Icon Tutorial #5
I won Mod's Invitation over at severalplums and this is the tutorial I wrote for the icon.
We're going from
to
This icon was made in Photoshop CS3 using Levels, Selective Colouring and Brightness/Contrast Layers.
Note: If not otherwise mentioned layers are set to Normal at 100%.
Step 1 - Cropping and Placing
Originally, I wanted to do an icon with three crops of the image, but when I cropped the head, I knew that this wouldn't work so I went with just two crops.
I always have the crop tool set to 100px in both width and height. At first I cropped the body and used the Rectangular Marquee tool to pick just the body and limiting the area I would have to hide with the mask.
I opened a new image and moved the selection into it before "hiding" it.
After that I cropped the face. I moved the entire image into the new image and placed the layer until the layer with the body.
I then moved it to the left until I liked the way it looked.
Now I made the body layer visible again and moved it until it fit as well. I also added a mask layer to make more of the face visible again and for a smoother blend.
In a last step I copied both layers and merged the copied layers. I did this because I knew that I wanted to colour the layers in the same way and didn't want to copy two layers every time I needed the original base again.
Step 2 - Colouring
1) The image was too dark so I used the merged layer (face+body) and set it to Screen at 70%
to
--
2) The image looked kind of flat so I added a levels layer.
Black: 17
Gray: 1,14
White: 251
to
--
3) The image was too yellow and since I've been trying to figure out the Selective Colouring, I've used that (I'm pretty sure a similar effect could have been done using the curves or colour balance). The settings are set to relative.
Red: 0, -12, -24, 0
Yellow: 0, -8, -16, 0
to
--
4) To make the colours more visible I used a Brightness/Contrast layer and set the Contrast to +21.
to
--
5) I still wasn't satisfied with the colouring and not knowing which other adjustment layers I could use, I looked through the textures I have. At first I used this texture
by babliz. I set it to Soft Light at 20%.
to
--
6) To brighten it a bit more again, I used this texture
by brokendogma with Soft Light at 40%.
It looked rather grainy and I was worried about it making the skin look pixelated so I used the blur tool at 50% to go over the face.
Since I was still worried I also used a normal brush and a randomly picked gray tone (#777777) to make the texture less visible where skins is. To avoid visible "edges" I used a gaussian blur filter set to 1,0 on the mask.
to
--
7) Now I was more or less pleased with the colouring, but I wasn't sure about how well I had blended both images. So I picked this light texture
by drycolor and rotated it until covered the blending in a straight line (or at least very close to it). I set it to Screen at 60%.
to
--
And for completeness, this is how the layers looked like at the end:
If you have any questions or something is unclear, feel free to ask.
We're going from
to
This icon was made in Photoshop CS3 using Levels, Selective Colouring and Brightness/Contrast Layers.
Note: If not otherwise mentioned layers are set to Normal at 100%.
Step 1 - Cropping and Placing
Originally, I wanted to do an icon with three crops of the image, but when I cropped the head, I knew that this wouldn't work so I went with just two crops.
I always have the crop tool set to 100px in both width and height. At first I cropped the body and used the Rectangular Marquee tool to pick just the body and limiting the area I would have to hide with the mask.
I opened a new image and moved the selection into it before "hiding" it.
After that I cropped the face. I moved the entire image into the new image and placed the layer until the layer with the body.
I then moved it to the left until I liked the way it looked.
Now I made the body layer visible again and moved it until it fit as well. I also added a mask layer to make more of the face visible again and for a smoother blend.
In a last step I copied both layers and merged the copied layers. I did this because I knew that I wanted to colour the layers in the same way and didn't want to copy two layers every time I needed the original base again.
Step 2 - Colouring
1) The image was too dark so I used the merged layer (face+body) and set it to Screen at 70%
to
--
2) The image looked kind of flat so I added a levels layer.
Black: 17
Gray: 1,14
White: 251
to
--
3) The image was too yellow and since I've been trying to figure out the Selective Colouring, I've used that (I'm pretty sure a similar effect could have been done using the curves or colour balance). The settings are set to relative.
Red: 0, -12, -24, 0
Yellow: 0, -8, -16, 0
to
--
4) To make the colours more visible I used a Brightness/Contrast layer and set the Contrast to +21.
to
--
5) I still wasn't satisfied with the colouring and not knowing which other adjustment layers I could use, I looked through the textures I have. At first I used this texture
by babliz. I set it to Soft Light at 20%.
to
--
6) To brighten it a bit more again, I used this texture
by brokendogma with Soft Light at 40%.
It looked rather grainy and I was worried about it making the skin look pixelated so I used the blur tool at 50% to go over the face.
Since I was still worried I also used a normal brush and a randomly picked gray tone (#777777) to make the texture less visible where skins is. To avoid visible "edges" I used a gaussian blur filter set to 1,0 on the mask.
to
--
7) Now I was more or less pleased with the colouring, but I wasn't sure about how well I had blended both images. So I picked this light texture
by drycolor and rotated it until covered the blending in a straight line (or at least very close to it). I set it to Screen at 60%.
to
--
And for completeness, this is how the layers looked like at the end:
If you have any questions or something is unclear, feel free to ask.