Cool MSN-Style People in Photoshop

Easy Web Graphics Photoshop Tutorial

C'mon, admit it. MSN people graphics are pretty cool - we all secretly like them ... even if we would happily spout on about the corporate monopoly Microsoft has created and "officially" want nothing to do with them.

Well ... you don't have to show off your neat little people graphic if you don't want to. But I promise, you'll want to. 

This tutorial will guide you through the creation of a much cooler MSN-Style people graphic than you've seen before. It's very easy to do, requires no special plug-ins, and can be done in any recent version of Adobe Photoshop without problems.

Creating Cool MSN People

1. Start with a new canvas: It needs to be in RGB mode and sizes at least 500 x 500 pixels. If you're going to show off your graphic, you might want to go with a larger sized canvas - the larger the size you create at, the better. Working at a higher resolution means being able to size the graphic down for as many purposes as you like without any loss of quality.

2. Draw 3 Shapes: Start with a lighter version of the color scheme you want to end up with, and use ONLY shape tools (there's a good reason for this, I promise). Draw a circle for the head and rasterize the layer (right-click the layer and choose "Rasterize Layer"), then draw a raindrop for the body but don't rasterize this layer. Drag the body layer below the head layer. Then, draw an oval shadow and rasterize its layer. Drag the shadow layer below the body layer.

3. Transform the Body: The reason we didn't rasterize the raindrop was so that we could transform it in this step without getting jaggedy-pixel edges on our shape. Select the raindrop layer, and click "Edit", choose "Transform", and pick "Warp". This transform tool let's you do some crazy things - what you're going to want right now are the four "circle" handles. Drag them out so that the raindrop becomes more egg-shaped. (Reference Illustration 01). Click OK when you're satisfied, and then rasterize this layer.