The Social Buzz Icon Pack contains 12 icons for some of the most popular social networks out there. Each icon has been masterfully crafted by the folks over at IconShock.com.

Included in the set are:

• Bebo Icon
• Delicious Icon
• Digg Icon
• Facebook Icon
• Flickr Icon
• Google Buzz Icon
• Linked In Icon
• MySpace Icon
• Reddit Icon
• Stumble Upon Icon
• Technorati Icon
• Twitter Icon

I will be using Photoshop CS4 for this tutorial, but all of the features I will use are available in previous versions of Photoshop. Or in any decent photo-editing software.

Primary Color Correction

In this tutorial, our work will be primary color correction. “Primary color correction affects the whole image, utilizing control over intensities of red, green, blue, gamma (mid tones), shadows (blacks) and highlights (whites).”

Overview

Before we begin, you’ll want to be sure that you have at least a novice understanding of the following tools in your photo-editing program: Curves, Hue/Saturation, Photo Filter, and Black & White adjustment layer.

Monochrome and Sepia

A monochromatic image is one whose range of colors consists of shades of a single color or hue.

Step 1: First, let’s make our image grayscale. There are various ways to do this, but we’ll look at just two:

I think the best way is to use the Black & White adjustment layer. (This can be found at the bottom of the Layers toolbox.) What is so great about this adjustment layer is the ability to control the luminance of the 6 primary and secondary colors – red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow with the sliders. This is a very useful tool for fine-tuning the the tonal range of your image.

However, the Black & White adjustment layer is only in Photoshop CS3 and newer. So, if you’re using an older version, skip to the next step.

Step 2: Apply the Hue & Saturation adjustment layer. Click the Colorize checkbox and this will automatically desaturate and tint your image. However, the Hue is wrong. So set the Hue to 35. Now it’s starting to look right.

Step 3: Lastly, perfect color brightness of your image with the sliders in the Black & White adjustment layer. Use the eyedropper tool that comes with the filter to select the part of the image you want to alter and it will hightlight which color is in range. But be careful not to drastically change the colors or you’ll be in danger of posterizing the image.

Usually changes solely in the Black & White filter are not enough to correct the image; so apply a Curves adjustment layer on top and get your image looking right. (It’s best to do these steps last – after your color adjustments – so that you’re seeing and effecting the color-corrected spectrum.)

And, for sepia, you’re done.

Rollover Image

In addition, using other monochromatic color schemes are done the same way. Instead of setting the Hue to 35, move the slider to the color of your choice. You also could up the Saturation a bit to make the colors pop. (For the image below, I set the Hue to 295 and the Saturation to 35.)

Rollover Image

Bleach Bypass

A popular image treatment is the bleach bypass. In actual film-developing, this means skipping the bleaching process. This leaves a silver tint on the photograph, as if the black-and-white and color image had been combined. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Step 1: Apply the Black & White adjustment layer once again to your image. (Or desaturate with a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer.) Then, the only alteration we need to do is in the blending mode: change it from Normal to Overlay.

Step 2: Apply a Curves adjustment layer on top. A characteristic of most bleach-bypassed images is increased contrast. So add a contrast curve to your image. But be careful. Adjustments should be minor at this stage because the image has a lot of contrast. Make sure you’re not overexposing in the highlights or underexposing in the shadows.

Rollover Image

Quick Color Theory

Before we begin working on our next style, we’re going to talk quickly about color theory.

Take a look at the color wheels below. You’ll notice the three primary colors in our RGB color model: red, green and blue. Then, in between those you’ll notice the secondary colors of CMY: cyan, magenta, and yellow. Secondary colors are formed by the sum of two primary colors: cyan is green + blue, magenta is red + blue, and yellow is red + green. Simple enough.

The secondary colors are opposite on the color wheel to the primary colors. Hence:

Red – Cyan

Green – Magenta

Blue – Yellow

Another six tertiary colors are created by mixing primary and secondary colors. But we don’t need to get into that in detail right now.

The primary and secondary colors, and their relation to each other, are important for us to know. In the Curves adjustment layer you can effect color in the red, green, and blue channels separately. So, for instance, any adjustments upward of the diagonal line in the red channel increase the red in the image. Lowering, below the diagonal line, increases the cyan. The other channels are the same: Upward in the green channel, green; lower, magenta. Upward in the blue channel, blue; lower yellow.

Blockbuster/Fashion Look

Ok, now that we got that covered, let’s begin. This style is used a lot in big summer movies, such as the Transformer films. It’s also popular in fashion photography.

First off, take a look at the picture above. In an effort to create this look, determine the color hue and tint of the shadows, midtones, and highlights. Most importantly, the shadows and highlights. You’ll notice that the shadows are very bluish and the highlights – mainly the part of the image containing the skin tones – are, well, the color of skin.

This is a complementary color scheme. Meaning the colors used, blue and orange, are opposite each other on the color wheel.

When working with humans in your compositions, you have to take the skin tone into account. You can’t have people turning green, magenta, or blue. That would look odd. Skin will always be between orange, orange-yellow (tertiary), and yellow. Therefore to complement the subject, generally use opposite colors: between cyan, blue or blue-violet (tertiary).

Now that we know this, let’s stylize our photo.

Step 1: Apply a Curves adjustment layer to your image.

Step 2: In the color dropdown menu, change from RGB – which affects the overall brightness and contrast of the image – to blue. We’ll work backwards up the list, starting with blue and ending with RGB.

What we’ll want to do is bring the lower end of the curves slider up. This will increase the blue in the shadows. Next, to compensate for our first adjustment, we’ll want to decrease the blue in the highlights – taking it towards yellow – so that the skin tones stay closer to being correct.

Step 3: You’ll notice that the image has quite a purple tint to it. This is because the green and red channels are at equal intensity. To get a more blue color you can either go to the green channel and raise the shadows, or go to the red and lower the shadows. But there’s a difference here and you would do well to note it: If you were to raise the green shadows, the image would get slightly lighter and loses contrast. If you lower the red shadows, the image gets darker and gains contrast. The first is subtracting color and the second is adding.

In most cases, you’ll want to go with the option that subtracts, not adds.

And that’s what we’ll do. Go to the green channel, and bring it up just enough to take the purplish-tint out of the image. This is where you can decide between how much blue-violet or cyan you’d like in your blue-tinted shadows.

Step 4: At this point, you may need to go back to the blue channel and make sure the skin tone looks good. Not too blue and not too yellow. Adjust the highlights and midtones until you’re satisfied.

Step 5: Now we can go to the RGB or master channel. Finalize the luminance and contrast of your image. All I had to do with this image was lower the shadows.

I’m sitting pretty with a great look.

Step 6: Lastly, you can complement your image with one more filter. Increasing the blue in the shadows flooded the image with a bit too much color. Add a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer and drop the saturation to around -10.

The change is ever so slight. But, it’s perfection. And now you’ve got a blockbuster or fashion-style image. Smashing.

Rollover Image

Bronze

Like in the film, 300, you can give your image quite a cool bronze look. This is similar to a sepia effect; however, the image shouldn’t be monochrome. Vibrant colors and those opposite to the bronze tonal region are still visible and actually stand out nicely, while the lights and the darks take on the bronze tint.

Let’s use a picture with more colors and a larger tonal range. It’ll be easier to see what’s happening.

Step 1: Start by applying a Photo Filter adjustment layer to your image. Change the filter color to Sepia and set the density between 90 to 100 percent. Make sure the preserve luminosity box is checked.

Step 2: Add a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer next. Desaturate the image anywhere from -10 to -50. Do what looks good to you.

Step 3: Add that trusty Curves adjustment layer. The bronze-style looks quite good with extra contrast. Make a nice contrast curve.

Step 4: An optional step, one which I think looks good, is to add a little diffusion. You can achieve this by duplicating your image layer (and keeping it under the effects). Next, apply a gaussian blur to the layer. Do not blur too much! If you put too much blur, your final image will look like it’s from a dream sequence – very soft.

For this picture, I’m using a 2.5 pixel blur.

Change the blending mode of the blurred image to Overlay. You’ll notice how contrasty your image gets. To keep it from getting too soft, change the fill anywhere from 25 to 50 percent. Then, compensate for the contrast accordingly with your curves layer.

That’s it for the big, bold, bronze look. This kid is vicious on his scooter. Watch out.

Rollover Image

Conclusion

Bear in mind that there are many ways to achieve these looks and styles. There is no correct process or proceedure. Different colorists use different tools. To each his own. Find out what works best for you.

Also, remember that each picture you add these effects to will react differently. You shouldn’t expect these settings – or one specific procedure – to work equally well on all your pictures. It will vary due to the levels or amounts of shadows, highlights, colors, and contrast, etc.

The tendency can be to go overboard with effects. Do your best to use them sparingly and appropriately. When in doubt, less is more.

Go out and take your knowledge further by emulating styles and effects you see in magazines, films, or on the web. That’s a great way to learn. Have fun.

Even if you’ve taken a good photo, chances are it can be improved or it needs to be adjusted to work in a collage or collection. Or even to just to intensify a mood. You can always make a good thing better – and curves is a one-stop-shop way to do that.

With curves you are able to:

• Adjust the over-all contrast or tonal range
• Adjust the local contrast or tonal range
• Adjust the color

Let’s jump in and find out how. It’s simpler than it looks.

Overview

The idea behind Curves is all about re–mapping values. A pixel starts out at a certain brightness, and you change it to be brighter or darker.

The curves box opens as a straight line because you haven’t made any changes yet. That means that the brightness values before and after are the same. You will effect a change by changing the shape of the curve.

The points from left (bottom) to right (top) affect: blacks, shadows, midtones, highlights, and whites. By altering the position in these regions will affect the corresponding tonal range of your image. Leaving the line in the center will leave the tones unchanged.

You begin altering the brightness values by clicking once somewhere on the line. This will establish a “point”; this point can now be dragged to a different place within the grid, which causes that tonal value to change, either lighter or darker depending on whether you drag it up or down. The reason it’s a curve is so that the change blends smoothly throughout the image. An abrupt change in value can be very noticeable. The increasingly gradual change of the brightness values on either side of the change permit a very smooth and believable adjustment.

It’s important to note, however, that you can’t increase contrast in one region without decreasing it in another. The curves tool redistributes contrast. Therefore think of the image having a contrast allocation or budget and you need to decide how to best spend it.

Also, the curves tool will preserve the tonal hierarchy (unless you use uncommon negative slopes). That means that the brighter parts of the image will stay brighter even after your conversion – just maybe not by the same amount.

S- and Inverted S-Curves

Rollover Image

The S-Curve and the Inverted S-Curve are two curves most commonly used. The S-Curve adds contrast to the midtones while subtracting from the shadows and highlights. The Inverted S-Curve does the opposite.

Often in photography, it’s difficult to expose your image perfectly. Brightness or darkness in tonal ranges can benefit from optimization. The S-Curve is often useful in these cases – not to mention, quick and simple.

Empty Tonal Range and Histograms

Rollover Image

One very useful and important function of curves is to correct empty tonal ranges – in the histogram edges (blacks and whites) or gaps in between (shadows, midtones, and highlights). An under exposed image can be helped by pulling in the black and white points to correct the exposure.

Or if there are gaps in between the tonal peaks you can decrease contrast in specific parts of your image – thereby freeing up the contrast to be used in the more visible areas of your image.

Clipped Highlights

Rollover Image

Images containing a bright light source, such as the sun, can often be harsh or posterized (also called color banding). Posterization of an image entails conversion of a continuous gradation of tone to several regions of fewer tones, with abrupt changes from one tone to another. This can create an unrealistic look, and often a smoother transition to white is preferred.

Correcting Color Balance

All curves thus far have been applied to RGB values of luminosity. But they can also be used on individual color channels to correct color casts in specific tonal regions. Often the color in an image is correctly balanced, but due to reflection or a light source with a varying temperature or color, you may see unwanted tints in a tonal region. Changing the white balance or adjusting the overall color would inadvertently harm the other tones. So we can selectively increase or decrease the amount of a color cast in the red, green, and blue channels to achieve perfect balance.

Any adjustments upward of the diagonal line in the red channel increase the red in the image. Lowering, below the diagonal line, increases the cyan. The other channels are the same: Upward in the green channel, green; lower, magenta. Upward in the blue channel, blue; lower yellow.

RGB color images should be thought of as being comprised of a composite channel and three grayscale channels containing the values of the three colors – red, green and blue. This is shown in the example above of the red on the left, green in the middle, and blue on the right.

Window > Channels to see this on your image.

Rollover Image

You can see in the image above that there is a slight blueish cast in the color tone. Not to mention, the image is slightly washed out (improperly exposed).

As you can see, the sky is already quite white, so we won’t want to effect the highlights and above. By lowering the curve in the midtones and shadows, without effecting the highlights, we solve the exposure problem. Then we’ll get rid of the blue color cast: By lowering the blue in the low end, we eliminate the problem and the gowns go to black – as they should be.

Blending Modes

Also, curves adjustment layers (Layer>New Adjustment Layer> Curves) can be set to make curves only apply to a channel – such as Color and/or Luminosity – which allows for further, varied control. Another benefit is that it can make your adjustments more subtle through use of the opacity controls for the layer.

Notes

Practice makes perfect. The more you use the tools and techniques available to you the better you’ll get, improve your photography, and have fun.

Here are some things to remember when using the curves tool:

• Minimize use of the curves tool, as anything which stretches the image histogram increases the possibility posterization.
• Avoid the use of the curves tool on an already altered image.
• Perform curves on 16-bit images when possible. (Image > Mode > 16 Bits/Channel)
• For extreme levels of color correction, consider applying curves using LAB mode.

Photoshop Tutorials

Super Easy Typographic Portrait in Photoshop

This tutorial, from Abduzeedo, will show you how to use the Displace filter and some Blend Modes to a great looking typographic portrait.

Create a Stylish Grunge Poster with 3D Typography in Photoshop

This tutorial shows you how to make a great looking grunge poster in Photohop. Blending modes, stock images and filters are used to create some cool effects.

How to Create a Somber Composition in Photoshop

In this tutorial, from PSDTuts+, you’ll learn how to manipulate stock images and other objects to create this amazing composition.

How to Give a Retro Look to Your Photos

The tutorial is perfect for Photoshop beginners who are looking to understand how to manipulate colors using adjustment layers and filters.

How to Make a Worn Vintage Beach Ad in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a worn out vintage beach ad in Photoshop. Brushes, color editing, filters, and masking are just some of the techniques used.

How to Create a Dark and Mysterious TV-Head Scene

This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to replace a person’s head with a television—and how to create a stormy sky using brush strokes.

Neon with Layer Styles

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a cool neon looking effect using basic techniques such as Layer Styles and a few brushes.

How To Create a Detailed Apple iPad Icon in Photoshop

With the news of the Apple tablet called the iPad, Chris Spooner, wrote this tutorial on how to create a detailed iPad icon.

Create a Professional Web 2.0 Layout

In this Photoshop tutorial you’re going to learn how to create a professional website layout. A lot of techniques are used and all of them are explained in great detail.

Design a Brilliant Product Advertisement

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the steps and techniques involved in creating a great looking ad that integrates the use of multiple images. Also Check Out: Abduzeedo’s Version.

Illustrator Tutorials

Create an Abstract, Textured Artwork in Illustrator

In this tutorial, you’ll use the Blend Tool, Paintbrush Tool and textures to create a stunning abstract piece of art.

Make Watercolor and Marker Style Portraits with Illustrator

This tutorial will teach you the techniques used to create digital portrait illustrations that have the unique feel of marker and watercolor.

Create A Briefcase Icon

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a briefcase icon with basic shapes and gradients. You’ll also learn some useful techniques that can be used for other projects.

Create An Editable Stitched Label Type Treatment

This tutorial, from Vectips, uses Appearance panel in Illustrator making it easy to edit the text and apply the treatment to other fonts and vector elements.

Create A Mouthwatering Chocolate Covered Strawberry

In this tutorial, you’ll learn tricks and techniques to create a chocolate covered strawberry but can also be used in an array of projects.

How to Design a Cheeky Koala Mascot Head

This great tutorial from VectorTuts+, will show you how to combine basic shapes, blending modes and smart coloring to create a koala illustration.

Learn Gorgeous New Shading Skills

This tutorial from Digital Arts, teaches you how to transform a pencil sketch into a beautiful, digital artwork using Illustrator and Photoshop.

Lego Bricks Typeface

This great tutorial on Vectordiary teaches you how to convert the beloved LEGO bricks into a cool looking typeface in Illustrator.

How to Create a Seamless Argyle Pattern in Illustrator

A great screencast tutorial from Colorburned that explains the steps needed to create a seamless arglyle pattern.

Web Tutorials

Share Feedback with Twitter and the Bit.ly API

This tutorial from the guys of Build Internet will walk you through the creation of a customizable “Tweet this” link that integrates Bit.ly API and acts as a type of inderect polling system.

Tips for Designing Unique and Attractive Blog Posts

It’s interesting that as time goes by, more and more designers are “Art Directing” their blog posts. This article on Line25, gives some tips on how to do it right.

Also Check Out: The death of the Boring Blog Post?

How to Code up a Web Design from PSD to HTML

This is part two of a tutorial that created a website layout in Photoshop. In this tutorial, that design is now converted into HTML and CSS.

Design a Prettier Web Form with CSS 3

This tutorial, on Nettuts+, will teach you how to create a lightweight and beautiful form and help you learn and understand CSS3 effects that can really spice up a design.

The Principle of Contrast in Web Design

A well designed website has contrast to establish some type of visual hierarchy. This article, from Web Design Ledger, explains how contrast can be achieved in a website design.

Fundamentals for a Kick-Ass Creative Company

A great post from the guys at Build Internet that explains their answer to a simple question: What makes an awesome company on the inside?

How to Guest Post Properly to Build Your Readership

In this great guest post by James Chartrand on Fuel Your Blogging, you’ll learn how to get your guest articles accepted and how to make the best of the opportunity.

5 Bad Work at Home Habits: Are You Guilty?

Working at home can have many advantages. However, it also has its temptations. This article on Freelance Folder talks about the five most common pitfalls of working at home, why they’re bad, and how you can avoid or overcome them.

Freebies, Inspiration & Resources

Free Medical Icons Set (60 Icons)

60 original medical icons in .png 32 bit in resolutions 32×32px and 128×128px. This set was designed by the user interface design agency Centigrade and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

NIXUS Icon Pack: 60 Beautiful Premium Icons

A great new icon pack here on Tutorial9 called NIXUS is great for corporate and creative situations or any other project.

Lighting Effects Pack – 50 Free Brushes and Images

This is a great freebie pack from Media Militia that’s filled with 50 different types of glowing light streaks. The pack is available as either Photoshop Brushes or images. Great for your personal or commercial projects.

Creative and Inspirational Wedding Invitation Cards

Ahh… the day of your wedding is a special one. What makes it even better is a beautiful invitation. This is a inspiring showcase of some of the best wedding invitations.

A Showcase of 50 Amazing Personal Blog Web Designs

A beautiful & inspiring showcase of blog designs that capture the personality and writing style of its owners.

A Showcase of Beautiful Typography in Web Design

An amazing showcase from Line25 of websites that use typography effectively to communicate their message.

50 Stunning Pieces of 3D Typography for Inspiration

Inspiration can be found in a variety of places, one of them being light art. In this round-up Matthew Kammerer did a great job in collecting some beautiful forms of light art.

Weapons of Mass Creation Interview: Fuel Brand Inc.

GoMedia had a chat with Adelle Charles & Joshua Smibert of Fuel Brand, Inc and talked about their background, goals, and views on the design industry. Very interesting interview complete with a video and conversation transcript.

Get Featured in Creative Bookmarks

If you’d like to be featured in the next volume of Creative Bookmarks, simply send us you’re tutorial, resource, or article link before the end of the month. If we think it’s a top notch link, we’ll be sure to share it with all of our readers!

Email & Other Subscription Options

Step 1: Setting Up

Make a new document with these settings:

Next, select the fill tool (G) and fill it with #626262. Now, we need to make a new adjustment layer. Make a brightness/contrast layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast). Put it on these parameters.

We add this adjustment layer so as everything looks better in the later stages.

Step 2: Making the Circle

Select the circular marquee tool and use these settings:

Make a selection and fill it with #649ad2. Then, grab a soft eraser, on a low opacity, and erase some areas like this:

This is so that it looks more 3D, and later on, it’ll add a nice transparent feel to our icon.

When you’re happy, and you have a similar result to the one above, add these Layer FX to it, to make it look better.

You should now have something resembling this:

Step 3: Making the Circle 3D

In this step, we’re going to make the circle look 3D. The theory of this is simple. You think about where the light is coming from, then add shadows and highlights to fit your light source if you keep this consistent, then you’ll have a much better final result. Below is some light theory that should make it easier for you.

OK, grab your circular marquee tool, set it to 10px Feather and make it 200px by 200px. There are many different ways of getting highlights/gloss and shadows. My favourite, and I think one of the best ways to get gloss is like this.

Change the layer mode to multiply

And then, with white as your foreground colour, add this Layer FX

Shadows are much easier to make, and in a way, more powerful. You can have more highlights than shadows, because shadows are more obvious. For a shadow, simply make a circle, you can vary this and the feather px. Then, you can set it to soft light, overlay or of course, normal, it really comes down to which one you like best.

With the shadows, you can make them very discreet, yet they still play a very important part in the eventual outcome of the icon. Highlights are less noticeable, so you can add more of them, but with shadows, they play a bigger part; and have more of an impact.

The worst thing you can do when shadowing is zoom in too far. When you do that, you can’t see the whole image, and so you can’t really tell if it looks right. Make sure that when shadowing, you can see the whole image, and you’re thinking about what you’re doing!

By now, you should have a well highlighted and shadowed 3D sphere, resembling this. Don’t worry if it looks a little strange at this point, it’ll all come together later on.

Step 4: Adding Detail

Now, that looks OK. I added some highlights on the right that add a lot; I used the highlight technique described above. In this step, we are going to make those really nice 3D looking lines. The way to do this is simple, which we’ll find out in a bit.

Select your pen tool and get a brush size of 3px wide. You want to use these settings for the pen tool.

Next, we want to start drawing paths like this:

Set your brush size to around 3 – 5pxNow, for PC users, press right click > stroke path, for Mac users; CTRL + click > stroke path. When you stroke paths, there are two types of stroke paths. With simulated pressures and without simulated pressures. Here is an example of both.

If it doesn’t work, you may need to reset your brushes here’s how to do that:

In the next step, we’ll work out how to make these lines aid the 3D look.

Step 5: Detailing the Detail

You probably have some white lines now, looking 3D, but not merging into the icon. Set the layers to soft light or overlay, you can also lower the opacity and/or the fill of the lines. You can also get a soft eraser to erase some areas to make it look more 3D.

If you look carefully, you will also see not only the very distinct circles, which I’ll tell you how to do later; but also the very faint ones. To make both of them, grab the circular marquee tool with these parameters:

You can then edit the layer styles. For mine, I simply set the opacity to 50%. But you could set it to soft light or overlay.

For the faint ones, but it below every ‘line’ layer, and set it to soft light or overlay and lower the opacity.

In the next step, we’ll make 3D paths, that really add to the image.

Step 6: 3D Paths

This is a really short step, but it adds a lot.

Firstly, get your pen tool open, and then follow these steps.

Step 7: Making the Basic Box

If you want to have something to trace around, you can do so around here. But of course, if you want to make your own, go for it! When you’re tracing, use the pen tool, and make each side on a new layer. Then, fill the paths with white (#ffffff). Then add these layer FX to every side.

On the ‘front’ sides, set the fill to 15% and the ‘back’ sides to 10%. This’ll get it looking transparent.

In the next step, we’ll work on making it more 3D.

Step 8: Highlighting the Box

Remember that highlight technique earlier? Well, use that technique on paths like this. Make a new layer above each box ’side’ and then make a path accordingly. To make ’swirly’ paths, make two points, then; click in the middle of the path and drag it up/down left/right and it’ll make a nice path. Have a look at this example.

Then, select the right ’side’ layer and press CTRL + SHIFT + I or for Mac users CMND + SHIFT + I, then press delete. In the next step we will look at adding more detail into the box.

Step 9: Adding Details to the Box

In this step, there’s not going to be much writing, more annotated pictures. I am using the techniques for stroking paths, highlights and shadows that we looked at earlier to make the box, and anything you seen in these pictures.

Step 10: Making Everything Glow

That looks good, but… Not full of that striking glow. To get something to glow, it’s really easy. Simply get an airbrush, 100-300px and just paint on white. For background highlights, make new layers at the bottom and highlight there. For more centralised ones, do it on top, and maybe in a smaller brush.

To get a better glow-type look, adding lots of layers on 5-10% opacity will look much better than two or three on 40%. You can also add blue highlights to give it more of a glow.

Step 11: Finishing Details

The icon looks good, but it’d be nice to add a bit more shadow. Make a new layer at the top (behind your contrast one) and fill it with black (#000000) and set the fill to 0%. Then add these layer styles and you have a nice shadowed look.

And you’ll have a nice shadowed look to your image.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we’ve learnt about strokes, layering, shadowing, highlighting, layer FX, layer modes, opacity and fill. Put together you can make so many amazing things in Photoshop, so good luck; and make sure you check Tutorial9 frequently for tutorials!

I hope you enjoyed creating your own internet icon!

A large version of the final image can be seen here.

Download the PSD (or source files)

NIXUS may be one of our top Icon Pack releases to date: 60 Premium Quality Icons—Absolutely Free. While many of our other Icon Packs are great for creative use, NIXUS proves to be compatible in both corporate and creative situations. You won’t find many other free icons packs with this kind of quality online.

Each icon comes in transparent .png format in 64×64px, 48×48px, and 32×32px.

If you do not want to complete part one of this tutorial, you can download the source files created in that lesson here.

Step 1 – HTML

Different people will require a button for different purposes. The remainder of this tutorial will explain a simple scenario where the button functions as a simple download link. Create a link to an imaginary (or real) file for download:

<a href="path/to/download.zip" class="button"></a>

Step 2 – CSS

Add the following CSS to your HTML document:

.button {
	width:570px;
	height:64px; /* Notice that the height is not the height of the whole sprite, but the height of one single button */
	display:block;
	background-image:url(images/downloadbutton.png); /*path to the sprite*/
	background-position: top; /* the background position (in combination with the height!) makes it possible that only the top of the whole sprite will be visible */
}

When you apply the CSS code above, you will only see the grey button, because it’s positioned on top and the height is 64px

Link hover button

.button:hover{
	width:570px;
	background-position: bottom;
	height:64px;
	background-image:url(images/downloadbutton.png) no repeat;
}

When you apply the CSS code above, you will only see the green button when you hover the download button, because it’s positioned at the bottom and the height is 64px

Demo: View Live Demo

Step 3 – Fading hover effect

This step is not necessary, but it’s an optional step. The transition will be smoothed with JavaScript. We’re going to use the popular jQuery library.

The original tutorial comes from this website. I’ll do my best to explain.

Step 4 – Add code between the head tags

Download jQuery. First we need to refer in the head to the .js file that we’ve just downloaded.

<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script>

After that we can add the following code between the head tags.

<script type="text/javascript"&gt
	$(document).ready(function() {
		// Add the class 'button' just like in CSS with a dot in front of it
		$('.button').append('<span class="hover"&gt</span&gt').each(function () {
	  		var $span = $('&gt span.hover', this).css('opacity', 0);
	  		$(this).hover(function () {
	    		$span.stop().fadeTo(500, 1); //Change the number 500 to change the speed of the Fade In
	 		}, function () {
	   	$span.stop().fadeTo(500, 0); //Change the number 500 to change the speed of the Fade Out
	  		});
		});
	});
</script>

Step 5 – Edit the CSS

.button {
	position:relative;
	display:block;
	height: 64px;
	width: 570px;
	background:url(images/downloadbutton.png) no-repeat;
	background-position: top;
}

.button span.hover { /*notice the different class: span.hover*/
	position: absolute;
	display: block;
	height: 64px;
	width: 570px;
	background: url(images/downloadbutton.png) no-repeat;
	background-position: bottom;
}

View Live Demo to check the result.

Download the source files (PSD included)