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How to Trace an Icon Image & Color Strokes

  • Thread starter Thread starter SemperAndroid
  • Start date Start date

S

SemperAndroid

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Hi,

I develop apps for the Android platform and am not a PS expert. I was hoping I could get some advice on the best way to do the following.

I want to take an app icon and desaturate it making it black and white. Then I want to Trace the major features of the icon. I then want to apply a color to the strokes and make the fill either black or white.

Any advice on how to do this would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
Well, CTRL-U for hue and saturation, and slide the saturation slider all the way to the bottom. Then pen tool and trace, I guess. I don't think Photoshop has an auto-trace function.

The best tracing tool I've ever used was built into Adobe's Flash.
 
after you create your trace but before your stroke is applied create a new layer so the stroke is by itself on a separate layer the menu will give you a color selection, select what you want
 
I got a pretty good solution by doing this:

1. Desaturate
2. Find Edges
3. Brightness/Contrast
4. Sharpen More
5. Color Replacement Tool (Touch Ups) remove greys

This leaves me with a decent black and white outlined icon, BUT . . . I can't use the color replacement tool to change the black or white. I tried all 4 modes: Hue, Saturation, Color, and Luminosity and only the last one did anything. Oddly the CMD + U will add a color when I colorize? Any thoughts?

Thanks
 
Are you using CS5? Cause I'm not sure you have "Image> Adjustments> Black and White", on the other versions. I created a new layer and did Image> Apply Image, then I hid the original by clicking on the eye, and went back to the copy, then I did the Image> Adjustments> Black and white. It desaturated only only the copy. Once I got all your steps done, I selected it (dancing ants) and went back to the original piece, The one with the original colors) and did a select Inverse and deleted everything except the the lines. You should be able to fill, color these as you please.
 
Just so you get the jest, I didn't clean it up any. 1293632602-U1.png

After, 1293632689-U1.png

Image> Adjustments> Hue / Saturation
1293632881-U1.png
 
Last edited:

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