Program(s)+version: Adobe Photoshop CS3
Involves: Blend modes, auto-contrast, selective coloring, textures, layer masks
Translatable: No, I don't believe so. :(
Steps: 14
Difficulty: Medium


( Read more... )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS5 and CS6
Involves: gradient, color balance, exposure, brightness/contrast, textures, paint brush
Translatable: I don't know
Steps: /
Difficulty: medium

( if you have any questions, ask away! )

Program(s)+version: Adobe Photoshop CS3
Involves: Blend modes, auto-contrast, selective coloring, textures
Translatable: No, I don't believe so. :(
Steps: It's a guide that has been broken down into sections with 9-step tutorial at the end
Difficulty: Medium

***The name of this is a slight misnomer since I do mention coloring at certain points of the guide, but the main focus remains with lighting. This section also teaches you how to get a soft glow!***

( Read more... )

Program(s)+version: Adobe Photoshop CS3
Involves: Blend modes, auto-contrast, selective coloring, textures
Translatable: No, I don't believe so. :(
Steps: 5 for the first sample icon and 9 for the second sample icon; text-heavy introduction
Difficulty: Medium

***The name of this is a slight misnomer since I do mention coloring at certain points of the guide, but the main focus remains with lighting.***

( Read more... )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS4 (for Mac)
Involves: Blending modes, gradients, curves, brightness/contrast, selective colouring, vibrance
Translatable: Partly.
Steps: 12
Difficulty: Medium, because I'm going to assume you already know your way around most of your programme.

Both ohgollygeedamn and likealight asked me about this colouring at the Ask the Maker Meme 2.0, so here it is!

With Photoshop CS4, we'll be doing this:

--> &

( Amy glows in yellow and magenta )

Questions? Concerns? Thoughts? I'd love to hear them!

Program/Version : Photoshop CS4
Involves : Adding text to animated GIF
Difficulty : Moderate to Difficult (basic GIF making and Photoshop skill required)
Translatable : To Photoshop CS3 & CS5, yes
Steps : 5 (not including making GIF from scratch)

*I posted this at icon_tutorial about 2 months ago, so I'm sorry if you've seen this before. But this one is improved version :)

( warning : image heavy! )

Program(s): VLC Player (not required), PhotoShop CS4
Involves: Screen-capping and making and editing animated gifs
Translatable: Only from PS CS3 - PS CS5 i'm pretty sure.
Steps: 5-6. All steps are lengthy and discussed in detail. I have a more detailed list of what the tutorial will cover underneath.
Difficulty: (Hopefully) Easy to Medium. As long as you have the patience to read. I wrote this for beginners so I don't skimp on the detail.

( tutorial under )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS5
Involves: Layer masks, lasso tool
Translatable: should work in all programs/versions that have layers and allow to create layer masks
Steps: about 6 for the example, the rest is a guide more than a step-by-step tutorial
Difficulty: Beginner



A little guide on how to do layer masks and an example on how to change the background of an image using them.

( Read more )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS4
Involves: Auto Contrast, Curves, Smudge tool, brush work, texture use, Vibrance
Translatable: Not entirely, because it involves Variations. But you can work around them with Hue/Saturation.
Steps: 7
Difficulty: Easy, trust me

With Photoshop CS4, we'll be re-creating this icon:

>

shrimpy_19 and ofraindrops asked me about this icon and I happen to love it - so here's a tutorial and an explanation of my thought process, as requested by absolutelybatty.

I'm warning you: it's rather long. ;)

( The Fall in blues )

I hope this was helpful to any of you. As always, if you have a questions, don't hesitate to ask. :)

Hi good_tutorial!

I guess you have all noticed that things have been very quite here lately, sadly not many people write actual tutorials these days. With this in mind I thought it was time to find a way to remedy this and bring some new blood into the community so to speak.

Now I want you to comment to this post with tutorials/guides you think would be a great addition to this community. Please make sure you check out the members list in the community profile page to see who's already members here. Also please make sure the tutorials you "nominate" follow the spirit of good_tutorial, tutorials with explanations, not just lists of numbers or .PSD files.

I will then try to contact the makers you "nominate" and see if they would like to join here and share their tutorial(s).

You can post/"nominate" as many tutorials as you like :)

Comments will be screened.

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS5
Involves: coloring, cropping, certain tools to achieve both of those
Translatable: for all Photoshop CS versions. Some settings in certain tools might not be translatable for other graphic software.
Steps: No steps, just general information
Difficulty: Easy (but with basic knowledge of Photoshop)


( Coloring, cropping, more! )

How to go from this and this to

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS3 (but most likely works with PS 7 and above too)
Involves: Curves, color balance, levels, layer masks, textures
Translatable: Mostly translatable; has a few selective coloring steps that are completely skippable
Steps: 57 (oh good lord)
Difficulty: Moderate/difficult -- I tried to make it clear where things are and how to find them, but the tut still assumes some basic knowledge of PS.

( Read more... )

This to
Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS5
Involves: Extending Background, Curves, Levels, Selective Colour, Colour Balance, Hue/Saturation, Filters & Texture Use
Translatable: To programs/versions that have selective color available.
Steps: 6 Steps | 39 Layers
Difficulty: Beginner - Intermediate

( Long and wordy - its just the way I do things )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS4
Involves: textures, blending modes; blending several images
Translatable: yes
Steps: 20
Difficulty: Moderate

Learn how to make this icon:




This icon is a collage of several caps, blended together.
These are the caps we're going to need: 1 2 3

Made with Photoshop CS4. It's only using basic blending modes, so it should be translatable to all programs.

( more )

Program(s): Photoshop (I use CS3 but certain parts will be translatable for earlier versions)
Involves: General icon making tips; including colouring, background extension, sharpening + more.
Translatable: Photoshop specific but certain parts are general enough for any program.
Steps: N/A
Difficulty: Beginner and upwards



( icon tips and tricks )

From this to
Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS5
Involves: Coloring an icon using: curves, levels, selective color, color balance, vibrance & filters available in Photoshop CS5
Translatable: To programs/versions that have selective color and vibrance available.
Steps: 4 Steps | 23 Layers
Difficulty: Easy

( Long and wordy - its just the way I do things )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop 7.0 (but it should translate over to all other versions of Photoshop, and is probably, at least in part, applicable to other programs)
Involves: How to create backgrounds (using the original screencap, textures, clouds, etc), using textures on icons, layer masks, the smudge tool, the Blur filters, general tips, and a little tiny bit of coloring using selective coloring, filters, and blending modes.
Translatable: Mostly, I think.
Steps: 4 parts with a variation of steps
Difficulty: Moderate difficulty, assumes a bit beyond basic knowledge of Photoshop (including: layer masks, blending modes, and a few other tools)

This tutorial is cut and pasted from a larger 'Ask the Icon Maker' post. I was invited to post it here, but I didn't think it would be appropriate to post the entire thing here, just the actual tutorial bits (warning: extremely colloquial). So if it seems a tad disjointed and/or overly personal, I apologize.

( Integration is key! )

Program(s) version: PSP X2, but the principles should apply in any program.
Involves: Colour Normalization of blue and red-tinted caps, as well as basic colouring tips for natural caps. Brief guides on the colour balance, curves, and levels tools.
Translatable: Yes.
Steps: None and many, all at once! This is a guide, not an A to B type tutorial.
Difficulty: Absolute Beginner. I've geared the guide towards people who are very unfamiliar with their program, but there should hopefully be some tips here that are useful for more experienced users as well. (: I assume a basic understanding of how to create layers, and how layers work.

This guide is very image heavy!
This guide covers, in this order:
-A brief introduction to how colours relate to each other, shadows/midtones/highlights, and the tools I'm using in this guide (colour balance, levels, and curves) for beginners
-Correcting blue screencaps using colour balance, levels, or curves.
-Correcting red screencaps using colour balance, levels, or curves.
-General colouring tips (i.e. odds and ends)

What it is not meant to be:
-an exhaustive list of colouring techniques
-the end point for an image colouring - these are just techniques that I use to get an image to a point where I can then apply other colour adjustments without the images looking horrific

( Snip, snip. )

This is a little tutorial on how to extend the background of an image. I'll try to explain 3 different techniques I use. I tried to explain everything as detailed as possible. If there are any questions left feel free to ask away!
I'll start with what I feel like is the easiest way to extend the background of an image and then get to the more difficult techniques. But this isn't all that hard.
The coloring of the icons is not included.

Program(s)+version: Photoshop CS 2
Involves: smudge tool, rectangular marquee tool, clone stamp, layer mask
Translatable: should be translatable to programs that have the above mentioned tools and work with layers
Steps: up to 6
Difficulty: medium


extending backgrounds
using the smudge tool
using the rectangular marquee tool
using the clone stamp

( show and tell )

Please let me know if you have any questions, if I messed something up or if any images/links don't work!

Comments are appreciated.

Today good_tutorial is 1 year old!


Happy Birthday good_tutorial!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for making this community a success, and I would especially like to thank our members here, the tutorial writers, for sharing their wonderful talent and knowledge with all of us. It's very much appreciated and I hope all of you will continue to write tutorials and share them here this coming year, as you did the last :)

I didn't realize I never posted the last part in my tutorial series, my apologies!

Program(s): Paint Shop Pro 9
Involves: Basic tips
Translatable: It's quite specific to PSP, but is translatable to most other programs.
Steps: 0 - It's just a list of tips.
Difficulty: Beginner

The main purpose of textures and brushes are to enhance your image, not completely distract from it. You want to attain a certain effect, not compromise the integrity of your base image. Because as I’ve continually said before you add textures, brushes or text you need a quality base image. When using certain textures or brushes however there are times when you create the base to match or fit them. Even on that occasion you still need to concentrate on the quality of that image, don’t let the brush or texture distract you.

NOTE: These do's, don'ts and tips are written based on the assumption you have read the previous tutorials. These tutorials are to be used as steps. By this point you should be somewhat more comfortable in the basics and tools of your Paint Shop Pro.

( BLEND MODES: WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, HOW )( BRUSHES: THE DO'S AND DON'Ts )
( TEXTURES: THE DO'S AND DON'Ts )

TUTORIAL SERIES:
INTRODUCTION
A GOOD BASE
BEGINNERS GUIDE TO FONTS
TEXT TECHNIQUES
>>>BLEND MODES; BRUSHES & TEXTURES: THE DO'S AND DON'TS<<<

Program(s)+version: UnRar, HJSplit, VLC Player, Automator, NameMangler, EasyBatch, ViewIt
Involves: Learning about HD files' image quality and size, how to cap, batch conversion and renaming, sorting, uploading your caps to a server and adding those caps using Coppermine for sharing in a gallery as well as uploading zip files for sharing.
Translatable: No, Mac only.
Steps: A lot.
Difficulty: Moderate

There always seems to be fairly well done tutorials for various Windows programs and how to cap out there over the years, but when I switched over to Mac over a year ago it took me a while to find all the programs I use now because there was no guide like this to simply follow. I had to learn through trial and error and searching and searching for the program I wanted for each task. There was no step by step how-to. Now that I have a set method, I figured it would only seem reasonable to share.
So for anyone interested in switching to Mac, new to Macs, or for the occasional dual Mac-PC user, this is THE guide to all things screencapping. I'll try not to get too technical, I want this to be pretty easy to comprehend.

( The Complete Guide-- WARNING: TEXT AND IMAGE HEAVY )

Please do let me know if you find anything confusing, or if you have more questions or problems and hopefully I can answer them!

This is my first tutorial. I decided to make an easy-to-follow tut on how to make animated icons because I can't count the amount of times I'd searched around for tutorials on how to make animated images when I wanted to learn how, only to discover nothing made any sense or I got lost along the way because the instructions were so confusing.

Today, we'll be making this icon:



Programmes: VirtualDub (for screencapping), Adobe Photoshop CS - CS2 and Adobe ImageReady.
Involves: How to screencap, how to import frames and images, how to crop, colour adjustment layers, tweening, how to optimise animated icons to fit 40K, how to set timing for icons.
Translatable: Probably not. :-(
Steps: For screencapping: 4 steps. For making the icon: 15 steps.
Difficulty: Actually really easy once you know how to do it. But I will go with Medium - Hard.
WARNING: THIS IS VERY IMAGE-HEAVY.

( And away we go! )

Program(s)+version: Photoshop Elements 6
Involves: Levels, Hue/Saturation
Translatable: yes
Steps: ~13
Difficulty: easy

Going from this: To this:

( Read more )