Text | Adding a border | Saving

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