Graphics Tips
Adobe Photoshop Tip: Lickable Candy Aqua Sphere Icons
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You've seen the icons. You know the ones I mean. They look like colored glassy orbs and often have logos or other icons embedded within them. Oh, you've seen them alright. They're everywhere. They're here and here and here and here and here and here and here. Why are they so prevalent? Because they are easy to make. All you need is Photoshop and the Icon Factory's IconBuilder plug-in.
For the purposes of this tutorial, I will be using graphics provided to me by Nitrozac and Snaggy from Geek Culture. The final collection contains 24 different Joy of Tech and After Y2K icons and is available for download. He's how I made 'em:
Step 1: Look deep into the crystal ball...
Create a new RGB Photoshop file that is 128 pixels by 128 pixels and 72 pixels/inch in resolution. Set the contents to "Transparent" and click OK. Set your ruler units to show pixels and set two horizontal guides, one at 1 pixel from the top of the canvas and another at 112 pixels. Set two vertical guides also, one at 8 pixels from the left edge and another at 119 pixels from the left edge. Name this layer "Aqua Sphere".
Within these guides, create a colored circle. You can either draw a selection and fill it with a color of your choosing or use the ellipse tool to draw your shape the same color as your foreground color.
This all seems pretty intricate and tedious but that is only because I'm showing you how to match my icons exactly. Once you've gone through the tutorial successfully, you'll probably be comfortable enough to experiment with other sizes, shapes and colors. You'll soon see that this is the hardest part of the tutorial.
Download the MacMerc Aqua Sphere Style, load it into your Styles palette and apply the style to your circle. I told you it would be easy.
Now duplicate the Aqua Sphere layer. Name the duplicate "Aqua Sphere Overlay". Lock the transparency of the Aqua Sphere Overlay layer and fill it with 50% gray. Now you'll need to download the MacMerc Aqua Sphere Overlay Style, load it into your Styles palette and apply that style to the Aqua Sphere Overlay layer.
| Other uses for this tutorial: If you just happened along this tutorial while looking for information on how to make quick and dirty Aqua spheres, you're done. If you want to Aqua buttons, there's not much more to it. Just make you document about 3 times wider, create an Aqua button shape and apply the MacMerc Aqua Sphere Style to it. You might want to scale the effect by about 150% and extend the canvas below the button to accommodate the larger drop shadow.
Notice is this screen shot I have not show an extended canvas. See how the canvas ends before the drop shadow fades out completely? That's bad...very bad. |
Now, hopefully you have a subject for your icon ó something to embed within the glassy sphere you've just created. Go look for something appropriate and meet me back here for... Part 2
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