Tutorial 03: Aragorn
*looks at previous four posts*
*realizes Obi-wan is taking over*

But never fear, Aragorn is alive and well! So here's my third tutorial.
Making this icon:

I did it in PSP 9, but I think it will translate pretty easily again.

As usual, this isn't meant to be followed word for word. Be creative, and adjust things to what looks best for your image.

Finally, if you have any questions, be sure to ask.

Here's the image we start with, simply cropped and resized from the original:


Sharpen it by going to Adjust-->Sharpness-->Sharpen. I decided I wanted the base to be a bit sharper still, so I duplicated it, sharpened the upper layer again (upper layer only) and lowered its opacity to 60. I then merged the two layers (Layer-->Merge-->Merge All).


Duplicate this sharpened base twice. Leave the bottom layer as it is. Set the blend mode of the middle one to Screen, and the blend mode of the top one to Overlay. Also, I desaturated the top layer (Adjust-->Hue and Saturation-->Hue/Saturation/Lightness and drag the Saturation slider to the bottom) and lowered its opacity to 70.
Merge all.


Duplicate it once again. Desaturate the upper layer, set its blend mode to Screen, and adjust the opacity. I set mine to 54.
Merge all.


Now, take the following light texture (it's made by me, and as usual, you're welcome to use it) and paste it onto your icon.


Set its blend mode to Screen. Then, use the Raster Deform tool to move and rotate it until it looks the way you want. Duplicating the light on top of itself will make it brighter. You can also move around duplicates of the it to arrange it exactly. Finally, you can use the eraser to erase any parts that interfere with your image.
When you're happy with how it looks, merge the layers.
This is what I ended up with:

(You don't see a whole lot of the light, because it's against an already pale background, and I erased most of what covered Aragorn's face--but I did like having a reddish gleam around his eye and shoulder.)

Finally, the text.
I wrote "open war" in Book Antiqua, size 5, in black, with the kerning (spacing between letters) at 124. All caps, of course.
The tiny text is in Arial Black, size 1, in black, with the kerning at 1000 (the highest it can be in PSP).

This is the end result:





Oh, and since I'm continuing in my own strange tradition of posting a tutorial before I post an icon itself, you can take the icon if you like. Just let me know, credit, and don't hotlink (of course). :)