Starlight-Tales.com :: Fanfic, Fanvids & More

Starlight Tales… fanfic and fanvids across the fandoms, free hosting, icon tutorials, downloads and more…

Axl and Stephanie - Tutorial by thestalkycop
From this: to this: using psp7, though it should translate fairly simply.

First I started with this cap of Axl and Stephanie (or Mayne and Elizabeth, if you want to be pedantic) from the November Rain video.

I cropped and resized it to 100x100 and sharpened it twice.

I then smoothed out the skin on Steph and Axl’s faces with the soften tool, and I ended up with this.

When softening I tend to make lots of little clicks rather than sweeping motions with the brush, it takes longer but makes the end result a little better. You probably won’t see much difference in the two pictures, but I skipped this step first time around and the end result was a little pixely.

Now, merge everything, and duplicate what you have.

Desaturate your new layer. Adjust > Hue/Saturation/Lightness with these settings:
Edit: Master
Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0
(or click this link to see what you’re supposed to be looking at).

Set the layer to Hard Light at 88% opacity and you should end up with this:

Repeat the process, (duplicate the layer and desaturate) and set this one to Screen at 71% opacity.

Make a new raster layer, set it to Burn at 54% opacity and flood it with this lovely gradient from here

And you get this.

So as a quick recap, your layer settings should look like this:

Add text if you want.
I made a tutorial about the glowing text effect a few months ago, it can be found here - I also posted it to this community, but couldn't find it.

I hope that this tutorial was of help to you guys.

Icon Tutorials by thestalkycop

main site

	First I started with this cap of Axl and Stephanie (or Mayne and Elizabeth, if you want to be pedantic) from the November Rain video.
	I cropped and resized it to 100x100 and sharpened it twice.
	I then smoothed out the skin on Steph and Axl’s faces with the soften tool, and I ended up with this. When softening I tend to make lots of little clicks rather than sweeping motions with the brush, it takes longer but makes the end result a little better. You probably won’t see much difference in the two pictures, but I skipped this step first time around and the end result was a little pixely. Now, merge everything, and duplicate what you have.
Desaturate your new layer. Adjust > Hue/Saturation/Lightness with these settings: Edit: Master Hue: 0 Saturation: -100 Lightness: 0 (or click this link to see what you’re supposed to be looking at).
	Set the layer to Hard Light at 88% opacity and you should end up with this:
	Repeat the process, (duplicate the layer and desaturate) and set this one to Screen at 71% opacity.
	Make a new raster layer, set it to Burn at 54% opacity and flood it with this lovely gradient from here
	And you get this.