First of all, I play with the contrast of the image using one or more of the following: * Curves. Usually I go for a slight S-shape, but there are so many other ways in which you can use it. * Duplicate the base twice. Set one duplicate layer to Screen, the other to Soft Light. If needed duplicate one of the layers and play with the opacity. * Brightness/Contrast. Brightness to -10 and the Contrast to +10 and then play around with it. * Color Variations. Great for colouring but you can also use it for contrast and brightness. Try setting it to Shadows or Highlights and then Darken or Lighten instead of playing with the colours. (All these do more or less the same thing, but sometimes one works better than the other depending on the image and what else you want to do to the icon.)
Sometimes I use Hue/Saturation but only when I'm satisfied with the contrast/brightness and I almost always play with the hue as well as the saturation. Hue is brilliant for when my icons get too red. Color Variations is great for colouring images. When I colour an image and I'm happy with one part of it but not with the other I simply use the before and after image to (partly) erase the parts I don't like and keep the parts I do like. Very often I end up with two or three layers where each layer has a different colouring and I've (partly) erased what I don't like so the layer beneath that shines through. I do this a lot, go back a couple of steps to get two layers, one before and one after, so I can get the best of the two layers. (I use a soft brush and different levels of opacity.)
One trick that is probably my favourite is to create a new layer, set it to Soft Light and then use a soft brush to draw colours on that layer. That way I can make a certain colour pop by using the same colour, change the colour slightly by using a similar colour or even change a colour quite a lot by using the colour that is on the opposite of the colour spectrum. For example, with #10 I used purple to emphasise the purples, yellow to emphasise her hair and I'm quite sure I used a light green to make her face less red.
To be fair there are probably better ways to do all this, but this is how I do it. ;) Let me know if anything is unclear!
* Curves. Usually I go for a slight S-shape, but there are so many other ways in which you can use it.
* Duplicate the base twice. Set one duplicate layer to Screen, the other to Soft Light. If needed duplicate one of the layers and play with the opacity.
* Brightness/Contrast. Brightness to -10 and the Contrast to +10 and then play around with it.
* Color Variations. Great for colouring but you can also use it for contrast and brightness. Try setting it to Shadows or Highlights and then Darken or Lighten instead of playing with the colours.
(All these do more or less the same thing, but sometimes one works better than the other depending on the image and what else you want to do to the icon.)
Sometimes I use Hue/Saturation but only when I'm satisfied with the contrast/brightness and I almost always play with the hue as well as the saturation. Hue is brilliant for when my icons get too red.
Color Variations is great for colouring images. When I colour an image and I'm happy with one part of it but not with the other I simply use the before and after image to (partly) erase the parts I don't like and keep the parts I do like. Very often I end up with two or three layers where each layer has a different colouring and I've (partly) erased what I don't like so the layer beneath that shines through. I do this a lot, go back a couple of steps to get two layers, one before and one after, so I can get the best of the two layers. (I use a soft brush and different levels of opacity.)
One trick that is probably my favourite is to create a new layer, set it to Soft Light and then use a soft brush to draw colours on that layer. That way I can make a certain colour pop by using the same colour, change the colour slightly by using a similar colour or even change a colour quite a lot by using the colour that is on the opposite of the colour spectrum. For example, with #10 I used purple to emphasise the purples, yellow to emphasise her hair and I'm quite sure I used a light green to make her face less red.
To be fair there are probably better ways to do all this, but this is how I do it. ;)
Let me know if anything is unclear!
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