Tutorial #7: Lilley in lush greens
A long, long time ago, the wonderful fuuurs asked me how I made one of my favourite icons. I am very sorry to have kept her waiting all this time. This icon was made a year ago and sadly, I don't exactly remember how and why I did what I did. However, I found the .psd and so this is an attempt to recreate this icon in Photoshop CS4.
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I'm warning you in advance: this is the worst tutorial I've ever written, because I remember so little of it other than that the blocking/lighten technique had first become popular and this one of the few tutorials where I was able to use the slightest bit of it on my background. :s
Also: for this tutorial, you have to be familiar with tools like the clone tool, layer masks and adjustment layers. If you are not or if you have any questions at all, please comment and I'll do my best to answer them.
Step 1
I cropped this screencap so that Lilley was in the centre. I then resized it to 100 pixels width.
Step 2
Now, the base I have says "Curves 1", which means that I had to have used a Curves layer and then merged it down. When I tried a Curves layer, it seemed that the colours were a little bit different, so I suppose I also did a Levels layers or Color Balance layer. I couldn't quite recreate the colours, but the difference is minimal:
Original base:
Recreated base:
The recreated base has a Levels layer, with the Blues on 1.08 (by that I mean that I did not change any of the settings instead of moving the middle cursor around), and a Curves layer with the RGB settings on Output: 205 | Input: 103.
Step 3
One of the things I find most difficult is creating negative space in a background that is very busy. But sometimes a picture is just too cool to pass up on and this was one of the times I managed to make it look alright.
I merged my base, Levels layer and Curves layer and duplicated it. Then I moved the original layer upwards, so that only the top was peeking out from under the duplicate:
I copied these two layers and merged them.
Step 4
Now my good friend the Clone tool had to come out and help me erase the double helmet. The Clone tool is fabulous, but it needs precision and lots of patience. If you're unfamiliar with the basics of the Clone tool, I have a tutorial that talks about it in depth here
I used a small round brush to clone parts on the right edge of the icon over the duplicate helmet. The patience is required because to make it look even the slightest bit smooth, you'll need to pick a new area to clone from every few clicks and you'll also (probably) need to clone at an opacity that is not 100%.
Looking at the icon, I can see that I drew from all the 'dark bushes' alone the right side of the icon to cover Lilley's duplicate helmet.
I also duplicated the layer, moved it around and set it to lighten to transfer useful patches of background from one place to the other. My base was still 100x100, but you can see how I moved copies of the base around if I move the end result layer to a bigger canvas:
Step 5
So once the helmet is removed, the base looks like this:
I duplicated this base and set it to soft light:
Because I thought some areas of the icon were beginning to look really dark, I decided to create some light.
I created a new layer and placed it between the new base and its duplicate set to soft light. Then I picked a small, soft round brush and painted in a very light beige over areas I wanted to highlight.
To give you an idea of how I painted, here's that layer over a solid black background:
And here's how it looks in the actual icon:
I duplicated the soft light layer again for extra dramatic contrast:
Step 6
Because some of that dramatic contrast was a bit overly dramatic, I created a new Curves layer with the settings in the RGB are at Output: 149 | Input: 135 .
It now looks like this:
Step 7
This was the point where I actually got to colouring. Because this scene is one of only a few in Generation Kill where the background is lush green instead of the grey and beige of the desert and the towns, I wanted to emphasize the greens.
I love 'altering' an image's colours by using Levels, so I created a new Levels layer, with the following settings:
Red: 1.22
Green: 1.10
Blue: 0.91
Step 8
I can't quite tell you the rationale behind my next step, a new Selective Color layer. I mean, I know why I use Selective Color layers (obviously), but looking at the eventual icon and the settings of the Selective Color layer, I can't quite see what I was trying to achieve with all the settings at this point. It could very well be, however, that I did steps 9-11 first and then decided they needed adjustment and I created a Selective Color layer that I moved down later.
This really is the worst tutorial ever.
Anyhow, the settings:
Red
Cyan: -21
Magenta: +12
Yellow: +35
Green
Cyan: +43
Magenta: -58
Yellow: +36
Black: +74
Cyan
Cyan: +42
Magenta: +32
Yellow: -31
Black: +42
Blue
Cyan: +34
Magenta: +28
Yellow: -40
Black: +32
Magenta
Magenta: +38
White
Yellow: +28
Step 9
I then created a new Vibrance layer and upped the Vibrancy to 74:
Step 10
On top of the Vibrancy layer is a layer set to Color burn and when I set it to Normal and move it into a new canvas with a white background, it looks like this:
You can't see it in this image, but it's actually rather transparent, which means that it is either something I created myself with brushes and different colours of green and some filter OR it's a texture by someone that I edited. If it's the latter, I've no idea any more whose texture it is, but when I put it over the icon as we have it so far, you can see why I used it, because it brings extra green and yellow to the table:
(If you recognise it as a texture, please let me know!)
Step 11
Because the whites were a bit too white, I created a new Gradient Map in black and a very light yellow, number #fffdea and set it to soft light. There is a printscreen of the settings here.
Step 12
The last step of the colouring was adding another Vibrance layer, this time with the Vibrance upped to 69.
Step 13
You'll notice that the image doesn't look altogether great like this. Lots of lines are oversharpened and Lilley's face looks pockmarked. Not a good look.
To battle this, I went back to those two base duplicated we set to soft light. I added a layer mask to both those layers and erased Lilley from both layers.
Then, I used Gaussian blurs and the actual blur tool on those layers and the base to do the rest.
I already mentioned this is the weirdest and worst tutorial I have ever written, but I still hope you enjoyed the explosion of greens on your screen. I you have any thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear them. :)
-->
I'm warning you in advance: this is the worst tutorial I've ever written, because I remember so little of it other than that the blocking/lighten technique had first become popular and this one of the few tutorials where I was able to use the slightest bit of it on my background. :s
Also: for this tutorial, you have to be familiar with tools like the clone tool, layer masks and adjustment layers. If you are not or if you have any questions at all, please comment and I'll do my best to answer them.
Step 1
I cropped this screencap so that Lilley was in the centre. I then resized it to 100 pixels width.
Step 2
Now, the base I have says "Curves 1", which means that I had to have used a Curves layer and then merged it down. When I tried a Curves layer, it seemed that the colours were a little bit different, so I suppose I also did a Levels layers or Color Balance layer. I couldn't quite recreate the colours, but the difference is minimal:
Original base:
Recreated base:
The recreated base has a Levels layer, with the Blues on 1.08 (by that I mean that I did not change any of the settings instead of moving the middle cursor around), and a Curves layer with the RGB settings on Output: 205 | Input: 103.
Step 3
One of the things I find most difficult is creating negative space in a background that is very busy. But sometimes a picture is just too cool to pass up on and this was one of the times I managed to make it look alright.
I merged my base, Levels layer and Curves layer and duplicated it. Then I moved the original layer upwards, so that only the top was peeking out from under the duplicate:
I copied these two layers and merged them.
Step 4
Now my good friend the Clone tool had to come out and help me erase the double helmet. The Clone tool is fabulous, but it needs precision and lots of patience. If you're unfamiliar with the basics of the Clone tool, I have a tutorial that talks about it in depth here
I used a small round brush to clone parts on the right edge of the icon over the duplicate helmet. The patience is required because to make it look even the slightest bit smooth, you'll need to pick a new area to clone from every few clicks and you'll also (probably) need to clone at an opacity that is not 100%.
Looking at the icon, I can see that I drew from all the 'dark bushes' alone the right side of the icon to cover Lilley's duplicate helmet.
I also duplicated the layer, moved it around and set it to lighten to transfer useful patches of background from one place to the other. My base was still 100x100, but you can see how I moved copies of the base around if I move the end result layer to a bigger canvas:
Step 5
So once the helmet is removed, the base looks like this:
I duplicated this base and set it to soft light:
Because I thought some areas of the icon were beginning to look really dark, I decided to create some light.
I created a new layer and placed it between the new base and its duplicate set to soft light. Then I picked a small, soft round brush and painted in a very light beige over areas I wanted to highlight.
To give you an idea of how I painted, here's that layer over a solid black background:
And here's how it looks in the actual icon:
I duplicated the soft light layer again for extra dramatic contrast:
Step 6
Because some of that dramatic contrast was a bit overly dramatic, I created a new Curves layer with the settings in the RGB are at Output: 149 | Input: 135 .
It now looks like this:
Step 7
This was the point where I actually got to colouring. Because this scene is one of only a few in Generation Kill where the background is lush green instead of the grey and beige of the desert and the towns, I wanted to emphasize the greens.
I love 'altering' an image's colours by using Levels, so I created a new Levels layer, with the following settings:
Red: 1.22
Green: 1.10
Blue: 0.91
Step 8
I can't quite tell you the rationale behind my next step, a new Selective Color layer. I mean, I know why I use Selective Color layers (obviously), but looking at the eventual icon and the settings of the Selective Color layer, I can't quite see what I was trying to achieve with all the settings at this point. It could very well be, however, that I did steps 9-11 first and then decided they needed adjustment and I created a Selective Color layer that I moved down later.
This really is the worst tutorial ever.
Anyhow, the settings:
Red
Cyan: -21
Magenta: +12
Yellow: +35
Green
Cyan: +43
Magenta: -58
Yellow: +36
Black: +74
Cyan
Cyan: +42
Magenta: +32
Yellow: -31
Black: +42
Blue
Cyan: +34
Magenta: +28
Yellow: -40
Black: +32
Magenta
Magenta: +38
White
Yellow: +28
Step 9
I then created a new Vibrance layer and upped the Vibrancy to 74:
Step 10
On top of the Vibrancy layer is a layer set to Color burn and when I set it to Normal and move it into a new canvas with a white background, it looks like this:
You can't see it in this image, but it's actually rather transparent, which means that it is either something I created myself with brushes and different colours of green and some filter OR it's a texture by someone that I edited. If it's the latter, I've no idea any more whose texture it is, but when I put it over the icon as we have it so far, you can see why I used it, because it brings extra green and yellow to the table:
(If you recognise it as a texture, please let me know!)
Step 11
Because the whites were a bit too white, I created a new Gradient Map in black and a very light yellow, number #fffdea and set it to soft light. There is a printscreen of the settings here.
Step 12
The last step of the colouring was adding another Vibrance layer, this time with the Vibrance upped to 69.
Step 13
You'll notice that the image doesn't look altogether great like this. Lots of lines are oversharpened and Lilley's face looks pockmarked. Not a good look.
To battle this, I went back to those two base duplicated we set to soft light. I added a layer mask to both those layers and erased Lilley from both layers.
Then, I used Gaussian blurs and the actual blur tool on those layers and the base to do the rest.
I already mentioned this is the weirdest and worst tutorial I have ever written, but I still hope you enjoyed the explosion of greens on your screen. I you have any thoughts or questions, I'd love to hear them. :)