#104,840Date Posted:11/20/05 1:14pmSubject:Make your own icons for free with GIMPLast Edit:8/24/06 6:01pm by Merlin(3 edits total)
How to make your own icons... for free.
First off, I am by no means trying to show up Speedracer's thread, I just thought he didn't touch on a few things thoroughly, so here's my walkthrough.
Making Simple Icons
IN ORDER TO FOLLOW THIS FAQ, YOU MUST DOWNLOAD THE GIMP FIRST!
1) First you need to find a pic you want to turn into an icon. My example throughout this thread is going to be a capture of David Ortiz.
2) Right click on the pic and choose "Copy Image". For best results with this step you should use FireFox. Then go to the GIMP and click File -> New. It should bring up this menu.
Change the height and width according to the pic you chose. Look at the top of the FireFox browser while on the page of the icon for these figures. Before you click 'OK', though, double click on the white square behind the black one on the left side of the GIMP. A screen will come up, and put b1b3bc in the HTML notation box.
Click OK and paste the pic of your choice into the new window.
3) Select the free select tool (third one from the left on the first row) and get rid of all the dead space on the pic. Select everything except for the main part of the pic you want and press Ctrl+K to get rid of it. It sounds confusing but you'll get it.
4) Now this is the time consuming part. Get right up into the pic, using the free select tool, and get rid of what's left of the background. Zoom in to 800% and go right up agains the pic. Press Ctrl+K to get rid of the selected parts, and keep zooming back to 100% to see what it looks like. Don't worry if there are a few pixels still the color of the background, because it'll be 80x80 soon and they won't show up.
5) Continue doing that until you get it done.
Again, don't worry if yours looks like mine and you can still see a little background, because it'll be much smaller later and that won't matter.
6) Take the magic wand tool (to the right of the free select) and click on your background. Press Ctrl + I to invert it and then Ctrl + C to copy it.
7) Hit File -> New. Where it says Width and Height, make the smaller number equal the bigger number. Click on Advanced Options and fill the background with BG Color.
8) When the new window pops up, paste your picture into it.
9) Now we need to make it 80x80. Click Layer -> Anchor Layer, then Image -> Scale Image. Where it says Height and Width put in 80 and 80. Continue on.
10) Click Edit -> Copy, then Layer -> Delete Layer. That'll get rid of your picture entirely, but just press Ctrl + V to get it back. Then select the magic wand tool and select the b1b3bc parts. Press Ctrl + K, but this time it'll make the background transparent.
11) Image -> Mode -> Indexed. Where it says Color Dithering, select none. Click OK.
12) Save it as a .gif. In this case I would save it as Ortiz.gif.
To add a fade to this icon, simply click the green box next to the pencil and zoom in on the icon to 800%. Fill in all the transparent with b1b3bc and click on Image -> Mode -> RGB. Where it says Gradient, choose FG to Transparent. Go to your icon and fade just three pixels, and make sure it is straight.
Edit -> Copy, Layer -> Delete Layer, Edit -> Paste, Make background transparent with magic wand, Image -> Mode -> Indexed, File -> Save As, in that order.
#105,886Date Posted:11/21/05 1:03amSubject:Make your own icons for free.
Wow, I will definitely use both threads in the near future. Thanks for putting that together, Alaka
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Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock,
Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock,
Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.
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#112,196Date Posted:11/24/05 10:56pmSubject:Make your own icons for free.
wow lots to do but really cool
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I love world of warcraft
I root for allaince but stil play horde
Lvl 43 hunter allaince
Night elves and tauren unit and kill (screw all the rest)
WORLD OF WARCRAFT!!!! (im not really 41years old lol)
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Title: What Would Tyler Durden Do? Posts: 4,906 Registered: Feb 2006
#406,893Date Posted:7/17/06 1:18pmSubject:Make your own icons for free.
I can't fade an icon to save my life. It would help so much in some of my icons. I've seen different ways to do it in GIMP. I tried a different way and it didn't work either. I did it your way and it doesn't work.
Basically if I do fade horizontally the fade somehow goes vertical. I'll post some pics later when I get off work. If anybody uses GIMP and knows how fade please give a little better explanation on how to do it.
#443,729Date Posted:8/3/06 7:00amSubject:Make your own icons for free.
I agree with Red. Free's better than nothing.
-----signature-----
Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock,
Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock,
Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.
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