However, I seem to be stuck when it comes to making layers...Do you make your own or do you grab them from somewhere...and if you do...
Well you make your own layers but you can use textures made by other people as layer on top of your original picture to prettify it.
On Photoshop, you want to make sure that the Layers palette is visible. You go to "Window" and select that option that has "Layers" in it (in my Photoshop 6.0, it says "Show Layers"). This will make the Layers palette show up.
Once that's open, you can open your image and the Layers palette will show your image as being the background. You double-click around the word "Background" and then you can unlock the background. You can also add new layers by clicking the "New Layer" button on the bottom of the Layers palette (it should be next to the trashcan icon, which, by the way, lets you get rid of layers that you make). If you've gotten your image all icon-sized (100x100 pixels), you can do all sorts of stuff by putting layers on top of it. You can just create a new layer and just fill all of it with one color and then use the options on top of the Layers palette to do cool things like "Color Burn" or "Screen"; the idea is to play around and try different things. This is also where textures come in, you dowload them and save them to your computer and then you can open them in Photoshop, copy and paste them to your icon and try to do interesting effects with the Layers palette options.
Hopefully, this helps you... and if it doesn't, I would suggest how_2_photoshop, which has tutorials that probably explain better than I can... :D. Good luck with your photoshopping!
no subject
However, I seem to be stuck when it comes to making layers...Do you make your own or do you grab them from somewhere...and if you do...
Well you make your own layers but you can use textures made by other people as layer on top of your original picture to prettify it.
On Photoshop, you want to make sure that the Layers palette is visible. You go to "Window" and select that option that has "Layers" in it (in my Photoshop 6.0, it says "Show Layers"). This will make the Layers palette show up.
Once that's open, you can open your image and the Layers palette will show your image as being the background. You double-click around the word "Background" and then you can unlock the background. You can also add new layers by clicking the "New Layer" button on the bottom of the Layers palette (it should be next to the trashcan icon, which, by the way, lets you get rid of layers that you make). If you've gotten your image all icon-sized (100x100 pixels), you can do all sorts of stuff by putting layers on top of it. You can just create a new layer and just fill all of it with one color and then use the options on top of the Layers palette to do cool things like "Color Burn" or "Screen"; the idea is to play around and try different things. This is also where textures come in, you dowload them and save them to your computer and then you can open them in Photoshop, copy and paste them to your icon and try to do interesting effects with the Layers palette options.
Hopefully, this helps you... and if it doesn't, I would suggest