No energy left

[salinea]

A very Happy birthday to elihice ! I hope you have a very nice day and enjoy yourself.

I am so out of energy I decided to get the day off. No school for me. I might regret it later, but right now I'm just mellow and happy to have stayed home.
Yesterday, after being out all night and getting home at 9 am, I was waken up by my mother at 12 because we have guests... and I couldn't find anyway to get asleep again.

So yeah, I'm like a big mass of blob without any impulse left. Between that, the rather tiresome week I had passed, and the cold, I like my bed very very much. Sorry if I'm not very reactive on the whole.

It's strange because I usually count so much on my usual bounciness. I'm a hyper, nervous, genki person and I suppose I abuse it to be always active, so when it backlashes it feels weird.

Anyway, spent some of this time starting to practice with Photoshop


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All kind of comments and criticisms welcome. I especially don't really like how the text turns out in most of them, but I'm not really sure how to make it better. Patterns are fun, but i shouldn't be abusing them... and I'm only starting to see how many things you can do with brushes.

Comments

[ripedecay.livejournal.com]

I like the second to last one best :3 As for comments...I can suggest a little something? And I know you use PS7 and know about it, so it's easier for me to talk about :P

Avoid thick borders and colours for fonts that stand out too much. It seems to be the latest style in icons to blend. Not to mention to remove borders. Borders tend to take away from the image. And when the icon is about the image...well, yeah :P

Also, set your anti-alias of your text on none when you can. This would apply mainly to bitmap fonts though. When not using bitmap fonts, I would suggest strong or crisp, like for Times New Roman. An excellent, simple font. Dustismo Roman is also good. Porcelain is a good, loopy font as is LainieDaySH. I can give you some font sites if that is needed.

Alright, next is the position of the type. Fiddle with your leading for this to make the space between the rows of text smaller. And try to keep the lines near one another. All over the icon doesn't help too much.

When you type in something on a file, have your layers window open. You can fiddle with fill and layer adjustment. It makes font nicer and borders become redundant. I think you should rarely go up to the layer selection up near 'edit' and 'filter' because that's all too much. Again, text shouldn't take away a lot from the image.

That's all, I guess n.n

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Wow, a whole bunch of advices ! You rock ! *tacklehug*

Avoid thick borders and colours for fonts that stand out too much. It seems to be the latest style in icons to blend. Not to mention to remove borders. Borders tend to take away from the image. And when the icon is about the image...well, yeah :P

I'm not sure whether you mean the border around the pic, or the stroke around the font. From the rest of your comment, looks like the stroke ^^
Keeping the font readable can be difficult, especially as I love too much calligraphic fonts and I do like to have interesting (read: too long) text on my icons >_> And then it's hard keeping it readable without invading the whole picture. And because I didn't have access to the stroke tool with the previous version of PS I had, i wanted to see if it helped - obviously not as much as I thought XD

Also, set your anti-alias of your text on none when you can.
Oh, really ? I kept it always on because every tutorial I saw seemed to say you should keep it on. I'll try without then, thanks !

This would apply mainly to bitmap fonts though.
Stupid question : how do you know if a font is bitmap ?

Dustismo Roman is also good. Porcelain is a good, loopy font as is LainieDaySH. I can give you some font sites if that is needed.
I'm noting those ! I found a font site the other day so i'll look there. If I've got not luck, I'll ask you ;)

Fiddle with your leading for this to make the space between the rows of text smaller. And try to keep the lines near one another. All over the icon doesn't help too much.
Stupid question #2 what is the leading ?
And wow... you can do some very interesting things with the paragraph fiddling tool. Thank you for the suggestion.

You can fiddle with fill and layer adjustment
I'm not sure about the difference between the "fill" and the "opacity" sections, so, so far, I didn't touch much the fill... I'll try to see what it gives with, then ^^

That's a lot O_O Thank you, I have much things to think and experiment with ;)

[ripedecay.livejournal.com]

Hee! You're welcome <3 *snuggles* And loving your Subaru icon there :P

And yes, I meant the stroke tool XD;; Borders around the icon are ALWAYS good in my opinion. Keeps things looking tidy and nice.

Oh, really ? I kept it always on because every tutorial I saw seemed to say you should keep it on. I'll try without then, thanks !

Well, for bitmap fonts, which I'll get to next...

Stupid question : how do you know if a font is bitmap ?

Well, it'll normally be categorized as well. Like at dafont.com. Normally 04 fonts are bitmap. They look like you could make them with a pencil tool. Err, I bite at explaining things XD;;

I'm noting those ! I found a font site the other day so i'll look there. If I've got not luck, I'll ask you ;)

No problem :P

Stupid question #2 what is the leading ?

It's not stupid, don't worry about it. Questions are all good. And leading is basically the spacing between lines of type.

And wow... you can do some very interesting things with the paragraph fiddling tool. Thank you for the suggestion.

It's a great tool. There a lot of things in PS7 that are really wonderful and can be manipulated for wonderful effects n_n

I'm not sure about the difference between the "fill" and the "opacity" sections, so, so far, I didn't touch much the fill... I'll try to see what it gives with, then ^^

Your layers window will be your best friend when making icons. You'll hardly have to close it or go for any other window. Copying and pasting layers is where 'fill' and 'opacity' come in handy. Plus with text at times. To be honest, I sometimes don't see the difference in them either. Once in a while, one looks better than the other. It could be my eyes, though XD

That's a lot O_O Thank you, I have much things to think and experiment with ;)

You're welcome! When people ask for tips, I try my best X3 I love seeing people make icons and get creative XD

[meggu.livejournal.com]

^^ Nice icons. Although, I don't have PS, so I can't help you with certain tricks and whatnot, but I do agree with Shi. ^^

Everyone seems to like the "blend" effects, espcially when using text. I'm personally fond of it, mainly because sometimes text looks out of place, so I blend it in with the image to mantain a sort of "clean" and "organized" look. This is especially handy when the base image is heavily edited with textures, effects, and so on, because the image is the main part of the icon, while the text is usually sort of minor. ^^ Sometimes, no text at all is even good, although at times, it makes the icon seem kind of bland. o_o;

Yup. So that's my advice for the day.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

all right, good points, I'll use blending effects ^^

(meh, why does the text have to be minor ? ;_;)

Thank you for the advice *huggles* !

[meggu.livejournal.com]

XD Text doesn't always have to be minor, just it just needs to blend well so it doesn't stand out too much and distract the viewer from the icon itself.

::snuggle:: ^^ <3

[elihice.livejournal.com]

Thank You!

[darkemagick.livejournal.com]

I like the icons. I think shineko already mentioned most of the points, but try to leave the anti-alias to 'none' only for pixel fonts. Otherwise, if you don't leave it on for other fonts, the font turns out like mine. *points to City Of Sin icon*

You can also try downloading border and brush sets because I find that they can 'professionalise' and beautify an icon very easily. ^^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I see !... I'll try. If I ever can make the difference between bitmap and pixel icons XD though I guess i will find out when I try them out ^^

I started downloading brushes (not border yet) but there is so much you can do already with the base thing I'm sort of flooded with the amoung of potential stuff XD

Thank you a lot for the tips, you're great ! <3

[su-chan.livejournal.com]

Cool icons :-) I like 5th the most, you know yet. You succeded in your practices.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Thanks *snuggles* ^^