Guide on creating icons in photoshop?

Senior Member From : Washington OS : Mac OS X Leopard

I know I have done some simple color mods in the past like "whiety fox" and my itunes color mods. But I am wondering: How do you make an icon starting from scratch in photoshop? I dont get how you can create something with all that color and the gradients and everything, could someone explain?

I'm sure it would be helpful to me and a lot of other people here that have trouble making icons.

Thanks.

Senior Member From : England OS : XP/Ubuntu

Well for really complex icons you can sketch them out first to get your proportions right, then i guess it just takes some practice with the pen tool and the blending options...

Senior Member From : Washington OS : Mac OS X Leopard

blending options?
explain? smile

Senior Member From : England OS : XP/Ubuntu

On the Layers part in photoshop you right click on a layer and go to 'blending options...' and you can overlay gradients put on textures among other things... happy

Senior Member From : Washington OS : Mac OS X Leopard

So is that how people make it look like it has shadows and stuff like that?

Administrator From : England OS :  Leopard 10.5.6

Oh dear....

Pen tool is a must. If you cant use it you're stuffed.

Go and search on google. "Photosohp icon tutorials"

Something like that. Don't do something stupidly complex. Easy beginner stuff wink

Senior Member From : Washington OS : Mac OS X Leopard

GoSco wrote:: Oh dear....

Pen tool is a must. If you cant use it you're stuffed.

Go and search on google. "Photosohp icon tutorials"

Something like that. Don't do something stupidly complex. Easy beginner stuff

Thanks to you both.

@GoSco I saw your "First Class" and GMAIL icons on dA, brilliant icons! smile

Senior Member From : England OS : XP/Ubuntu

purry wrote:: So is that how people make it look like it has shadows and stuff like that?

Yeah you can apply drop shadows and inner shadows smile

Senior Member From : Washington OS : Mac OS X Leopard

BOyOfWONDEr wrote:

purry wrote:: So is that how people make it look like it has shadows and stuff like that?

Yeah you can apply drop shadows and inner shadows smile

Awesome.. ok i found a real nice tut website with like a hundred of them.. I will work on them when i have sparer spare time. lol.