Tutorial: Deeks!
Hello, hello.
I case you missed it, icon_talk is having a great little thing called "ask the maker" where you can request tutorials and ask icon makers questions about their technique and stuff.
So this is my first post with a tutorial that has been requested over there. Feel free to keep requesting tutorials or ask me questions ( my thread!). I'll try to get everything done as soon as possible.
>>
This is the original cap.
Cropping:
I rarely do close-ups like in this icon. Mainly because I can never get the cropping right. I kind of like how this one turned out though, but it's definitely an exception.
Anyway, I always crop my icons using the same method. I copy the cap into a blank 100x100 canvas and then resize and rotate the cap until I'm happy with the result. I do this in the free transform mode (go to edit >> free transform or just press ctrl + t).
When I work in the free transform mode, I always use the little input boxes and don't do it by hand. This way you can make sure that the aspect ratio of your image doesn't get messed up (n.b.: or just use the shift key, as the awesome realproof just told me here).
This is what my resized and rotated cap looks like on a bigger canvas. Just to show you what I mean in case my words don't make sense.
This is my base for the icon.
Coloring:
1. I usually start out with a curves adjustment layer to brighten the image. I prefer using curves instead of a screen layer because it makes it easier to make subtler adjustments. So the settings of this curves layer depend heavily on the original image. My settings for this layer.
This image was pretty bright to start with, so I was able to make it really bright with the curves layer. I feel like the brighter your image is, the more you can do with it. But that depends on your coloring technique.
This is the result:
2. Next I added this texture (made by navras_rheya, you can find it in this post) and set it to "soft light" at 100% opacity.
I love this texture for this icon, because it fit perfectly just the way it was. One thing this texture does is that it adds a little soft red/pink to the image. And at the same time it adds shadows and light. Light where the colors of the texture are lighter and shadows where the texture is darker.
This is the result:
Just to illustrate what I mean. If I flip the texture horizontally you'll get this as a result. Now the light in the image looks more even, because the dark part of the texture added shadows on the parts of the image that were originally brighter and it added light in the parts that were originally darker.
3. Then I added a selective color adjustment layer. Now the texture already added some red to the image, so I just tried to boost the yellow tones with this layer. I did this in the yellows and the neutrals channels. To add a little contrast I added some black in the black channel.
This is the result:
4. I added another curves adjustment layer to make the image a bit brighter again. Depending on what technique you're using to color your icon, the coloring process is likely to make your image darker. So each time I feel like my image is getting too dark, I will just add another curves layer and make some adjustments to the brightness.
This is the result:
5. I used a color balance adjustment layer to add a little more color. I don't use the color adjustment tool a lot. Just because I'm more comfortable with selective coloring, but it's a great tool to boost your colors a bit. So, once again, I added some more yellow here and a little red and magenta, too. My settings: midtones, lights.
This is the result:
6. I added the texture I already used before again. This time, I covered most of it with a layer mask (which looks like this) and set it to "overlay" at 50% opacity. "Overlay" works a lot like "soft light" but just more intense (at least that's what it feels like to me; I may be very wrong about this).
(If you're not familiar with layer masks, you can take a look here where I tried to explain how they work. Please feel free to ask questions, though :))
This is what the image would look like without the layer mask.. For this part of the process there's really no advice I can give besides go and experiment. I do most of my fine tuning (or actually every thing I do) by messing up and trying to fix things.
This is the result:
7. I added another selective coloring adjustment layer to boost the colors: yellow, red and magenta. You really have to just look at your icon and see what colors are in it and then try to increase those. Adjusting the settings in the green channel, for example, wouldn't have an effect because there's no green in the icon (or just very little).
This is the result:
And we are done!
Please let me know if I messed up or if any of the images don't work!
I case you missed it, icon_talk is having a great little thing called "ask the maker" where you can request tutorials and ask icon makers questions about their technique and stuff.
So this is my first post with a tutorial that has been requested over there. Feel free to keep requesting tutorials or ask me questions ( my thread!). I'll try to get everything done as soon as possible.
>>
This is the original cap.
Cropping:
I rarely do close-ups like in this icon. Mainly because I can never get the cropping right. I kind of like how this one turned out though, but it's definitely an exception.
Anyway, I always crop my icons using the same method. I copy the cap into a blank 100x100 canvas and then resize and rotate the cap until I'm happy with the result. I do this in the free transform mode (go to edit >> free transform or just press ctrl + t).
When I work in the free transform mode, I always use the little input boxes and don't do it by hand. This way you can make sure that the aspect ratio of your image doesn't get messed up (n.b.: or just use the shift key, as the awesome realproof just told me here).
This is what my resized and rotated cap looks like on a bigger canvas. Just to show you what I mean in case my words don't make sense.
This is my base for the icon.
Coloring:
1. I usually start out with a curves adjustment layer to brighten the image. I prefer using curves instead of a screen layer because it makes it easier to make subtler adjustments. So the settings of this curves layer depend heavily on the original image. My settings for this layer.
This image was pretty bright to start with, so I was able to make it really bright with the curves layer. I feel like the brighter your image is, the more you can do with it. But that depends on your coloring technique.
This is the result:
2. Next I added this texture (made by navras_rheya, you can find it in this post) and set it to "soft light" at 100% opacity.
I love this texture for this icon, because it fit perfectly just the way it was. One thing this texture does is that it adds a little soft red/pink to the image. And at the same time it adds shadows and light. Light where the colors of the texture are lighter and shadows where the texture is darker.
This is the result:
Just to illustrate what I mean. If I flip the texture horizontally you'll get this as a result. Now the light in the image looks more even, because the dark part of the texture added shadows on the parts of the image that were originally brighter and it added light in the parts that were originally darker.
3. Then I added a selective color adjustment layer. Now the texture already added some red to the image, so I just tried to boost the yellow tones with this layer. I did this in the yellows and the neutrals channels. To add a little contrast I added some black in the black channel.
This is the result:
4. I added another curves adjustment layer to make the image a bit brighter again. Depending on what technique you're using to color your icon, the coloring process is likely to make your image darker. So each time I feel like my image is getting too dark, I will just add another curves layer and make some adjustments to the brightness.
This is the result:
5. I used a color balance adjustment layer to add a little more color. I don't use the color adjustment tool a lot. Just because I'm more comfortable with selective coloring, but it's a great tool to boost your colors a bit. So, once again, I added some more yellow here and a little red and magenta, too. My settings: midtones, lights.
This is the result:
6. I added the texture I already used before again. This time, I covered most of it with a layer mask (which looks like this) and set it to "overlay" at 50% opacity. "Overlay" works a lot like "soft light" but just more intense (at least that's what it feels like to me; I may be very wrong about this).
(If you're not familiar with layer masks, you can take a look here where I tried to explain how they work. Please feel free to ask questions, though :))
This is what the image would look like without the layer mask.. For this part of the process there's really no advice I can give besides go and experiment. I do most of my fine tuning (or actually every thing I do) by messing up and trying to fix things.
This is the result:
7. I added another selective coloring adjustment layer to boost the colors: yellow, red and magenta. You really have to just look at your icon and see what colors are in it and then try to increase those. Adjusting the settings in the green channel, for example, wouldn't have an effect because there's no green in the icon (or just very little).
This is the result:
And we are done!
Please let me know if I messed up or if any of the images don't work!