tutorial on angled icons!!
i know not everyone can figure it out, and i decided i would show you how i personally do it! everything is beneath the cut, as it would be a very long post otherwise.
so first, you’re going to open your imagine in photoshop, and crop/resize to the necessary size. for this instance we’re doing 100x100 to make it simple.
you’re going to first double click on your background layer to make it a layer instead of a background for later. then you’re going to make 3 groups. one group will be for the cap, one for the psd, and the other to hold everything together and make it easier for click and drag over future icons! you’ll put the two groups into the third group, but don’t move the icon into the cap group just yet. save that for later! then you’ll make a new layer above those groups.
zoom in so that you can see easier! go to the shape tool, the square/rectangular one and make sure its set to path!!! go to the little gear icon and enter your dimensions, for this example that’d be a fixed size of 100x100.
click and drag the square shape so it’s perfectly aligned with the document borders.
press ctrl+t once it’s aligned, and where it has the angle option, instead of 0.00 that it’s at, type in -45 so it becomes like a diamond like the above picture. then click the little check mark to make the changes.
next you’re gonna click selection! leave it as it is, 0 feathering! otherwise it won’t work!
now you’re going to have a selection looking like this. your next task is to go to the selection tool, have it set to “add to selection” and instead of fixed ratio or size, go to normal!
now you’re going to add whichever angles you don’t want! for this instance we’re getting rid of the top righthand side and the bottom lefthand side! so now it’ll look like this unless of course you got rid of different angles. it’s up to you how you want your angled icon to look!
with your paint tool, color in the whole selection with the first color if your border. i use the html c5c5c5 for my grey border portion, but its up to you if you want lighter or darker! then you’re going to deselect everything!
take your magic wand tool and select the colored area. then you’re going to go to edit>fill and fill with your foreground color! this makes it evenly colored.
next, you’re going to go to select>modify>contract and make sure it’s contract by 1px! select okay.
you’ll have noticed that only the angled portions contracted, so you have to do the straight edges manually. go to your selection tool again, and make it subtract selection! then go to fixed size, and for this example, the fixed size will be 1 px width by 100px height. subject the right and left side. then you’ll switch them around so its 100px width and 1px height, and subject the top and bottom edges.
then you go back to your paint brush and fill the selection with white!
go to select>modify>contract 1px again and then go to edit>clear and your border is now complete!
final step is to take your magic wand tool, and select inside the border. go to the group for your psd and click the little mask tool. repeat that process for the group your cap goes in. then drag your icon into the cap folder and look! it’s all done! now you just have to add your psd and save!