1 Coloring Tutorial
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Program(s)+version: GIMP 2.4
Involves: channel mixer, curves, color balance, layers, and textures
Translatable: probably
Steps: 11 steps for 1st result, plus 1 more for the second.
Difficulty: easy to medium
This tutorial tends to work best on images that are lighter in color, though you could probably also use this on normal images by adding a screen or curves layer.
Also, I'll be showing you the settings I used on my image, but your settings will probably need to be tweaked based on yours. :)
Step 1 - Grab your image. Mine is of the lovely Mariska Hargitay, from the website Mariska Hargitay Resource. I then cropped it and scaled it down to 100x100
Step 2 - Since the picture is blurry, I sharpened it up using Unsharp Mask (Filters>Enhance>Unsharp Mask).
My settings;
Radius: 2.0
Amount: 2.5
Threshold: 0
Step 3 - To add more color to the image, I duplicated my base and opened up the Channel Mixer (Colors>Components>Channel Mixer).
My settings;
RED: 90, -20, 0
GREEN: -10, 40, 60
BLUE: -50, 80, 60
Make sure 'Preserve Luminosity' is unchecked.
It looks kinda funky right now, but it'll get better, I promise!
Step 4 - Set your Channel Mixer Layer to 'Screen', opacity 100%. This brightens the image up, while adding more color.
Step 5 - My image is far too bright for my liking now. To bring it down, I opened up the Brightness/Contrast tool (Colors>Brightness/Contrast).
My settings;
Brightness: -100
Contrast: +5
(Not everyone will need to do this step)
Step 6 - I copied my picture (Edit>Copy Visible) and pasted it (Edit>Paste) as a new layer. This way you can edit the image as a whole. :)
Step 7 - To add a touch of blue to the picture, I opened up Curves (Colors>Curves). I then selected the Blue Channel, grabbed the black dot in the lower left corner, and moved it straight up.*
My settings;
Blue - x: 0 y: 25
* - I can upload a screen cap of my curves settings. :)
Step 8 - Mariska's coloring seems a little dull, so I opened up the Hue/Saturation tool (Colors>Hue/Saturation) to brighten it up.
My settings;
Red: Saturation +25
Yellow: Saturation +10
Green: Saturation +30
Cyan: Saturation +15
Blue: Saturation +50
Again, these settings will vary depending on your image.
Step 9 - The picture could use a bit more blue, so I opened up the Color Balance tool (Colors>Color Balance).
My settings;
Shadows: -25, 19, 23
(To keep Mariska's hair from getting overwhelmed, I upped the Red level a bit in 'Highlights')
Step 10 - The image could still used a bit more color overall, so I duplicated the layer and opened up Channel Mixer again.
My settings;
RED: 90, -20, 0
GREEN: -10, 40, 60
BLUE: -50, 80, 60
This time we will check 'Preserve Luminosity'
Step 11 - The image's colors are now far to vivid for my liking, so I set that layer to 'Color' opacity 25%
You can stop here if you like and play around with your results. I thought my icon could use a bit more work, so one more step!
Step 12 - The overall picture just seems to bright for my liking. So I opened up this gray texture
(creator unknown, please tell me if you know who made it!)
and set it to 'Darken Only' opacity 50%
I then added this light texture
(made by spooky_window)
and set it to 'Screen', 100%.
Next was the text 'mariska' in the font 'Geo Sans Light', size 15, with the layer set to 'normal' opacity 80%.
I finally added a tiny text brush to a transparent layer, and set that layer to 'normal' opacity 60%.
and voila! That's it! ^-^
Let me know if you have any questions! =]
Other icons made taking similar steps:
This tutorial is an expansion of the lovely creamsodas Tutorial #18 =]