Tutorial #04 - Helen Magnus
A tutorial requested by hobbit_hunter for this icon. Not an exact replica, but the coloring is almost exactly the same. I like to use this basic coloring (with variations, of course) for most of my Sanctuary icons.
Made in Photoshop CS4; uses curves, color balance, vibrance(or hue/saturation), gradient map and photo filter. Should be translatable :)
Going from
to
Probably rather image heavy
First off I start with the base; a cap by me. Generally I double-click the base layer to make it into a normal layer from a background layer, and when I'm finished coloring I resize the image to reduce quality loss, sharpening as a I go.
Once I do that, I start off with a curves layer(layer>new adjustment layer> curves). It adds some light, and increases the reds, which will be important later.
Red: O:0 I:24 / O:255 I:190
Green: O:0 I:26 / O:255 I:213
Blue: O:0 I:22 / O:255 I:220
This is what the curves panel should look like;
Set it to screen.
Now it's looking a bit washed out and a bit too pink for my tastes. To add some contrast, I bring up a new vibrance layer (layer>new adjustment layer>virbrance) and crank the vibrance all the way up to +100. Set it to soft light.
If you don't have vibrance, then you can use a saturation layer(layer>new adjustment layer>hue/saturation) set to +30 to get (for our purposes) the same thing.
It should look like this by now;
The cap is now bright, has a good contrast, but unfortunately, it's starting to look kinda orange, which isn't what we want. So now we open up a color balance layer (layer>new adjustment layer>color balance) with these settings;
Midtones: +9, +26, -24
Set to difference at 25% fill.
This adds more red without pushing it further into the oranges.
Unfortunately the last step really darkened the image, which we don't want. But we can fix it! Add a new gradient map layer(layer>new adjustment layer>gradient map) going from #d8cfc4 to #eceae4, and set it soft light.
Now it's back to looking washed out and doesn't have very much contrast. To fix that, we add a very nifty photo filter(layer>new adjustment layer>photo filter). Pick the Cyan filter, and make sure the density is set to 25%. Set it to soft light, and you're done with the base coloring! :)
Sharpen/resize/crop your icon, so now you have this;
Make a new layer, and fill it with near-black(#151515). Make a new layter, then take a small white brush (~11px, ~70% feathering) and draw on it in so it looks kinda centered over where you want the focus to be.
Duplicate the layer with the white drawing on it, and merge the bottom white layer with the dark solid layer you made earlier. It should look like this in your layers palette.
Blur both layers with Gaussian blur set to 9.7. Blur the second layer(white drawings only) once more with the same settings, and then set both layers to soft light at 100%
And ta-da! We're finished! :) Please don't copy it exactly, but feel free to play around with the settings and such. Credit isn't required, and I hope you learned something!
If you have any questions or I didn't make something clear please let me know! :)
*Not going to give out a PSD unless you're really having problem with something that I can't help you with. Sorry
Made in Photoshop CS4; uses curves, color balance, vibrance(or hue/saturation), gradient map and photo filter. Should be translatable :)
Going from
to
Probably rather image heavy
First off I start with the base; a cap by me. Generally I double-click the base layer to make it into a normal layer from a background layer, and when I'm finished coloring I resize the image to reduce quality loss, sharpening as a I go.
Once I do that, I start off with a curves layer(layer>new adjustment layer> curves). It adds some light, and increases the reds, which will be important later.
Red: O:0 I:24 / O:255 I:190
Green: O:0 I:26 / O:255 I:213
Blue: O:0 I:22 / O:255 I:220
This is what the curves panel should look like;
Set it to screen.
Now it's looking a bit washed out and a bit too pink for my tastes. To add some contrast, I bring up a new vibrance layer (layer>new adjustment layer>virbrance) and crank the vibrance all the way up to +100. Set it to soft light.
If you don't have vibrance, then you can use a saturation layer(layer>new adjustment layer>hue/saturation) set to +30 to get (for our purposes) the same thing.
It should look like this by now;
The cap is now bright, has a good contrast, but unfortunately, it's starting to look kinda orange, which isn't what we want. So now we open up a color balance layer (layer>new adjustment layer>color balance) with these settings;
Midtones: +9, +26, -24
Set to difference at 25% fill.
This adds more red without pushing it further into the oranges.
Unfortunately the last step really darkened the image, which we don't want. But we can fix it! Add a new gradient map layer(layer>new adjustment layer>gradient map) going from #d8cfc4 to #eceae4, and set it soft light.
Now it's back to looking washed out and doesn't have very much contrast. To fix that, we add a very nifty photo filter(layer>new adjustment layer>photo filter). Pick the Cyan filter, and make sure the density is set to 25%. Set it to soft light, and you're done with the base coloring! :)
Sharpen/resize/crop your icon, so now you have this;
Make a new layer, and fill it with near-black(#151515). Make a new layter, then take a small white brush (~11px, ~70% feathering) and draw on it in so it looks kinda centered over where you want the focus to be.
Duplicate the layer with the white drawing on it, and merge the bottom white layer with the dark solid layer you made earlier. It should look like this in your layers palette.
Blur both layers with Gaussian blur set to 9.7. Blur the second layer(white drawings only) once more with the same settings, and then set both layers to soft light at 100%
And ta-da! We're finished! :) Please don't copy it exactly, but feel free to play around with the settings and such. Credit isn't required, and I hope you learned something!
If you have any questions or I didn't make something clear please let me know! :)
*Not going to give out a PSD unless you're really having problem with something that I can't help you with. Sorry