Brownish Icon Colouring from a B&W Image
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Program(s): Paint Shop Pro X2
Involves: Colour fill layers, blending modes, levels, hue/saturation, colour balance, and brightness/contrast.
Translatable: Yes
Steps: About seventeen steps total, but they're not numbered. Part one has five steps, part two has twelve steps.
Difficulty: Medium
This tutorial is in two parts: the first half covers how I added colour to the image and the second half covers the actual colouring technique I used for this icon. This was originally written for severalplums for one of the challenges. This tutorial is image heavy!
For the first part, I left the base at full size because that's easier than trying to colour a 100x100 square. As well, all of these steps are a guide, and will have to be adjusted for use on other images (especially since this picture has a brown tint to it, and I didn't gray scale it before starting to colour). I got most of these colours/blend modes/opacities just by experimenting with what looked good with this particular picture. :)
The first thing I did was start with her skin. Using #eed8c2 (
) and a soft brush about 15px wide I quickly went over her face on a new layer. Then I made the brush even smaller and zoomed in to get the edges of her features to make things neat and tidy. I set that layer to Multiply 100%. So right now we've got:
On a new layer I darkened her hair a little since it looked funny against her skin, using a soft brush with #423516 (
) on Multiply, 24%.
Now for some little details on her face! For her lips I took a small brush and zoomed in. The colour was #ff9797 (
) also set to multiply, 76%. Her eyes are green so, staying up close, I used #004000 (
) set to Colour (Legacy) at 24% (that way her eyes wouldn't come out unnaturally neon). Lastly I added a little colour to her cheeks using a very soft brush with #ffc0c0 (
), set to Multiply with the opacity lowered to around 18%. I also went over her eyebrows using a small soft brush in the same colour that I used on her hair (#423516) to give them some definition, and set that layer to Soft Light, 38%, because Multiply and Colour were both too overwhelming. Now she looks like this:
Now for the dress! Using a soft brush I went over the main part of the dress with a light blue (#c0c0ff -
) and set it to multiply, and then lowered the opacity until it wasn't so overwhelming (down to 55%). Then, since the white of the vest looked too stark still, I used a light gray (#c0c0c0 -
) and went over that and set that layer to multipy, 100%. Lastly I went over the flowers in her hair using the same blue I used for the dress (#c0c0ff -
) and set that to multiply, 22%. Now we're at:
At this point I experimented with various crops until I found one I liked, so I didn't colour the background since I didn't need to. If I'd ended up using a different crop which showed more of the painting in the background, I would have coloured that as well, but since I didn't need to I didn't bother. I copy-merged my completed picture and pasted it in a new image, and then saved my .psp file so that if I wanted to change something later, I could go back and fix that.
Okay, now we've got this icon:
It looks really dark so the first thing I did was duplicate my base layer and set it to screen, 80%. Then, since it's looking a little... blah, I make a new Hue/Saturation layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation). I up the saturation (+13) and then make it a little darker (Lightness at -13).
Next I need some contrast! I created a new levels layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels) using these settings:
RGB: 31 | 1.28 | 241
I dragged the black diamond furthest left toward the middle to darken the shadows in the picture and the white diamond on the right toward the center to lighten the highlights of the picture a little, and then adjusted the middle diamond to even things out a little. Since I'm only using this layer to adjust the contrast, and I'm not sure that I won't have to go back and adjust that later (depending on what I do) I leave the other channels alone. Now I've got:
I still want more contrast so I create another levels layer using these settings:
RGB: 8 | 0.94 | 244
So now that I've got a reasonably contrasted image it's time to start changing the colouring! I create a new colour balance layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance) using the following settings:
Shadows: -6 | 0 | -8
Midtones: 14 | 0 | -5
Highlights: -5 | 0 | 0
When I'm using colour balance layers I always go from shadows - highlights, though I don't think it really makes much of a difference. For the shadows I wanted to darken them without making the image too cool, so I added both a cool colour and a warm one (cyan and yellow). When I got to the midtones I decided I didn't want to overwhelm poor Vivienne by making her look jaundiced, so I added some red, and then a little yellow so she didn't look sunburned either. On the highlights layer I was just tweaking and ended up with the cyan. Right now we've got:
Better, but the image is looking pretty green-yellow, so I add another colour balance layer to make some bigger changes. I use these settings:
Shadows: 7 | -2 | 8
Midtones: 21 | 0 |35
Highlights: 4 | 0 | -8
When it came to the shadows I wanted to counter the greeness in her hair so I upped the red a little, the magenta a little, and the blue a little since her hair was green/yellow/cyan (so to get rid of those colours I add the opposite, magenta/blue/red). I continued to do this in the highlights - I added a lot of blue to tone down the yellow, and then some red so that she didn't look like she had frostbite or something. Lastly I added some red and yellow highlights to her skin in the highlights layer while I was tweaking. Now we've got:
For my purposes the image (especially her hair and the dark parts of the image) is now a little too red but when I try and tweak my colour balance layers I end up screwing things up even more, so I stop playing with those and just add a new levels layer. Since the picture's just too red, I go to the red channel and add a teensy bit of cyan to the midtones (the middle diamond):
Red: 0 | 0.92 | 255
Which gives us:
I like where most of the picture is at, except for her face! So I make a new layer and then take a soft brush using #ffc0c0 (
) and go over her face. I set that layer to multiply and lower the opacity to 26%. The layer looks kind of like this (with the white actually being transparent):
->
To darken things a bit I floodfill a new layer with light gray (#c0c0c0 -
) and set that layer to multiply and lower that opacity to 20%. Alternatively, you could use a brightness/contrast layer and lower the brightness, which would get you the same effect.
I've decided that there's not enough contrast for my taste so I add one more adjustment layer, a Brightness/Contrast layer and up the contrast to 25 (while leaving the brightness alone). Now we've got:
So this is pretty much my finished image! From here I decided that I wanted to further emphasize the shadows on the right side of her face, so I took a soft brush using dark gray (#202020 -
) and stroked over just the right side of her face, and then set that layer to soft light and lowered the opacity until it looked natural (28%). The reason I used dark gray was because dark gray will make the image darker (as opposed to light gray, which will make the image lighter), and black would make things too dark for shadows, in this case.
Since the image was a little blurry I copy-merged the image (Right Click > Copy Merged or Ctrl+Shift+C in PSP) and paste it as a new layer on top. Then I sharpened it (Adjust > Sharpen > Sharpen) and erased the parts which were over sharpened, mostly around her mouth and the edges of her chin and nose. And here we are!
Let me know if there's anything that needs to be clarified. :) Remember, these specific numbers won't work with every picture (they probably won't work with most, actually, because the base I started off with was brownish), so make sure to experiment a bit! :) The colouring technique will work best on brown-tinted bases and, I found, stock images over pictures of people (you won't end up with neon monsters, or anything, but it won't look... good, either). The techniques used in the first part should work on any black and white image.
Other icons using this colouring (with some tweaking):
to
to
and
to
to
Program(s): Paint Shop Pro X2
Involves: Colour fill layers, blending modes, levels, hue/saturation, colour balance, and brightness/contrast.
Translatable: Yes
Steps: About seventeen steps total, but they're not numbered. Part one has five steps, part two has twelve steps.
Difficulty: Medium
This tutorial is in two parts: the first half covers how I added colour to the image and the second half covers the actual colouring technique I used for this icon. This was originally written for severalplums for one of the challenges. This tutorial is image heavy!
For the first part, I left the base at full size because that's easier than trying to colour a 100x100 square. As well, all of these steps are a guide, and will have to be adjusted for use on other images (especially since this picture has a brown tint to it, and I didn't gray scale it before starting to colour). I got most of these colours/blend modes/opacities just by experimenting with what looked good with this particular picture. :)
The first thing I did was start with her skin. Using #eed8c2 (
) and a soft brush about 15px wide I quickly went over her face on a new layer. Then I made the brush even smaller and zoomed in to get the edges of her features to make things neat and tidy. I set that layer to Multiply 100%. So right now we've got:
On a new layer I darkened her hair a little since it looked funny against her skin, using a soft brush with #423516 (
) on Multiply, 24%.
Now for some little details on her face! For her lips I took a small brush and zoomed in. The colour was #ff9797 (
) also set to multiply, 76%. Her eyes are green so, staying up close, I used #004000 (
) set to Colour (Legacy) at 24% (that way her eyes wouldn't come out unnaturally neon). Lastly I added a little colour to her cheeks using a very soft brush with #ffc0c0 (
), set to Multiply with the opacity lowered to around 18%. I also went over her eyebrows using a small soft brush in the same colour that I used on her hair (#423516) to give them some definition, and set that layer to Soft Light, 38%, because Multiply and Colour were both too overwhelming. Now she looks like this:
Now for the dress! Using a soft brush I went over the main part of the dress with a light blue (#c0c0ff -
) and set it to multiply, and then lowered the opacity until it wasn't so overwhelming (down to 55%). Then, since the white of the vest looked too stark still, I used a light gray (#c0c0c0 -
) and went over that and set that layer to multipy, 100%. Lastly I went over the flowers in her hair using the same blue I used for the dress (#c0c0ff -
) and set that to multiply, 22%. Now we're at:
At this point I experimented with various crops until I found one I liked, so I didn't colour the background since I didn't need to. If I'd ended up using a different crop which showed more of the painting in the background, I would have coloured that as well, but since I didn't need to I didn't bother. I copy-merged my completed picture and pasted it in a new image, and then saved my .psp file so that if I wanted to change something later, I could go back and fix that.
Okay, now we've got this icon:
It looks really dark so the first thing I did was duplicate my base layer and set it to screen, 80%. Then, since it's looking a little... blah, I make a new Hue/Saturation layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation). I up the saturation (+13) and then make it a little darker (Lightness at -13).
Next I need some contrast! I created a new levels layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels) using these settings:
RGB: 31 | 1.28 | 241
I dragged the black diamond furthest left toward the middle to darken the shadows in the picture and the white diamond on the right toward the center to lighten the highlights of the picture a little, and then adjusted the middle diamond to even things out a little. Since I'm only using this layer to adjust the contrast, and I'm not sure that I won't have to go back and adjust that later (depending on what I do) I leave the other channels alone. Now I've got:
I still want more contrast so I create another levels layer using these settings:
RGB: 8 | 0.94 | 244
So now that I've got a reasonably contrasted image it's time to start changing the colouring! I create a new colour balance layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance) using the following settings:
Shadows: -6 | 0 | -8
Midtones: 14 | 0 | -5
Highlights: -5 | 0 | 0
When I'm using colour balance layers I always go from shadows - highlights, though I don't think it really makes much of a difference. For the shadows I wanted to darken them without making the image too cool, so I added both a cool colour and a warm one (cyan and yellow). When I got to the midtones I decided I didn't want to overwhelm poor Vivienne by making her look jaundiced, so I added some red, and then a little yellow so she didn't look sunburned either. On the highlights layer I was just tweaking and ended up with the cyan. Right now we've got:
Better, but the image is looking pretty green-yellow, so I add another colour balance layer to make some bigger changes. I use these settings:
Shadows: 7 | -2 | 8
Midtones: 21 | 0 |35
Highlights: 4 | 0 | -8
When it came to the shadows I wanted to counter the greeness in her hair so I upped the red a little, the magenta a little, and the blue a little since her hair was green/yellow/cyan (so to get rid of those colours I add the opposite, magenta/blue/red). I continued to do this in the highlights - I added a lot of blue to tone down the yellow, and then some red so that she didn't look like she had frostbite or something. Lastly I added some red and yellow highlights to her skin in the highlights layer while I was tweaking. Now we've got:
For my purposes the image (especially her hair and the dark parts of the image) is now a little too red but when I try and tweak my colour balance layers I end up screwing things up even more, so I stop playing with those and just add a new levels layer. Since the picture's just too red, I go to the red channel and add a teensy bit of cyan to the midtones (the middle diamond):
Red: 0 | 0.92 | 255
Which gives us:
I like where most of the picture is at, except for her face! So I make a new layer and then take a soft brush using #ffc0c0 (
) and go over her face. I set that layer to multiply and lower the opacity to 26%. The layer looks kind of like this (with the white actually being transparent):
->
To darken things a bit I floodfill a new layer with light gray (#c0c0c0 -
) and set that layer to multiply and lower that opacity to 20%. Alternatively, you could use a brightness/contrast layer and lower the brightness, which would get you the same effect.
I've decided that there's not enough contrast for my taste so I add one more adjustment layer, a Brightness/Contrast layer and up the contrast to 25 (while leaving the brightness alone). Now we've got:
So this is pretty much my finished image! From here I decided that I wanted to further emphasize the shadows on the right side of her face, so I took a soft brush using dark gray (#202020 -
) and stroked over just the right side of her face, and then set that layer to soft light and lowered the opacity until it looked natural (28%). The reason I used dark gray was because dark gray will make the image darker (as opposed to light gray, which will make the image lighter), and black would make things too dark for shadows, in this case.
Since the image was a little blurry I copy-merged the image (Right Click > Copy Merged or Ctrl+Shift+C in PSP) and paste it as a new layer on top. Then I sharpened it (Adjust > Sharpen > Sharpen) and erased the parts which were over sharpened, mostly around her mouth and the edges of her chin and nose. And here we are!
Let me know if there's anything that needs to be clarified. :) Remember, these specific numbers won't work with every picture (they probably won't work with most, actually, because the base I started off with was brownish), so make sure to experiment a bit! :) The colouring technique will work best on brown-tinted bases and, I found, stock images over pictures of people (you won't end up with neon monsters, or anything, but it won't look... good, either). The techniques used in the first part should work on any black and white image.
Other icons using this colouring (with some tweaking):
to
to
and