Making a Simple Profile Picture

This guide will teach you the basics of making a nice profile picture using Photoshop.

Intro

In this simple step-by-step guide, I'll be teaching you how to make your very own Steam profile picture.

You will need Photoshop for this, but you can sign up and get a free trial. I've included images of almost each step, so you'll hopefully have no problem finding what to click. If you have any questions, feel free to ask keeF (the person writing this) any questions!

Part 1 - Finding a good background

Firstly, you will need to put in a nice background behind your text or logo.

You can use sapic.github.io and download the complete set of artwork, screenshots and profile pictures, but in some cases, the profile picture background is very boring and doesn't look good.
For the people who don't know what sapic.github.io, it is a website in which you enter your steam background link, which then forms whatever parts are for the artwork etc.

Your background should match the colour scheme your profile is going for right now. For example, if your profile background is blue, you would need to have mostly blue artwork. I generally use pictures of galaxies, because they have nice, vibrant colours, and text shows up easily on them. You can use different backgrounds, depending on what you like.

Part 2 - The Basics

Go to dafont.com for free, nice fonts. Install the one you want. For this guide, I'll be using the font HBM Ridge. You'll need to use Photoshop for this, but Photoshop has a 1 week free trial.

1. Open up Photoshop and click "Open". Select the background you want to use. I'll be using a galaxy background.














2. Select the Text icon. Write something that is related to your Steam name, like the first letter or an abbreviated form. If your name is too long, it won't fit into the steam profile picture size which is 184 by 184. For this example, I'll be helping a friend named Sharonio to make his Steam profile picture, and I'll write "S" in the text box.












3. You can then choose the colour and size of the text.

Part 3 - Stylizing it and Adding Effects

Part two of this guide will show you how to make your text or logo stand out.

1. Right-click on the text layer and select "Blending Options".














2. Click on the option "Outer Glow" and select whatever you want the colour of your text's outline to be. I selected a nice light blue, but it depends on what background you have.











3. Now you can add in a few images. You can add in lightning or fire, but in this case, I'll be making it more simple and adding in neon lines. The most simple thing to do would be to make a border out of neon lines for the text. These neon lines are nice as they already have a glow effect.
4. Place them and rotate them however you want, feel free to play around with them! If you're not feeling adventurous, you can just make a regular shape from those neon lines. Here, I've only made a square and put a diamond over it.









5. And there you have it! All that's left to do is to crop it into roughly a square and upload it into Steam! If it doesn't turn out well, just experiment with the Blending Options!

Thanks for reading

Well, this is the end of the guide!

Hope it helped you in your journey to find amazing artwork, but please don't copy my end product. You should be able to think up even more creative designs, so keep working. Photoshop has a one-week free trial, which is more than enough time for you to think up designs.

If you think you have a good profile, check out Amazing Profiles or Profile Heaven, both groups for people who have great profiles and artwork.

Made by keeF

People who helped	What they did
Nuggboy	Inspiration and ideas
LiquiD.PandA	Helped change the design of the guide
YoshioOnPC	Proofreading
Sharonio	Supported the release of this guide
keeF	Wrote the guide

[damon]

Great work here guys, i don't intend in making one (Im bad at this stuff) But I can see you put time into this guide. Good Job.

[NuggBoy]

@E P I C Thank You!

[LiquiD.PandA]

I use paint.net quite a lot and I find it really similar to photoshop, but if you have the chance to get photoshop, please do since its still a bit better than paint.net . This is just some of my opinions

[NuggBoy]

@CodyDev Yes, photoshop is definitely worth it! Not only great for avatar's (Basic and Complex) but other steam artwork can be made with it to.

[wunna]

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[greg]

get a cracked version of it or just keep making fake trial accounts

[Argus]

Normally i use paint.net for making profile pictures (i made the one i have now). The final product usually looks similar to things i see that were made in photoshop. Is getting photoshop really worth it?

[Xeno]

Pffff my icon got taked down a few days ago :D
I used a logo that was a fox with headphones. But it was watermarked. When I added my space image over the logo the watermark was removed but that didnt help lol

[keef]

@BanamA yeah that's the point

[BanamA]

Ez