Tut #3: Normalising Twilight Stuff
I'm using Icon Bases for this, but you can use caps if you want. xD Normalising Twilight caps/bases using only curves.
This tutorial is very much depending on your base.
As you can see. it's very dark and very blue. My favourite tool for dealng with this is curves. Yeah, they seem scary, and everyone tries to steer away (Hell, I still do.) but they're very very useful. Otherwise, why would they be in your program, huh?
Curves are useful for many things. The first is to lighten, the second is to add colour. I, personally used two curves layers in this. (GIMP users: go for New from Visible per curves layer.)
Layer 1 - Curves
Value/RGB.
Point 1.
INPUT: 96
OUTPUT:146
| so the first thing this layer does, is brighten your image. You may do this and find that your image isn't as blue as you thought. Actually, it's got a lot of yellow and some red... If you'd duplicated the layer and set it to screen, you'd have found the same thing. By brightening the layer, you can find out exactly what colours to target. I lightened my image to find it very blue and yellow.
Red.
Point 1
INPUT: 103
OUTPUT: 112
| we haven't added a ton of red, really. This has nudged it up slightly, which is what'll combat the yellow and Edward and Bella look more human (vampiric?). You might find some colours have gone... purple. That's why we're going to lower the blue.
Blue.
Point 1.
INPUT: 124
OUTPUT: 121
| again, it's not a great difference. I find, personally, that making small changes as opposed to large ones, really change it more than some drastic. When normalising, you're not looking for something vibrant, but for something really really... normal, I guess.
One thing I've found about curves is that even if you lighten the image frst (as done with the RGB stuff...) that even small changes in the other colours makes the colours darker again. Now the image MAY be normal, but it's dark. We'll need another curves layer to a) lighten it up and b) change the colours again because their skin is still blue.
Layer 2 - Curves
Another curves layer, please. (:
Value/RGB.
Point 1.
INPUT: 99
OUTPUT: 142
| this is lightening it up again, so that we can see our colours more. I do this on all my dark images, I swear.
Red.
point 1.
INPUT: 110
OUTPUT: 126
| With the last curves layer, the change was so... minimal, you could've skipped it. (You could've but I haven't tried to skip it yet, so I don't knwo the result.) The chage in this layer is a lot bigger, really pumping up the reds. This is because the main thing we're doing with this layer is making their skin less blue, and to do this, you need more red and les blue.. Hence, a higher red setting.
Blue.
Point 1
INPUT: 121
OUTPUT: 108
| As I said above, this layer IS about lowering blue and adding red. And that's what this layer is doing. Lowering Blue and adding red.
After pressing 'ok' you'll find my end image. Now, you might think 'ew' and want to add red or blue.
NOTES:
- I used a very dark base for this tutorial, simply to show the wonders of curves. If you're using a lighter base (say... something from the biology lessons) then the first layer will a) be enough and b) need to be edited. You won't want to have such a high RGB setting, and a little more red should be ok. You might not even need to edit te blues on the image.
- If it's a scene from Bella's room, it's all about killing off yellow. I'm working on something for that, so expect a tut soon. xD