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I am a developer by trade and I don't pretend to have any reasonable graphic design skills. Neither do have I aspirations to acquire any. However, I would like to learn how to create icons for some hobby programs I develop. My problem is that even though I have a very specific idea how my icon should look like, I have no skills to translate this vision into an actual PNG file. So I wonder, what is the shortest path to get up to speed with Photoshop in order to be able to create icons? Maybe there is a book that covers this skill set without assuming one wants to become a graphic design expert?

Before I am accused in using the "Learn XXX in 24 hours" approach, let me say again that I am not interested in learning the graphic design - only the way to translate my very specific vision into a PNG file. The best programming-related analogy I can come up with is learning how to make one's spreadsheets more powerful by learning VBA. This alone wouldn't turn a person into a programmer but it would help him with the task at hand. Pointing one to TAOCP and/or SICP in such a case would be an overkill.

So, what is the best book on creating icons in Photoshop?

Alexander L. Belikoff
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This website will be handy to learn some basic steps to create good looking icons. It also will teach you from beginning to advance level, in case you develop interest later in designing icons.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/icon-design/

Jaguar
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I don't necessarily have a good book for you, things have helped me when I needed to to something similar. The links will give a quick overview and give ideas on color palette, perspective, and some effects to apply to liven things up:

Creating Windows XP icons

Areo themed icons

Icons for Java

Once you want to do some of these things in photoshop, you'll want to learn layers, how to work with transparency, adjustment layers, some some effects like drop shadows. I wish I had a good book recommendation for you, but got most of my knowledge from video tutorials (totaltraining.com). Lynda.com is something similar. I think you can get a free guest pass to try them out.

Once you have the skills, then there is an art to choosing a good color scheme and applying the effects in a pleasing way. That just takes time and experience to develop.

doobop
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