Coloring Ramble
rebeccaann08 requested a coloring guide, but as I don't particularly think coloring is a strength of mine, I don't know if I should be giving guides on it to anyone! However I have developed a series of steps, somewhat, that I usually do when I make icons, so I thought I'd just go through those usual steps/techniques I do whenever I want to heighten the colors in my icons.
In particular she also highlighted these three icons, so I'll be focusing on the stuff I did on these three :)
Program used: Photoshop CS4, on MacOS
Translatable: Some sections are.
Complexity: Easy
Note that wherever I say ⌘, it's usually the equivalent of Control on Windows.
SOME OVERARCHING GUIDELINES
The biggest thing, for me, when making icons is to keep it unflattened as much as possible. I can be a bit of a stickler when it comes to retaining the unflattened versions/layers, because a LOT of times I go back and forth between layers and I might change the crop suddenly in the middle of an icon, etc; I can't make up my mind a lot of times D:
That isn't to say that I don't flatten ever, because I do (especially when sharpening and blurring) but as much as possible I keep those steps at the end. However of course that's very dependent on a lot of things, not the least being if I'm lazy. UM YEAH.
I find this is important for me because sometimes I will want to tweak a color or lessen the intensity of something, and it's easier to go back to the original layer and do something about it rather than pile more layers and try to reign the color in that way. Let's not get started on changing the cropping too.
Soooo... what do I do to make sure I can go back and change things around as much as possible?
A. MASKING
This is king. Don't ever erase things. Mask it out instead. So later on you can still edit the mask instead of wailing that you've erased some character's hand or valuable hair porn (because hair porn is very valuable). No that has never happened to me, of course not.
B. SMART OBJECTS
I love love love Smart Objects. I don't know if there are Smart Object equivalents for other graphics programs or earlier versions of PS, in which case I'm so sorry but you can just skip this part. I've talked a little about how I use Smart Objects in this Sound of Music icons tutorial, so I won't go into that now, but basically it allows you to resize, drag around, transform, etc whole sets of layers without losing the ability to go in and edit those same layers that make up the single Smart Object.
Below is an example of the (prepared) base I have for the Gandalf icon, resized up from the 100x100 in the icon, to 250x250. The left is using the smart objects, and the right is using the base layers rasterized. No other changes. LOOK AT THE BEAUTY T_____T
Theoretically I think you can make Smart Objects within Smart Objects to infinity but I've never tried it THAT much. Just to the second level. But that would be awesome.
Also, a plus: you can apply Photoshop filters on to Smart Objects but control how much of the filter shows up on that layer and even remove the filter altogether later on without having to worry about all the other layers! I mean, seriously, win.
C. ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
I used to apply adjustments right on the layer, but ever since Adjustment Layers came along in Photoshop, I learned to love them. You should too, if you can. Like, for example you've got the coloring right where you want it, but then you want to use this fabulous texture but the coloring goes out of whack after that--what I would usually do is go back to an earlier adjustment layer and tweak the colors there. Or something.
Added bonus: easier to make tutorials for icons? LOL
All three above I use quite extensively when I make icons. :)
OK THAT WAS LONG and pointless so let's just get on with it.
1. BASE PREPARATION
I'm not sure how I can stress base preparation enough. I started off doing it the usual way:
1. Duplicate base
2. Set duplicate to Screen
3. Duplicate base again
4. Set second duplicate to Soft Light
5. Profit!
...but that doesn't work for everything. The thing is, you can lose very valuable detail right in this step: your screen layer can wash out light sections (so, no more details there) and your soft light layer can make dark sections too dark (also losing details). Soft light is particularly annoying because it can make edges of dark sections look especially low-quality.
Here is an example, again from the base of my Gandalf icon.
The settings I have for the base prep stage itself (the left side) are:
Screen layer - 69% opacity
Soft Light layer - 42% opacity
(why yes I just don't really round up/down the percentages lol)
The one on the right side has both screen and soft light layers pushed up to 100%.
I've circles the parts in red that show loss of detail. Gandalf's beard and hair are pretty much GONE on some parts (I mean yeah he's The White but whatever) and his eyes are too dark now--you almost can't see any whites there. If you stay with this prepared base, especially if you flatten, no amount of work at the later stages will bring those portions of the icon back. They're "gone".
The saturation is also heightened, which may or may not be a good thing; usually I prefer things to not be so saturated when I start off since I'll be fiddling with colors and textures and whatnot and it's easy to just make it TOO saturated by the end of it.
But the above is certainly not the only way to prepare a base. Sometimes it can be easier to just do curves rather than fiddling around with opacities on two different layers; with a Curves Adjustment Layer you just really need to work with one layer.
There are two things I usually look at when using a curves layer to brighten/prep a cap: the two slider arrows at the bottom are as close to the "mountain" as possible (sometimes chucking off a bit of the base), and the curve is a bit, well, curved (as opposed to a straight diagonal). How curved it is depends on the cap.
The below example shows my original base prep layers (screen/soft light layers), the base prepped with a curves adjustment layer (as pictured), and the actual base for comparison.
2. SHADOWS AND HIGHLIGHTS
I usually add a black/white gradient to highlight right after I've prepared my base. I do this to give my icon a bit of direction at the start. I usually put this just underneath the soft light layer. Once I get to actual coloring (OMG GET THERE ALREADY) it might be a bit more obvious why it's under the last soft light layer, but normally it's perfectly alright to place it above all your base prep.
Above is the actual base, the prepared base, the base with the highlight, and the actual gradient I used (Gradient Tool; Black, White; Radial Gradient; Reverse is checked).
The change is rather subtle, but it forms the basis for the lighting of the whole icon for me, giving me a kind of guideline as to where the icon is going. In the Gandalf icon in particular, I built up the shadows on the left and lighting on the right after fiddling with the colors.
This does not always mean the lighting is exactly how it turns out in the end--about maybe 90% of the time I will add another gradient near the end of the process to bring everything together, and it's not always the same sort of gradient.
...okay are you tired of Gandalf's face now?
3. PUNCHING UP THE COLORS
YAY
FINALLY
In general I use two ways to color my icons, almost 100% of the time: Color Balance Adjustment Layer, and actual painting. Now before you sigh and close the browser window at the mention of painting, this isn't like making painty icons or anything like that, so whether you have a tablet or not doesn't matter. It's just punching up the colors to make it nice and shiny, and it doesn't even need to be very precise.
The above is the transition for the Beca icon.
1. Unprepared base
2. Prepared base, with highlights -- with the saturation of the base up, I started getting this painty vibe from it because of the way the light hits her nose and mouth especially, and the inherent "grain" in the image
3. Color Balance adjustment layer -- because of the paintiness from #2, I decided I wanted to make it an unnaturally-colored icon, so -59, 0, +100
4. Painting to bring back other colors -- too much blue, and I had been working with yellows on my other same-scene icon so I naturally wanted to bring back yellow. New layer, #ffa800, set to Hard Light, 65% opacity.
5. The actual color layer I painted
And that's pretty much it for that icon--just a bit more sharpening using Paint Daubs, blurring where appropriate, and the icon is done. No muss, no fuss.
I'M SORRY IT'S SO BORING
A special mention needs to be done for Vibrance, however. I didn't use it above because it works without it, but there are plenty of times where it really totally works. Like in the Bellas icon below.
1. Unprepared base
2. Prepared base, with highlights
3. Color Balance adjustment layer, +37, 0, +34 -- lovely blues and reds showing up, so let's bring that up some more.
4. Vibrance layer, Vibrance +100, Saturation -7 -- I brought back the saturation a tiny bit because, well, too much. You can probably stop at this point, of course, but I felt it just wasn't COLORFUL ENOUGH (lol)
5. Painting again painted layers set to soft light, 100%; just to really highlight the colors in the icon, the blues and purples and yellows. As I said, the differences between #4 and $5 are subtle so maybe it's not as big a deal, but I like the extra pop it gives especially with the background and the pool floor.
6. The actual painted layers* I used
* I usually paint on one layer for each solid color, not one layer for all of them. This is because sometimes I might wish to tone down a particular color--reds in particular can be overwhelming (okokok that's only when I want to put lipstick on people) so I lower the opacity of that layer only without affecting the rest of the colors. Also that means I can erase/mask at will if I want, again without affecting anything else.
Also, when I pick colors to paint with, what's important is to use the Eyedropper tool (I) to pick a color from the section of the icon you want to color. Unless you're trying for something unnatural or something, of course. What I've always done is just heighten the color, not completely change it, and in that case the best way to do it is by selecting a color from your icon already.
However if the color is too dark (like dark dark greens) or too muted and you'd like the color to be more vibrant, I usually switch to a lighter and/or brighter color usually within the range below:
Something not too bright/different from the base color.
Sometimes I will also duplicate the color layer, basically having two layers of the same color and both set to Soft Light. Depending on the color you've used in the layer it can really punch up and change the color of that section, so usually I do change the opacity of the duplicated layer to something lower.
Look at the blues in these two icons, for example:
The icon on the right has the blues soft light layer doubles, and it's a lot more vibrant that the one on the left.
That's basically it for the Bellas icon--what's missing is just some shadows and highlights on the scene, and I added the top and bottom borders because omg can you see that horrid 1px border at the top.
Aaaaand because I know you missed Gandalf...
1. Unprepared base
2. Prepared base, with highlights
3. Color Balance adjustment layer, +20, +23, +55 to make it a bit cooler
4. Painting because that is the sky, right -- using #0091a1 to paint the sky portions
5. Solid color fill layer, #fff3e4 set to Multiply 54% opacity, to make the icon a bit warmer I KNOW IT LOOKS LIKE I CAN'T DECIDE
6. Vibrance adjustment layer at +77
The light flesh tone on Multiply idea/tip came from the lovely likealight (somewhere, I forgot where she told me!). I use it a lot right now because 1) if you're using a lot of highlights at the edges of the icons, it helps subtly separate your icon fro the stark white of the Livejournal page background, and 2) especially if you're iconning people, it's just really a flattering tone for them. It doesn't have to be always #fff3e4, just a usual pale warm tone works, I just randomly select one myself.
That's all there is to it with the Gandalf icon--well, that and the aforementioned building up of shadows and highlights on the left and right sides of the icon respectively.
SOME LAST NOTES
That's all, really. I don't think I do anything specifically special for colors, to be honest. D: So yeah RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE EVERYWHERE
I do feel like I should do some special mentions on other coloring techniques I've used before like Selective Color and stuff like that, but I've only started to scratch the surface on Selective Color and I don't think I'm well versed enough in that to even talk about it lol. I do use it for when things start to get oversaturated in just one particular color and I want to bring it in line (it can happen a fair few times with Color Balance). Using Curves and changing the channels (from RGB to a particular channel) also work and have some very interesting effects.
But I hope you picked up something interesting from this tutorial, and feel free to ask me any questions or complain about the uselessness of this tutorial or point out really horrible things that I've been doing wrong D:
In particular she also highlighted these three icons, so I'll be focusing on the stuff I did on these three :)
Program used: Photoshop CS4, on MacOS
Translatable: Some sections are.
Complexity: Easy
Note that wherever I say ⌘, it's usually the equivalent of Control on Windows.
SOME OVERARCHING GUIDELINES
The biggest thing, for me, when making icons is to keep it unflattened as much as possible. I can be a bit of a stickler when it comes to retaining the unflattened versions/layers, because a LOT of times I go back and forth between layers and I might change the crop suddenly in the middle of an icon, etc; I can't make up my mind a lot of times D:
That isn't to say that I don't flatten ever, because I do (especially when sharpening and blurring) but as much as possible I keep those steps at the end. However of course that's very dependent on a lot of things, not the least being if I'm lazy. UM YEAH.
I find this is important for me because sometimes I will want to tweak a color or lessen the intensity of something, and it's easier to go back to the original layer and do something about it rather than pile more layers and try to reign the color in that way. Let's not get started on changing the cropping too.
Soooo... what do I do to make sure I can go back and change things around as much as possible?
A. MASKING
This is king. Don't ever erase things. Mask it out instead. So later on you can still edit the mask instead of wailing that you've erased some character's hand or valuable hair porn (because hair porn is very valuable). No that has never happened to me, of course not.
B. SMART OBJECTS
I love love love Smart Objects. I don't know if there are Smart Object equivalents for other graphics programs or earlier versions of PS, in which case I'm so sorry but you can just skip this part. I've talked a little about how I use Smart Objects in this Sound of Music icons tutorial, so I won't go into that now, but basically it allows you to resize, drag around, transform, etc whole sets of layers without losing the ability to go in and edit those same layers that make up the single Smart Object.
Below is an example of the (prepared) base I have for the Gandalf icon, resized up from the 100x100 in the icon, to 250x250. The left is using the smart objects, and the right is using the base layers rasterized. No other changes. LOOK AT THE BEAUTY T_____T
Theoretically I think you can make Smart Objects within Smart Objects to infinity but I've never tried it THAT much. Just to the second level. But that would be awesome.
Also, a plus: you can apply Photoshop filters on to Smart Objects but control how much of the filter shows up on that layer and even remove the filter altogether later on without having to worry about all the other layers! I mean, seriously, win.
C. ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
I used to apply adjustments right on the layer, but ever since Adjustment Layers came along in Photoshop, I learned to love them. You should too, if you can. Like, for example you've got the coloring right where you want it, but then you want to use this fabulous texture but the coloring goes out of whack after that--what I would usually do is go back to an earlier adjustment layer and tweak the colors there. Or something.
Added bonus: easier to make tutorials for icons? LOL
All three above I use quite extensively when I make icons. :)
OK THAT WAS LONG and pointless so let's just get on with it.
1. BASE PREPARATION
I'm not sure how I can stress base preparation enough. I started off doing it the usual way:
1. Duplicate base
2. Set duplicate to Screen
3. Duplicate base again
4. Set second duplicate to Soft Light
5. Profit!
...but that doesn't work for everything. The thing is, you can lose very valuable detail right in this step: your screen layer can wash out light sections (so, no more details there) and your soft light layer can make dark sections too dark (also losing details). Soft light is particularly annoying because it can make edges of dark sections look especially low-quality.
Here is an example, again from the base of my Gandalf icon.
The settings I have for the base prep stage itself (the left side) are:
Screen layer - 69% opacity
Soft Light layer - 42% opacity
(why yes I just don't really round up/down the percentages lol)
The one on the right side has both screen and soft light layers pushed up to 100%.
I've circles the parts in red that show loss of detail. Gandalf's beard and hair are pretty much GONE on some parts (I mean yeah he's The White but whatever) and his eyes are too dark now--you almost can't see any whites there. If you stay with this prepared base, especially if you flatten, no amount of work at the later stages will bring those portions of the icon back. They're "gone".
The saturation is also heightened, which may or may not be a good thing; usually I prefer things to not be so saturated when I start off since I'll be fiddling with colors and textures and whatnot and it's easy to just make it TOO saturated by the end of it.
But the above is certainly not the only way to prepare a base. Sometimes it can be easier to just do curves rather than fiddling around with opacities on two different layers; with a Curves Adjustment Layer you just really need to work with one layer.
There are two things I usually look at when using a curves layer to brighten/prep a cap: the two slider arrows at the bottom are as close to the "mountain" as possible (sometimes chucking off a bit of the base), and the curve is a bit, well, curved (as opposed to a straight diagonal). How curved it is depends on the cap.
The below example shows my original base prep layers (screen/soft light layers), the base prepped with a curves adjustment layer (as pictured), and the actual base for comparison.
2. SHADOWS AND HIGHLIGHTS
I usually add a black/white gradient to highlight right after I've prepared my base. I do this to give my icon a bit of direction at the start. I usually put this just underneath the soft light layer. Once I get to actual coloring (OMG GET THERE ALREADY) it might be a bit more obvious why it's under the last soft light layer, but normally it's perfectly alright to place it above all your base prep.
Above is the actual base, the prepared base, the base with the highlight, and the actual gradient I used (Gradient Tool; Black, White; Radial Gradient; Reverse is checked).
The change is rather subtle, but it forms the basis for the lighting of the whole icon for me, giving me a kind of guideline as to where the icon is going. In the Gandalf icon in particular, I built up the shadows on the left and lighting on the right after fiddling with the colors.
This does not always mean the lighting is exactly how it turns out in the end--about maybe 90% of the time I will add another gradient near the end of the process to bring everything together, and it's not always the same sort of gradient.
...okay are you tired of Gandalf's face now?
3. PUNCHING UP THE COLORS
YAY
FINALLY
In general I use two ways to color my icons, almost 100% of the time: Color Balance Adjustment Layer, and actual painting. Now before you sigh and close the browser window at the mention of painting, this isn't like making painty icons or anything like that, so whether you have a tablet or not doesn't matter. It's just punching up the colors to make it nice and shiny, and it doesn't even need to be very precise.
The above is the transition for the Beca icon.
1. Unprepared base
2. Prepared base, with highlights -- with the saturation of the base up, I started getting this painty vibe from it because of the way the light hits her nose and mouth especially, and the inherent "grain" in the image
3. Color Balance adjustment layer -- because of the paintiness from #2, I decided I wanted to make it an unnaturally-colored icon, so -59, 0, +100
4. Painting to bring back other colors -- too much blue, and I had been working with yellows on my other same-scene icon so I naturally wanted to bring back yellow. New layer, #ffa800, set to Hard Light, 65% opacity.
5. The actual color layer I painted
And that's pretty much it for that icon--just a bit more sharpening using Paint Daubs, blurring where appropriate, and the icon is done. No muss, no fuss.
I'M SORRY IT'S SO BORING
A special mention needs to be done for Vibrance, however. I didn't use it above because it works without it, but there are plenty of times where it really totally works. Like in the Bellas icon below.
1. Unprepared base
2. Prepared base, with highlights
3. Color Balance adjustment layer, +37, 0, +34 -- lovely blues and reds showing up, so let's bring that up some more.
4. Vibrance layer, Vibrance +100, Saturation -7 -- I brought back the saturation a tiny bit because, well, too much. You can probably stop at this point, of course, but I felt it just wasn't COLORFUL ENOUGH (lol)
5. Painting again painted layers set to soft light, 100%; just to really highlight the colors in the icon, the blues and purples and yellows. As I said, the differences between #4 and $5 are subtle so maybe it's not as big a deal, but I like the extra pop it gives especially with the background and the pool floor.
6. The actual painted layers* I used
* I usually paint on one layer for each solid color, not one layer for all of them. This is because sometimes I might wish to tone down a particular color--reds in particular can be overwhelming (okokok that's only when I want to put lipstick on people) so I lower the opacity of that layer only without affecting the rest of the colors. Also that means I can erase/mask at will if I want, again without affecting anything else.
Also, when I pick colors to paint with, what's important is to use the Eyedropper tool (I) to pick a color from the section of the icon you want to color. Unless you're trying for something unnatural or something, of course. What I've always done is just heighten the color, not completely change it, and in that case the best way to do it is by selecting a color from your icon already.
However if the color is too dark (like dark dark greens) or too muted and you'd like the color to be more vibrant, I usually switch to a lighter and/or brighter color usually within the range below:
Something not too bright/different from the base color.
Sometimes I will also duplicate the color layer, basically having two layers of the same color and both set to Soft Light. Depending on the color you've used in the layer it can really punch up and change the color of that section, so usually I do change the opacity of the duplicated layer to something lower.
Look at the blues in these two icons, for example:
The icon on the right has the blues soft light layer doubles, and it's a lot more vibrant that the one on the left.
That's basically it for the Bellas icon--what's missing is just some shadows and highlights on the scene, and I added the top and bottom borders because omg can you see that horrid 1px border at the top.
Aaaaand because I know you missed Gandalf...
1. Unprepared base
2. Prepared base, with highlights
3. Color Balance adjustment layer, +20, +23, +55 to make it a bit cooler
4. Painting because that is the sky, right -- using #0091a1 to paint the sky portions
5. Solid color fill layer, #fff3e4 set to Multiply 54% opacity, to make the icon a bit warmer I KNOW IT LOOKS LIKE I CAN'T DECIDE
6. Vibrance adjustment layer at +77
The light flesh tone on Multiply idea/tip came from the lovely likealight (somewhere, I forgot where she told me!). I use it a lot right now because 1) if you're using a lot of highlights at the edges of the icons, it helps subtly separate your icon fro the stark white of the Livejournal page background, and 2) especially if you're iconning people, it's just really a flattering tone for them. It doesn't have to be always #fff3e4, just a usual pale warm tone works, I just randomly select one myself.
That's all there is to it with the Gandalf icon--well, that and the aforementioned building up of shadows and highlights on the left and right sides of the icon respectively.
SOME LAST NOTES
That's all, really. I don't think I do anything specifically special for colors, to be honest. D: So yeah RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE EVERYWHERE
I do feel like I should do some special mentions on other coloring techniques I've used before like Selective Color and stuff like that, but I've only started to scratch the surface on Selective Color and I don't think I'm well versed enough in that to even talk about it lol. I do use it for when things start to get oversaturated in just one particular color and I want to bring it in line (it can happen a fair few times with Color Balance). Using Curves and changing the channels (from RGB to a particular channel) also work and have some very interesting effects.
But I hope you picked up something interesting from this tutorial, and feel free to ask me any questions or complain about the uselessness of this tutorial or point out really horrible things that I've been doing wrong D: