2013 - guide: working with muted colouring.
Requested by absolutelybatty.
Seconded by beyondbones, john_scorpy & vetica.
Before I sat down to write this I'd planned to demonstrate how each of the following aspects could be used individually to create muted colouring. And I totally failed. Why? I'm a serial back & forther - I move between tools, as well as colours present in icons because I rarely, if ever, have a plan. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it also means that even when I'm attempting to plan things out, everything will forever be up in the air. That being said, I hope this answered whatever questions those who requested had in regard to how I personally do muted colouring.
Base Preparation
Even though this process has changed significantly, it's still important to mention because it's the very beginnings of the icon. I took this image (credit) and cropped it to the first image blow. What followed was a mess of several layers: a Topaz Clean layer (crisp style) set to a low opacity, an auto-curves layer, an Auto Tone/Contrast/Colour layer, and a Variations layer set to a low opacity, which is where we arrive in the second image.
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Adjustment Layers
For the record, I've been through most of what I believe are my more "muted" icons, and found out that beyond the following adjustment layers about to be discussed, the only other potentially relevant adjustment layer that related to muted colouring was Color Balance. But I definitely didn't use it enough to warrant its inclusion, which clearly means that I favour adjustment layers for styles of icons in the same way I favour textures - once I've found something that works I don't let it go. So without further rambles:
Adjustment Layer #01: Hue/Saturation
What I've come to appreciate about the Hue/Saturation tool, is that it allows you to manipulate both the intensity of the colour within the image (with the saturation aspect), as well as single colours of the image (with the hue aspect), which results in endless possibilities in terms of pushing colour towards a subsequent extreme, something that the Vibrance tool does not allow for. Hue/Saturation also provides you with a brightening option (with the Lightness aspect) that allows you to play with the brightness of the colours without adding too much natural contrast (unlike Brightness/Contrast or Curves). The true bonus of the Hue/Saturation tool is that you can manipulate colours through individual channels, as well as in the Master channel. Meaning you can manipulate all colour at once, or single colours at a time.
Here, I used the master channel of Hue/Saturation to push the yellow tones of the image up, as well as add some lightness to the image, without pushing the contrast. From this, a plan makes itself known to me (A PLAN, HUZZAH!) because I can see some awesome natural yellow/beige tones in the image, and I'd like to develop those.
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Adjustment Layer #02: Photo Filter
Quite possibly my new favourite old tool in Photoshop at the moment. The great simplicity of Photo Filter is that it's a simple fill layer, with automatic tint settings that give you icon a slight shade of a colour. It draws back on the intensity that a screen layer or soft light layer that the same fill colour (without the filter) would give you, and it provides you with multiple colour options while showing you a preview of what it looks like. These filters also don't have a tendency to add contrast, which is a great bonus if you're looking to create a muted style that doesn't have a huge deal of contrast involved. The only down side here is that Photo Filters can also unintentionally darker your image while you are working on it, as well as create a slightly more monochromatic feel without the contrast to really support the one tone colour, but don't let that deter you from exploring this awesome tool. I tend to use the more natural tones (warming filters, yellows, oranges, sepia and the occasional green) before the cooler tones, however whatever colour you are looking to highlight, I'd suggest seeing what Photo Filter can do for you.
In the case of this icon, I wanted to place emphasis the natural tones that were showing themselves. So I selected two photo filter layers: Warming Filter (the first option of three) and Yellow.
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Adjustment Layer #03: Curves
Curves are always fun to play around with. Similar to the Hue/Saturation tool, you have colour channels that let you manipulate the colour pairs of photoshop: Red + Cyan, Green + Magenta, Blue + Yellow. You also have a RGB channel that plays with the general brightness and contrast of an images' overall colours. I'm that person who generally neglects the colour channels in favour of the RGB channel in order to add brightness/contrast to an image, until the day when nothing else is working so I venture into the other channels and see what I can pull out. My singular piece of advice when playing with curves is to avoid using it for the same reasons as me, and explore the beautiful, unique colours it can give to you, because while sometimes it can produce a terrible mess, other times it can create amazing mishap colour creations that are very fun to look at.
The general use of curves in the case of this image was to pull more lightness into the image, however the is a dash of green and a dash of blue just to amp up those more natural yellow/beige tones that are there. Also note that there was an extra Hue/Saturation layer between the previous Photo Filter layer & the curves layer that began the lightening process.
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Textures
Textures are my jam! Ain't no icon moving from PS to the internet without being attacked by textures. Or texture. As with every tutorial I will ever write, elli and her flawless fabulous textures play a huge role in my iconing process, and even so with muted colours. I will never quit them. That being said, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to textures helping with muted colours - but there are some fun ways to explore how textures can be used. Don't limit the texture colours to those with similar colour dispositions to those already in the image, pick textures that may completely mess with the colour scheme and see how it goes. Don't let yourself be tied down my similar layer settings; soft light and screen are fun, but think about playing with overlay, hard light, color burn, exclusion, subtract - the sky is practically the limit. Don't be afraid to go all in, because the outcome, however extreme, may also be exciting and new.
Texture Example #1
In the case of this icon, I ignored every exploratory tool at my fingertips, and picked a texture that was similar to the colour scheme. Why? I wanted to cover the edge of the image where the colour was uneven. So I used a mm3butterfly original, flipped it horizontally and played with the opacity at normal.
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Texture Example #2
Due to the fact I spouted things about being exploratory with your textures, and because I come prepared when writing guides, here is a quick & dirty example of how textures can be used in a different light to create muted colours in an icon.
Prepared base (using similar steps to those mentioned above), this texture by colourmayfade was used on both sides to give the lighting a more even nature.
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I threw a Hue/Saturation layer in there to brighten things up a little, before using this texture by fprintmoon stretched out, blurred, and set to Overlay at 50% (I could have been braver and upped the opacity tbh), and then to add a slight bit of contrast, this texture by mm3butterfly flipped vertically and set to soft light at 25% opacity.
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Finished Product
I'll always resize with generally the same process: a copy merged layer, Gaussian blurred and set to a low level opacity, and then a copy merged layer, Sharpened and set to a high level opacity. It's totally a thing for me and really how I achieve a level of sharpness that I particularly like in icons, but probably won't work in the same way for everyone, or produce results that everyone likes themselves.
After the resize, I generally throw on a couple of adjustment layers or textures for good measure (because the more layers the merrier apparently) and finish up. There's no rhyme or reason to this process (much like everything else I do), rather it generally becomes about emphasising the colours, the texture, or the contrast the icon has.
In the case of our original icon, I resized, added a Curves layer, a Brightness/Contrast layer & a Hue/Saturation layer (all with very minimal alterations) and the end is nigh.
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Everything else
Screencap selection shouldn't matter. To challenge myself, I'd originally picked out images that in any other case I'd probably attempt to make vibrant (Beauty & the Beast | Confessions of a Shopaholic) or were actually darkish & not great quality (Veronica Mars). Working with muted colours is the same as working with all colours. In my experience it's a process of building on layers (that are sometimes ridiculously subtle) and figuring out the right tools to work with.
Playing with textures = fun times. I stressed this pretty hard, but in case you missed it, I think playing around with textures is the best thing you can do to help muted colouring along. I'd especially recommend exploring medium-colour textures on Overlay and Hard Light, as well as Subtract and Divide, and working with pastel textures on Screen, Soft Light or even Normal and seeing how they play out.
Example textures
fuuurs | innocent_lexys | lookslikerain | midnightroad
rowofstars | scoobyatemysnax | scoobyatemysnax | x-cielogris
Contrast can kill the colour. When I played with the potential icons for this guide, I found myself adding very few intended contrast layers, and when I did the scale of contrast was minimal at best. There's clearly still contrast in the icon, however there isn't a great need for soft light layers, or contrast-focused adjustment layers to put contrast back into the dark tones of your icon when playing with muted colours. At least that has been my experience.
How things panned out with the icons requested. A basic summary of what is the main player(s) in the icons that were given as examples with the request.
01: Just one curves layer turned the colours of that icon from this to what you see there.
02: EVERYTHING. Seriously. Such a mess of a PSD.
03: Mainly texture work (using brown-toned favourite elli textures) and Photo Filters.
04: A variations layer was the trick to the blue (I think), and a texture layer gave the red, and Hue/Saturation kept it all in check.
05: Photo filters + textures.
06: Textures mainly. Light/pale ones set to lowish opacity on soft light I think.
07: Photo filters + fill layers.
08: The blue fprintmoon texture was generally responsible for the colour here.
All's well that ends well. With that, we draw to a finish. If you have any unresolved questions or if any new queries have arisen, feel free to ask away and I shall answer as best I can. Here's hoping that it's answered some of the questions surrounding muted colouring.