acrossthe_pond

No it hasn't died...

2006-09-07T13:21:00Z

Alright guys so it's been a little quiet here, but that's because i've been busy on holiday and i'll be going to uni fairly soon. However sometime soon i'll write a tutorial on how to make something like this:

Yay or Nay?

Alicia Keys

2006-06-18T23:37:46Z

Just a wallpaper from me today...hopefully my inspiration will return full blast soon. Enjoy, darlings :)

Anne Hathaway repost

2006-06-13T16:48:43Z

These are just ones that you might have seen on a while back on my personal journal, but for those who haven't seen them, well take a look. :) I've skipped a Shannyn Sossamon set, because I want to come back to it and makes some more icons, with a better wallpaper.

Teaser (6 icons//1 wallpaper)

1. 2.
3.4.
5.6.

Notes:
+We love comments!
+Any critique is more than welcome!
+Feel free to take and use, credit's nice, but not compulsary.
+Like one? Want a tutorial, just comment and let us know!
+I'm not sure if you can do this on a free account, but does anyone have an idea how to get the icons in the grey box format?

acrossthe_pond @ 2006-06-06T20:43:00

2006-06-06T19:57:54Z

How to make

-Please feel free to friend this journal by clicking here
for resources, icon sets, wallpapers and other tutorials. Friending is just a click away. :P
-Comments are loved, especially how you've done with this tutorial.
-Any critique of the Tutorial is also appreciated.
-You'll have to excuse any oddness with this tutorial, being in the middle of exams takes its toll!

Resources
Arisubox@lj
colorfilter@lj
Hires_hotties community

Other Tutorials from across the pond:

Tutorial #3:Beauxbatons

2006-04-26T20:08:38Z

How to make

-As requested by Zardi :) Hope you like it.

-Decided to make the tutorial an image this time since everyone seems to be going along with it.
-Comments are loved, especially how you've done with this tutorial.
-Any critique of the Tutorial is also appreciated.
-Please feel free to friend this journal by clicking here
for resources, icon sets, wallpapers and other tutorials.

Other Tutorials from across the pond:

3 Jude Law wallpapers

2006-04-08T23:27:22Z

I apologise for the quality of the first one, kinda feel asleep then...

-Enjoy!
-Comment if taking, we love comments!
-Friend for resources, icon sets and tutorials. :)

A Quick Hello

2006-03-30T03:38:34Z

Greetings, all, and welcome to acrossthe_pond!

If you've been following along at home, you've probably realized that this is an icon journal by Julie and Jai...but that the lovely Jai has been doing all the posting. Unfortunately, my college studies are currently taking up every bit of my waking life, leaving little time for that luxury of icon making. So I just wanted to take a moment to say hello.

I'm very excited and proud to be a part of this duo, and I can't wait to get working at some stuff to share with you all...in the mean time, Jai is going to keep doing the excelent job he does :) *pats him on the back*

Welcome again, everyone!

Cheers,
Julie

Tutorial Time Again

2006-03-29T20:02:52Z

So today we shall be making

from various pictures.

-Translatable and simple
-Can work with many pictures
-Shows use of the exclusion layer
-Shows how minimal use of brushes can integrate the texture into the main pictures

The Tutorial!
1. So let's start shall we with a texture as a base. You could carry out this tutorial on a white base, but often this gives a really bland effect. For my base I picked something from tre-textures (http://www.ofthesky.net/tre-xture_icons.html)

2. Then I took the image below and cropped it to the side of the icon width 50 pixels by 100 pixels. Depending on the size or how you want it you can crop it any way preferable. I chose to leave Harry at the bottom and keep a light flash at the top.
The image

The result

3. So here we have the background and the main side image. So now we have to create the three smaller images on the side. So I took the below images and cropped them to fit into one group going downwards. Each image was about 30 in width and 33-34 in height. Firstly I fitted them together on separate layers till I was satisfied, and then merged down (Ctrl+E) to make them into one layer once they were vertically alligned. It often helps to make a guide layer of two black vertical lines on a separate layer and alligning them.

The Images

The result:

This band of pictures was placed about 7-8 pixels from the left hand edge.

4.So yup I think the little piece of texture showing through on the extreme left looked a bit empty. So using the vertical marquee tool shown below I copied a piece of the main Harry image and pasted it onto the left as a new layer.

The vertical marquee tool

The result

5. Next I added a brush right in the centre gap across the textures. This was just to make it look slightly less empty and change the edges of the pictures. The colour I used for this arrow brush (Made by?-If you know please comment and i'll add it here) was #B8A78D.

The Brush

The result

6. I then added the text "Eternal Glory" in "Will and Grace"(from dafont.com) in size 12. I rotated it to fit the gap as shown below:

7.Finally I added a dark blue exclusion layer at 75%opacity. This gives it a more authentic (maybe?) feel.

8.I added a brown 1 pixel border at the top and bottom, but that's up to you really.

Eh Voila!

-I'd love to see what you come up with so please comment. :)
-Add this journal if you can for more tutorials, textures and icons!
-Feel free to copy this with other pictures. :)
-Enjoy!

An alternate result by summer_kisses89, thanks to her for letting me use this to show another beautiful result. :)

<img src="http://i3.tinypic.com/w0kkee.png></a> </lj-cut>

acrossthe_pond @ 2006-03-25T17:14:00

2006-03-25T17:16:27Z

Download it here:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/30862366/

Boring stuff:
-Credit not needed.
-Comment please :)
-Enjoy!

Anne Hathaway Tutorial

2006-03-24T23:32:09Z

Here we go!

Make

from this

-For Photoshop
-Level: Beginner-Intermediate
-What will it show you: Various layer styles, and how to use them in conjunction with light textures.
--Basic curve layers as well
-Just some helpful tips in general (I hope :P)

Base Prep
So firstly let's prepare our base. I'm remaking the icon here, so it may not be as accurate as the first, but here goes. Firstly let's take out lovely base image of Anne Hathaway.

I get my stock images off various celebrity communities on lj, which guarantees high picture quality than google. The main thing about bases is to make sure they are high quality, otherwise the result will not look as good as it could be. That image is from hires_hotties@lj so props to them.

1. So first you will need to crop your base to 100 pixels by 100 pixels. You will often see people telling you to never have the main focus of any icon in the centre, and this is also the case with this icon. This is also due to the fact that it will be shifted later. So with the cropping it looks like this (crop to 100 pixels by 100):

2. So let's get about preparing our lovely base. First let's desaturate the layer (image>adjustments>desaturate). Then duplicate the layer (layer>duplicate) and set the top layer to screen. Merge the layers together (Ctrl+E) and you should get something like this:

3. Now this is where my favourite part of the icon comes into place. Photoshop has a lovely tool called curves. A full tutorial on this can be found here.

Now as said there, you can use curves to make small colour adjustments, such as smoothing out the black and white and so forth. As well as this you can also make colour adjustments instead of having to add gradients.

So if we go to Layer>New adjustment layer>Curves and stick in the following settings:

Curves just rock way too much. As you can see the result of that curves layer is shown on the left there. Merge down again (Ctrl+E)

4. Now if you duplicate the layer, and position the top one to the right (Often looks better if you cut off the focal point by a little bit). As you can see i've done it like below, I also moved the bottom layer to the left a bit:

Then merge down again (Ctrl+E)

It's relatively simple, but I hope you like the effect.

Making it look pretty

5. So we have a lovely image there so far, however the divide may look a bit strange on some images, so you may want to blur it. For now though, lets add some classic dotted lines. I use the ones from the amazing 77 words which can be found
here.
For this icon I did some lines at the top, and one going down over the divide.

(Note i've switched to my original .psd file so the image looks slightly different in proportions, but the tech is still exactly the same.)

6. So that's some dotted lines added, now for the colouring. Now these effects are achieved by light textures. I obtained these ones via lj. The person who makes them is a goddess of textures, and she rocks way too much her journal can be found here. The set that I am using in particular can be found here.
So firstly I thought that the divide needs a bit more colour to it as well as adding some colour to the side bit. I took this texture here:

I moved that to the side so that the coloured part was over the face and most of the divide. Then I set it to lighten at 100% opacity. The lighten layer setting just takes the lighter parts and imprints it. Great to use with most light textures.

Not too shabby eh?

7. Still could be better though? Take this lovely texture also by the even lovelier colorfilter:

I then rotated it to this:

This was then pasted onto the image, and shifted to the right a bit (so that the black border just verges on the image). Next it was set on colour burn (This has the effect of literally burning the colour onto the image). Finally I erased parts that were still covering Anne on the left, this was due to the fact that the yellow was a bit too over-powering on the image. The result is this:

8. Looking good isn't it?, but it still requires that something extra to fill the left hand side, Anne on the left looks a bit strange still black and white. So I took this texture also by colorfilter:

and rotated it to this:

Then I place it on top of the other layers and put it on lighten, opacity 77%. The white really overpowered the image though, so I moved it to the left so you could only see the blue and a bit of the white on her shoulder.

Our final result?

-Hopefully i've credited everyone, but please let me know if I haven't and i'll change.
-PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add this journal. Icons are posted here (and some better sets than the one first posted) as well as various resources. Take a look for yourself. We love friends, especially to this new journal!
-Copy this exactly if you wish, and just enjoy the tutorial!
-Please comment and show results if you can. :)

Rose Byrne

2006-03-24T18:01:00Z

I've posted these elsewhere at my private journal, but i'll move these onto start Celebrity set #1-Rose Byrne.

Teaser(1 wallpaper,3 icons, and 1 header):

Wallpaper

Header

{I'll need to sort out the layout of these things in the future...)

Boring stuff
-Credit not required
-Comment please :)
-Enjoy

acrossthe_pond @ 2006-03-24T17:30:00

2006-03-24T17:30:35Z

Second light texture set:

Download it here:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/30817976/

Boring stuff:
-Credit not needed.
-Comment please :)
-Enjoy!

Welcome

2006-03-24T17:19:28Z

Well here we have it, the graphics journal I promised to do after a few sets. Soon to be with resources, tutorials and image sets. Together with Julie, we both hope you enjoy.

Without further ado here is the first light texture set:

Grab them: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/30817513/

The boring stuff:
-14 light textures
-Credit is not required but loved.
-Please comment if taking, we luff the comments.
-Enjoy!

test

2006-03-24T13:10:51Z

test