Supernatural Icon Tutorial
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gimp; translatable; beginner-friendly
1.
Crop and resize your cap. You can duplicate the layer before the next step. I always keep the base layer so that I can take a look at it in those moments when I absolutely hate my result and see that it's not so bad compared to what I started from. :)
2.
Reduce contrast a little bit (go to Colors--Brightness-Contrast), just until you can actually make out that it's Jo in the picture. This season of Supernatural has been hell in terms of colours and it's been really hard for me to get the results I want from almost anything. Bringing back contrast is easy, but if there's too much while you work, it can end up too harsh, so this is the first step that worked for me for a lot of caps this season.
3.
To brighten this particular cap, I used colour fills instead of screen layers. That way, I can add a little colour while I'm brightening the picture. Create a new layer (it's the first button on the left in your layer palette). Click on the colour switcher thingie and find a nice, warm pale peachy-pink colour. I used #f6dfd9. Click on the little bucket, fill your new layer, and change the mode to soft light. Make another layer and fill it with a tan colour (I used #c9bb9e). I set that layer to about 50%. This will make the icon bright and washed out, but don't worry.
It's pretty yucky so far, fear not.
4.
To bring back a little contrast and make the dark parts actually dark, I used Levels. Whenever you want to use anything from the Colors menu, and lots of stuff from the Filters menu, you need a new layer that consists of your current result. Go to Layer-New from visible. I make these "New from visible" layers after almost every step.
Next, go to Colors--Levels and drag the black slider for input levels (it's on the left) to the right until Jo's dress gets a little darker, but don't make it completely black yet. Now it's a little too dark, so I used Curves just to brighten the lighter parts a little.
5.
Ah, Curves, my favourite. You can do many nifty things with this tool, but in this step I just used them for brightening.
Get yourself a "new from visible" layer and go to Colors--Curves. Don't change the value or curve type, just click somewhere in the top right quadrant. That's where you control the light parts of your image. (If you want to play with the darker parts, you do it in the bottom left quadrant.) Depending on whether you clicked above or below the line that is now curved, the picture gets darker or brighter:
You can move the dot around to refine your results, and if you want to start over, click on reset. The key here is experimentation and fiddling with the settings until you get something you like, and from my experience, you won't get this until you try. This was what I got:
6.
Next, I made a new layer, filled it with the same pink I used earlier (#f6dfd9) and changed the mode to burn to make the whole thing a little warmer. Fiddle with the opacity until you're happy with it.
7.
In this step I wanted to bring back some contrast and make Jo's skin a little less green, so I went back to Curves. The main thing to keep in mind here is that less is more. Make very subtle adjustments, and experiment.
Under "Channel", select Blue. When you pull the curve up, you're adding some blue; when you pull it down, you're adding some yellow. Top right controls brighter parts, bottom left controls darker parts. If you don't know where the areas you want to edit are located on your curve, move your mouse to the image and you'll see a little eyedropper tool. Click on the part you want to play with and a vertical line will show up in the Curves window. Try it. Here I added just a little blue to the light areas of the icon.
After you're done with this, select the Green channel. Up adds green, down adds magenta. I added a little magenta to Jo's dress, and a little green to the top of her shoulder. This adds very lovely and subtle contrast to your image.
8.
Next, I cropped Jo out. That's my least favourite part because I get too impatient and this requires concentration. You can do it in many ways: using pen tool, marquee tool, layer masks, etc. Do what works for you. I used a combination of these methods. Since there are plenty of tutorials that deal with it, I won't go into detail.
I also used Curves again, went to the Red channel (up - red, down - cyan) and added just a pinch of red, and I brightened the icon some more by selecting Value, which is the channel we worked with first time we used Curves.
Jo's skin looks a little too red, but since I decided to use a warm, colourful background, it will blend with it better, and it won't be hard to fix when the surrounding colours are similar.
9.
I dragged and dropped these two textures by rhcp_csi on top of my layers. I lowered the opacity of one of them to combine them, I'm not sure which one, and moved backgroundless Jo on top. I wanted a little more light on her, so I added another texture by rhcp_csi, set it to soft light and played with the opacity.
10.
Next you can add another light texture you like or paint over an empty layer with colours to play with the light in the icon. I painted over the parts I wanted a little darker with a dark grey and over parts I wanted to be brighter with a light grey, and I set those layers to soft light.
11.
I wanted her dress to be yet darker, so I used Levels, just a smidgen. I sharpened it a little and that's it.
I hope this was clear and at least a little useful. Any questions are welcome.