tutorial #06
Time for an icon-specific tutorial! It's been a while since I made this icon, and I don't have the original file saved, so the end result might not be exactly the same. But I assure you my ~process hasn't changed much since then, and I'll do my best and can only hope to be helpful somehow. Enjoy! :D
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When I first saw this scene, I knew it would make a pretty icon. I mena, just LOOK at all the colors! To the untrained eye (not that mine is all that trained, but bear with me) it's just your usual dark, muddy cap, but if you squint you can see lots of pretty: the green on the right wall behind Alt!Liv, the red in her hair, the pink in her lips, the blue wall to her right. And because I'm one of those people, I wanted to bring out ALL THE COLORS. At least I think that was my set purpose when I started working. This is to say that my own work wasn't that huge to begin with, and the cap made most of the work by itself.
I'm sure there was a lot more involved on the first time I made this icon (more variations to put blue in the shadows and take out reds, things like that), but that's because my trail of thought is a little off the rails while iconning. I change my mind a hundred times about what looks best, there are lots of unnecessary layers everywhere, so this is "cleaner" in comparison to what the original psd must've looked like (also, I've got the worst memory). But the less steps to the same results the better, amirite?
Don't really remember at which point I did this originally, but let's start by cropping and resizing. Did you know you can use the crop tool AND be able to move the image around the canvas? Just duplicate your bacground layer (the image), and upon cropping, be sure to check the "Hide" (and not the "Delete") option on your toolbar near the top of the screen. Anyway, blah cropping because I'm way more interested in the colors here, and resized to 200x200px.
Duplicated that layer, set to Screen and lowered the opacity a bit because the light was too harsh on her face.
Duplicated that layer again, and Gaussian blurred it for a more diffuse glow. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set around 20px radius. Set to screen and lower the opacity a bit.
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Duplicate the base layer again, set on top of everything to "Soft Light". Lowered the opacity a bit (to around 70%) because the shadows were too dark, hiding the blue wall I'll want to bring out later. You can almost see the embryo of the icon now.
Now the actual coloring! New Vibrance layer, set it to +100, Normal blending mode.
Another Vibrance layer, set it to +100. It looks a bit too harsh if set to Normal, so I set it to Color.
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I don't like how the red seeps into the border pixels, and, I don't know, how weird the vibrancy looks, so I fiddle with the order of my layers and the Soft Light copy of the base layer ends up on top of everything. I find that putting all the coloring layers UNDER a soft light layer copy of the base softens them a bit and the results are usually better than if the coloring layers are on top of everything else, in my humble opinion.
Now the shadows are WAY too dark, so I use a...
dark blue exclusion layer
I CLEARLY HAVE NO SHAME, it's such a 2006 technique. But I like how it adjusts the skin tones and brings blue in shadows, so deal with it. So, I pick a random tone of dark blue and use a Fill Layer set to Exclusion, adjusting the color until I'm satisfied. Ended up with #021027. Then fiddled a bit with opacity and order of layers, and the fill layer ended up between the two Vibrance layers, set to an opacity of around 70%.
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Nice, but it's still dark and flat, so let's adjust the lighting and bring out the colors I like. Still below the above mentioned base copy set to soft light, create a new transparent layer, get your Brush, and create a white light blob in the top right cornet, where the light is coming from (black is transparent). The gaussian blur it a bit until it's less of a circle and more of a soft light source (Here I used radius 43px). Leave it on Normal.
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Now let's lighten up the background! Create a new transparent layer under the soft light layer and the white blob layer. Pick the lighter color on your background, paint light blobs in the areas you want to lighten (I used a 70% opacity brush here), set them to Screen layer mode.
>
Her hair also needs some attention. For an specific color you want to saturate, the trick is to not use the exact same color as the background, but a lighter and more saturated version. Color pick a couple of other colors from the background and blob them as well, or the coloring will look too flat. Set it to soft light. Like the following:
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>
>
At this point I think I'm happy with my "base" coloring, so I'll just pump them up.
Close stamp everything (Shift+ctrl+alt+e) and set that to soft light.
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I really like the lighter parts here, but I'm not into how dark the shadows look. So I'll create a new transparent layer under the stamped soft light layer, pick a dark blue color, paint over the dark parts, and set it to Screen. Still too dark, so I'll adjust the hue/saturation/lightness of that specific layer to a lighter color. With the layer selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Hue -12, Saturation +19, Lightness +17.
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Probably at this point I thought the icon needed more contrast, and randomly decided I wanted a painty-er feeling. Two birds, one stone, and because I'm a noob, I'll do it through painty textures. I have absolutely NO idea which one I sued originally, but it looks like I used one, so I'll try that again.
I took this monster of a texture, by tinebrella, and pasted it on top of my icon, set to soft light. The paint strokes aren't too apparent, though, so I sharpen (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen) it once. And still not to my tastes, so I resize it using the free transform tool until I'm somewhat happy with the size of my strokes, moving it around for better lightening. And sharpen it again.
>
However, I'm not happy at how the texture messed up my coloring, so I fiddle with its Hue/Sat again. Settings Hue -21, Sat -66 and Lightness +8 make me happy. Notice how the texture loses all color, and we're left with mostly texture and light. Put it under the stamped soft light layer.
>
More colors! New layer, Vibrance +100. Too strong, so I move that layer under the BASE soft light layer (NOT the stamped one).
>
Okay, this is good, I think, but I guess I wanted more light and color, specially on her hair. Create a new transparent layer, pick a light color of her hair and choose a lighter, yellow-ier version, and paint over the light parts of the image with a soft brush. Set it to Soft Light.
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But that messed up my contrast, and I'll bring it back with Levels. New Levels Adjustment layer, use the "Increase contrast" present and adjust the sliders until you're happy. Left slider is for shadows, right slider is for highlights, middle slider is for midtones. But that made her face too light, so I pick a color from the shadows of the icon (dark blue, I think) and paint over the darker parts of her face with a soft brush in a new transparent layer. Set that layer to soft light.
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>
>
At this point I compared with the original, and I think there were a couple of different colors on the background, which I think might've been put there by misplaced light blobs? So I add blobs to bring those colors. The background on the right side is more green than blue, and darker, so I add a yellower and darker hue (which turns out to be burnt orange) to achieve that color. The left side is a bit lighter, but if I add out straight blue it'll become more pink, so I pick a color of the green wall.
>
Now let's resize this babe. Clone stamp (I always clone stamp before resizing, results are smoother!). Pretty close, amirite?
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this version | original
But the colors are duller. Duplicate the close stamped layer, Gaussian Blur it (radius 5,8px), and set to soft light. Lower the opacity (60%) and mask the shadows because it's too dark there, imho. Another vibrancy layer (Vibrancy +72, 72% opacity) to make them pop a bit.
>![]()
>
>
I'm not sure why- probably a light blob I used at some point, or a variations layer- but on the original icon, the left side of her face looks pink-er. If you want that, create a new transparent layer under the blurred soft light layer and paint it purple with a soft brush, setting that layer to soft light and lowering opacity as needed. Hair hair looks lighter too, so I'll paint over the hair with a saturated yellow and orange, and set it to soft light.
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>
>
>
the colors still don't look quite right- shadows are lighter and highlights are yellower. You know what that means. Pick a blue fromt he shadows, lighten it up a bit and set it to exclusion, under the blurred soft light layer and the color blobs. Opacity around 25%.
>
I'M STILL NOT SATISFIED, so I create a new Levels layer under the blurred soft light layer and set it to Increase contrast 1, but move the middle slider to the left, to get brighter midtones. The shadows look uglier, though, so I mask them away, and lower the opacity to around 55%.
>
>
... okay, it's not the same, but similar enough.
If you feel like it, sharpen it a bit. Clone stamp, go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, and lower the opacity of that layer (30% only), masking away parts that look oversharpened, like her face. Sensitive parts, like the face you can use High Pass: Clone stamp again, go to Filter > Other > High Pass, use it at 0,4 radius. Set it to Soft Light at 32% opacity. Clone stamp everything, and Save for Web (as PNG-24.). I always save for web everything, and that's supposed to make a difference in color profiling, but to be honest I have no idea what difference that is.
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Et voilà. :)
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Apologies about how anticlimatic this tutorial is, hahaha. That's honestly all that I really do, enhance coloring with the brush tool and using a couple of textures. Sorry I couldn't make a closer match, but that's probably due to blobs placed in different places and higher (or lower) opacity levels for a couple of layers.
I'm still (and always!) open to questions, so if you need clarification on anything, just leave a comment :)
From >> To
>>
When I first saw this scene, I knew it would make a pretty icon. I mena, just LOOK at all the colors! To the untrained eye (not that mine is all that trained, but bear with me) it's just your usual dark, muddy cap, but if you squint you can see lots of pretty: the green on the right wall behind Alt!Liv, the red in her hair, the pink in her lips, the blue wall to her right. And because I'm one of those people, I wanted to bring out ALL THE COLORS. At least I think that was my set purpose when I started working. This is to say that my own work wasn't that huge to begin with, and the cap made most of the work by itself.
I'm sure there was a lot more involved on the first time I made this icon (more variations to put blue in the shadows and take out reds, things like that), but that's because my trail of thought is a little off the rails while iconning. I change my mind a hundred times about what looks best, there are lots of unnecessary layers everywhere, so this is "cleaner" in comparison to what the original psd must've looked like (also, I've got the worst memory). But the less steps to the same results the better, amirite?
Don't really remember at which point I did this originally, but let's start by cropping and resizing. Did you know you can use the crop tool AND be able to move the image around the canvas? Just duplicate your bacground layer (the image), and upon cropping, be sure to check the "Hide" (and not the "Delete") option on your toolbar near the top of the screen. Anyway, blah cropping because I'm way more interested in the colors here, and resized to 200x200px.
Duplicated that layer, set to Screen and lowered the opacity a bit because the light was too harsh on her face.
Duplicated that layer again, and Gaussian blurred it for a more diffuse glow. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set around 20px radius. Set to screen and lower the opacity a bit.
>
Duplicate the base layer again, set on top of everything to "Soft Light". Lowered the opacity a bit (to around 70%) because the shadows were too dark, hiding the blue wall I'll want to bring out later. You can almost see the embryo of the icon now.
Now the actual coloring! New Vibrance layer, set it to +100, Normal blending mode.
Another Vibrance layer, set it to +100. It looks a bit too harsh if set to Normal, so I set it to Color.
>
I don't like how the red seeps into the border pixels, and, I don't know, how weird the vibrancy looks, so I fiddle with the order of my layers and the Soft Light copy of the base layer ends up on top of everything. I find that putting all the coloring layers UNDER a soft light layer copy of the base softens them a bit and the results are usually better than if the coloring layers are on top of everything else, in my humble opinion.
Now the shadows are WAY too dark, so I use a...
dark blue exclusion layer
I CLEARLY HAVE NO SHAME, it's such a 2006 technique. But I like how it adjusts the skin tones and brings blue in shadows, so deal with it. So, I pick a random tone of dark blue and use a Fill Layer set to Exclusion, adjusting the color until I'm satisfied. Ended up with #021027. Then fiddled a bit with opacity and order of layers, and the fill layer ended up between the two Vibrance layers, set to an opacity of around 70%.
>
>
Nice, but it's still dark and flat, so let's adjust the lighting and bring out the colors I like. Still below the above mentioned base copy set to soft light, create a new transparent layer, get your Brush, and create a white light blob in the top right cornet, where the light is coming from (black is transparent). The gaussian blur it a bit until it's less of a circle and more of a soft light source (Here I used radius 43px). Leave it on Normal.
>
Now let's lighten up the background! Create a new transparent layer under the soft light layer and the white blob layer. Pick the lighter color on your background, paint light blobs in the areas you want to lighten (I used a 70% opacity brush here), set them to Screen layer mode.
>
Her hair also needs some attention. For an specific color you want to saturate, the trick is to not use the exact same color as the background, but a lighter and more saturated version. Color pick a couple of other colors from the background and blob them as well, or the coloring will look too flat. Set it to soft light. Like the following:
>
>
>
>
At this point I think I'm happy with my "base" coloring, so I'll just pump them up.
Close stamp everything (Shift+ctrl+alt+e) and set that to soft light.
I really like the lighter parts here, but I'm not into how dark the shadows look. So I'll create a new transparent layer under the stamped soft light layer, pick a dark blue color, paint over the dark parts, and set it to Screen. Still too dark, so I'll adjust the hue/saturation/lightness of that specific layer to a lighter color. With the layer selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Hue -12, Saturation +19, Lightness +17.
>
>
>
Probably at this point I thought the icon needed more contrast, and randomly decided I wanted a painty-er feeling. Two birds, one stone, and because I'm a noob, I'll do it through painty textures. I have absolutely NO idea which one I sued originally, but it looks like I used one, so I'll try that again.
I took this monster of a texture, by tinebrella, and pasted it on top of my icon, set to soft light. The paint strokes aren't too apparent, though, so I sharpen (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen) it once. And still not to my tastes, so I resize it using the free transform tool until I'm somewhat happy with the size of my strokes, moving it around for better lightening. And sharpen it again.
>
However, I'm not happy at how the texture messed up my coloring, so I fiddle with its Hue/Sat again. Settings Hue -21, Sat -66 and Lightness +8 make me happy. Notice how the texture loses all color, and we're left with mostly texture and light. Put it under the stamped soft light layer.
>
More colors! New layer, Vibrance +100. Too strong, so I move that layer under the BASE soft light layer (NOT the stamped one).
>
Okay, this is good, I think, but I guess I wanted more light and color, specially on her hair. Create a new transparent layer, pick a light color of her hair and choose a lighter, yellow-ier version, and paint over the light parts of the image with a soft brush. Set it to Soft Light.
>
>
>
But that messed up my contrast, and I'll bring it back with Levels. New Levels Adjustment layer, use the "Increase contrast" present and adjust the sliders until you're happy. Left slider is for shadows, right slider is for highlights, middle slider is for midtones. But that made her face too light, so I pick a color from the shadows of the icon (dark blue, I think) and paint over the darker parts of her face with a soft brush in a new transparent layer. Set that layer to soft light.
>
>
>
At this point I compared with the original, and I think there were a couple of different colors on the background, which I think might've been put there by misplaced light blobs? So I add blobs to bring those colors. The background on the right side is more green than blue, and darker, so I add a yellower and darker hue (which turns out to be burnt orange) to achieve that color. The left side is a bit lighter, but if I add out straight blue it'll become more pink, so I pick a color of the green wall.
>
Now let's resize this babe. Clone stamp (I always clone stamp before resizing, results are smoother!). Pretty close, amirite?
|
this version | original
But the colors are duller. Duplicate the close stamped layer, Gaussian Blur it (radius 5,8px), and set to soft light. Lower the opacity (60%) and mask the shadows because it's too dark there, imho. Another vibrancy layer (Vibrancy +72, 72% opacity) to make them pop a bit.
>
>
>
I'm not sure why- probably a light blob I used at some point, or a variations layer- but on the original icon, the left side of her face looks pink-er. If you want that, create a new transparent layer under the blurred soft light layer and paint it purple with a soft brush, setting that layer to soft light and lowering opacity as needed. Hair hair looks lighter too, so I'll paint over the hair with a saturated yellow and orange, and set it to soft light.
>
>
>
>
the colors still don't look quite right- shadows are lighter and highlights are yellower. You know what that means. Pick a blue fromt he shadows, lighten it up a bit and set it to exclusion, under the blurred soft light layer and the color blobs. Opacity around 25%.
>
I'M STILL NOT SATISFIED, so I create a new Levels layer under the blurred soft light layer and set it to Increase contrast 1, but move the middle slider to the left, to get brighter midtones. The shadows look uglier, though, so I mask them away, and lower the opacity to around 55%.
>
>
... okay, it's not the same, but similar enough.
If you feel like it, sharpen it a bit. Clone stamp, go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, and lower the opacity of that layer (30% only), masking away parts that look oversharpened, like her face. Sensitive parts, like the face you can use High Pass: Clone stamp again, go to Filter > Other > High Pass, use it at 0,4 radius. Set it to Soft Light at 32% opacity. Clone stamp everything, and Save for Web (as PNG-24.). I always save for web everything, and that's supposed to make a difference in color profiling, but to be honest I have no idea what difference that is.
>
>
>
Et voilà. :)
|
|
Apologies about how anticlimatic this tutorial is, hahaha. That's honestly all that I really do, enhance coloring with the brush tool and using a couple of textures. Sorry I couldn't make a closer match, but that's probably due to blobs placed in different places and higher (or lower) opacity levels for a couple of layers.
I'm still (and always!) open to questions, so if you need clarification on anything, just leave a comment :)