Tutorial 04 - Getting rid of subtitles and brightening/cleaning caps
From 
to
or
Using PSP9, though it should be translatable.
Also remember, though, depending on your cap, you may want to brighten before you start smoothing. This tutorial, made for caps that were going to be shrunk down, and so some smoothing was done before brightening.
1) First, take your image. It's kinda icky right now, with the JPG distortion and the caps and stuff.
2) Now, select the push tool. Because Ichigo's skirt isn't all that complicated, that is, there's not a whole of of detail under the subtitles, I'm using a size 9 brush, 39% hardness, step 40. But when I have to re-draw the line between her skirt and her bow, I change the step to 15, for extra smoothness.
Generally, though, I find that using step of anywhere between 30 and 50 is good for large areas, since it doesn't blur/smooth the pixels together much.
ETA: Attention, please! spork_ness has informed me that for Photoshop users, you can use the "smudge" tool at a higher opacity for a similar effect as the push brush.
3)Using the push tool, push the color around and cover up the subtitles. This is fairly easy here, because the gray mainly stays the same shade. When there are more colors, such as a gradient, or lines, I very carefully (with a higher step so that it doesn't look out-of-place and smooth) push the area directly beside what I'm covering up in one direction for a few pixels until it's covered, then for the area directly beside, I again drag from beside it. It's rather time-consuming and annoying, especially when you need to go back and undo something, because your history has a mile-long list of "push brush" listed. However, since you're not pushing colors too far, it's not likely that your brush strokes will be all that noticible. That's a good thing.
Luckily, Ichigo's skirt doesn't really change much between shading, so it only takes me about four strokes to do the whole thing, including dragging the lines of her skirt down a bit.
Now it should look like this:
4) Now go to Enhance Photo~Edge Preserving Smooth.
Zoom out a bit so you can see a bit more of your image, then choose how smooth you want your picture. I usually set mine to two, because it generally smooths out my picture without losing much detail.
Also, sometimes it helps to click "sharpen" (adjustments~sharpness~sharpen) after you smooth. Depending on your image, it might bring back a little detail without much distortion. Like here, Minto gets a bit more detail after sharpening, but Ichigo, who looked fine smooth, just looks distorted again. Personally, I'd wait until after the picture has been lightened to see if you need to sharpen.
5) Now, duplicate your image twice and set both to screen, 100%. The colors still look yucky, but at least we can see the picture now. Merge all layers.
6) Go to Adjust~Brightness/Contrast~Brightness/Contrast. Zoom out so you can see a bigger portion of your picture, then play around with the settings until it looks nice. Notice that as you zoom out, the distortions pretty much disappear. So if you're planning on resizing your picture for an icon, this means you really won't have to worry too much about smoothing stuff out again.
My settings were Brightness: 3 Contrast: 39. My focus is Ichigo, so I found a setting that made her colors look better, instead of paying attention to Minto in the background (her dark colors are starting to blur a bit).
7) Ugh, distortions again. The light makes 'em easier to see, yup. You have two choices. First, you can use the edge-smoothing again (though it may require a higher number of smoothness than before) and then resize your picture if you're happy with the coloring and everything. I used a smoothness of six, then resized my picture from 480 pixels high to 200 pixels high and sharpened once.
~
8) OR instead of following step 7, do this: After step 6, duplicate your base layer and Gaussian Blur it (Adjustments~Blue~Gaussian Blur). Make it nice 'n fuzzy, like setting it to five or six. I did six.
Now set that layer to Soft Light, 100%. Merge all. I resized from 480 pixels down to 200 pixels, and viola! No more distortion. Sharpen it once, and it's done.
~
And then resized and sharpened both again For a side-by-side comparison of the two outcomes.
You would never guess that it's the middle of the night! Unless, of course, you notice that Minto has a flashlight.
Comments are love!
If you like what you see, friend me?
to
or
Using PSP9, though it should be translatable.
Also remember, though, depending on your cap, you may want to brighten before you start smoothing. This tutorial, made for caps that were going to be shrunk down, and so some smoothing was done before brightening.
1) First, take your image. It's kinda icky right now, with the JPG distortion and the caps and stuff.
2) Now, select the push tool. Because Ichigo's skirt isn't all that complicated, that is, there's not a whole of of detail under the subtitles, I'm using a size 9 brush, 39% hardness, step 40. But when I have to re-draw the line between her skirt and her bow, I change the step to 15, for extra smoothness.
Generally, though, I find that using step of anywhere between 30 and 50 is good for large areas, since it doesn't blur/smooth the pixels together much.
ETA: Attention, please! spork_ness has informed me that for Photoshop users, you can use the "smudge" tool at a higher opacity for a similar effect as the push brush.
3)Using the push tool, push the color around and cover up the subtitles. This is fairly easy here, because the gray mainly stays the same shade. When there are more colors, such as a gradient, or lines, I very carefully (with a higher step so that it doesn't look out-of-place and smooth) push the area directly beside what I'm covering up in one direction for a few pixels until it's covered, then for the area directly beside, I again drag from beside it. It's rather time-consuming and annoying, especially when you need to go back and undo something, because your history has a mile-long list of "push brush" listed. However, since you're not pushing colors too far, it's not likely that your brush strokes will be all that noticible. That's a good thing.
Luckily, Ichigo's skirt doesn't really change much between shading, so it only takes me about four strokes to do the whole thing, including dragging the lines of her skirt down a bit.
Now it should look like this:
4) Now go to Enhance Photo~Edge Preserving Smooth.
Zoom out a bit so you can see a bit more of your image, then choose how smooth you want your picture. I usually set mine to two, because it generally smooths out my picture without losing much detail.
Also, sometimes it helps to click "sharpen" (adjustments~sharpness~sharpen) after you smooth. Depending on your image, it might bring back a little detail without much distortion. Like here, Minto gets a bit more detail after sharpening, but Ichigo, who looked fine smooth, just looks distorted again. Personally, I'd wait until after the picture has been lightened to see if you need to sharpen.
5) Now, duplicate your image twice and set both to screen, 100%. The colors still look yucky, but at least we can see the picture now. Merge all layers.
6) Go to Adjust~Brightness/Contrast~Brightness/Contrast. Zoom out so you can see a bigger portion of your picture, then play around with the settings until it looks nice. Notice that as you zoom out, the distortions pretty much disappear. So if you're planning on resizing your picture for an icon, this means you really won't have to worry too much about smoothing stuff out again.
My settings were Brightness: 3 Contrast: 39. My focus is Ichigo, so I found a setting that made her colors look better, instead of paying attention to Minto in the background (her dark colors are starting to blur a bit).
7) Ugh, distortions again. The light makes 'em easier to see, yup. You have two choices. First, you can use the edge-smoothing again (though it may require a higher number of smoothness than before) and then resize your picture if you're happy with the coloring and everything. I used a smoothness of six, then resized my picture from 480 pixels high to 200 pixels high and sharpened once.
~
8) OR instead of following step 7, do this: After step 6, duplicate your base layer and Gaussian Blur it (Adjustments~Blue~Gaussian Blur). Make it nice 'n fuzzy, like setting it to five or six. I did six.
Now set that layer to Soft Light, 100%. Merge all. I resized from 480 pixels down to 200 pixels, and viola! No more distortion. Sharpen it once, and it's done.
~
And then resized and sharpened both again For a side-by-side comparison of the two outcomes.
You would never guess that it's the middle of the night! Unless, of course, you notice that Minto has a flashlight.
Comments are love!
If you like what you see, friend me?