Photoshop Avatar Tutorial

[Jezebel]

Photoshop can be used on Windows or Macintosh. It is not a free program, but you can download a free trial here (http://www.adobe.com/downloads/). I made this tutorial with Photoshop CS3, but since I'm only using basic tools the same method should work for older and newer versions as well. This isn't the only way to make avatars with Photoshop, but this should be one of the faster and easier ways to make high quality avatars.

Screenshots to be added later.

1. Create a new document.
GUI: File > New...
Shortcut: Ctrl+N

In the new document window, enter a width of 115 and a height of 145. Click OK.



2. Open the image you would like to use for your avatar.
GUI: File > Open
Shortcut: Ctrl+O



3. Use the move tool to drag your image onto the 115x145 document you first created.
GUI: The curser shaped tool at the very top of the Tools window.
Shortcut: V



4. Use the free transform tool to make your image fit within the canvas boundaries.
GUI: Edit > Free Transform
Shortcut: Ctrl+T

Select one of the small corner rectangles and hold shift as you drag to resize your image. It is important to hold shift while you drag! Your image's proportions will distort if you do not do this.

Tip: If you pasted a very large image, the edges might go off the screen. To see the entire image, you can zoom out to see the edges (View > Zoom Out or Ctrl+-). After you have made your adjustments, you can get back to the actual size of the image by selecting View > View Actual Pixels, double clicking the magnifying glass in the tools window, or using the shortcut Alt+Ctrl+0.

Tip: You don't have to try to make the image fit exactly inside the box. Parts of the image going off the edges of the avatar can make the composition more interesting. Play around with it until you find something that looks good.



5. When the image is the correct size, commit the transform.
GUI: The checkmark in the options toolbar.
Shortcut: Enter / Return

Tip: Sometimes making an image smaller will cause it to be slightly blurry. To sharpen your image's edges, use unsharp mask (not the regular sharpness tool). To do this, go to filter > unsharp mask, check preview so you can see the adjustments on your image as you make them, and adjust the top "amount" slider to a percentage that looks good. Usually, this only needs to be between 10 and 30 percent.



6. Save your image using the save for web tool.
GUI: File > Save for Web & Devices...
Shortcut: Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S

Select JPEG as the file type.
Use the quality slider to adjust the image quality to be as high as possible while still under 20kb.
Click save after you finish making adjustments.



7. All done. You can now upload your saved avatar to the forum.

[Quite8the8bell]

For the image size, it's easier to go to

"image"
then,
"image size" From there it's easy to figure out.

[Jezebel]

For the image size, it's easier to go to

"image"
then,
"image size" From there it's easy to figure out.
That distorts the image proportions unless the image is already the same ratio (and most won't be). The result usually looks pretty bad. Most of the images will fall outside of the canvas boundaries. I prefer free transform because I can view how the final image size and cropping will look as I make the adjustments.

[Quite8the8bell]

Yes, that is true, but if the image is already in portrait form it usually will turn out okay.

[Jezebel]

Yes, that is true, but if the image is already in portrait form it usually will turn out okay.
Most of the photoshop jobs around here look worse than necessary, in my opinion. The proportional distortions and compression artifacts and other things I see from people using the wrong tools stand out to me. This tutorial is meant to show how to make avatars without sacrificing quality.

[Hamsta]

You can enter dimensions in the crop tool: select the crop tool, and in the bar at the top of the screen, under the menus, enter a width of 115 px, a Height of 145 px, and a resolution of 72 dpi.

When you pull the crop tool it will retain the correct proportions. Once that is done you can save for web.

A few things of note: 72 dots per inch is screen resolution, anything higher is for printing purposes.
If you don't see the fields I am referring to, make sure the crop tool is selected, and that options is checked in the window menu.

[JackCY]

I use crop tool with specified dimensions (115x145), allows me to see what it will look like, it just isn't small yet, only cropped to ratio. On final crop it resizes. I do very little Smart Sharpen (100%/0.1/lens blur) to bring out tiny details. Save for web and done.

Will try the transform as well.

hmm interesting using the transform, one can see the result in it's final size giving a better idea of what it will look like.