rahelcs (no. 14)
from 
to
maan, i love tutorials. it's just so fascinating to see how other iconmakers do their business. skydawnjade just did a great tutorial here and it made me do a tutorial myself.
i'll be making a mr spock icon. i love iconing mr spock but not just because he's one of my favorite characters, also, because star trek screencaps are perfect to create pretty colors. the caps themselves by default already have strong tones and that makes my job easier. what also makes my job easier is trekcore that has hq screencaps of season one and of a couple other episodes as well. so if you're a beginner iconmaker i strongly urge you start watching tos (;
open the "from" icon in a new tab/window to view it in full size. if you'd like to do this with the same picture i used. which if you're new to this i think would be wise.
i always start making icons or in fact any sorts of graphics by cropping and immediately resizing. especially when i plan to put emphasis on the coloring. because if you color the picture first and resize only later on, it'll have a different effect. i've always done it this way, i only realized the difference when i wanted to make icons out of a larger graphic i made. i had to readjust the coloring after resizing. so to save us time and effort we'll crop the image and resize it right after.
so i cropped mr spock and resized him and now he looks like this:
and now right on to coloring. for the basic coloring i mostly use curves, sometimes color balance and rarely selective coloring if there's a specific tone that i want to change. also, i make all these as different layers, you can find these options under layer/new adjustment layer. so make sure you put these on top of each other same way as i did otherwise you won't have the same overall effect/results. but i think i'll post the psd as well sou you should be able to check it easily.
what you also need to know about my coloring is that i don't exactly plan ahead. so if i make an adjustment using curves i might cancel out or soften that very adjustment using color balance. like i said, i don't plan ahead, i just put on these layers, experimenting with what looks better.
now first we'll use curves. on top of the table at channel make sure it says RGB. it's by default set on that so you shouldn't have to bother changing it. anyway, first we'll just make it brighter. i use curves for that as well.
where it says output i entered 180. and 118 to input. now hit enter.
now make another new curves layer, unless the icon's really dark this is when i start with the coloring.
to RGB i first entered 178 to output then 137 to input. then i created another "dot" along the baseline, the numbers there were 70 at the output and 65 at the input
next to channel, select red, from now on, i'll just give you the numbers i think by now you should get the hang of how it works.
first dot: output 169/input 158
second dot: output 57/input 60
now on to green
first dot: output 144/input 136
second dot: output 63/input 68
and finally blue
first dot: output 177/input 183
second dot: output 95/input 93
third dot: output 33/input 45
now hit enter.
i think this could still do with some more contrast and stronger colors. so we'll make another curves layer
RGB
first dot: output 142/input 142
second dot: output 62/input 69
red
first dot: output 138/input 132
green
first dot: output124/input 122
second dot: output 58/input 63
now mine looks like this:
i think we're done with the coloring now. what i usually do next is create a new soft light layer. go to layer/new layer and set the layer's mode to soft light. after that i instantly fill it with black. i don't even think about, if i don't like it, i can edit it later on. oh, and the layers opacity is 100%.
now that you've done this, select your brush tool, select a preset round brush, set its opacity to 50%, and its size to about a 100 pixels you can find these options here:
also, hardness should be 0%, you can set that by rightclicking on the image. (while you're brush tool is selected, obviously.)
now make sure that the color of the brush is white. than place a few dots to the places you want to emphasize. i placed two dots to the two sides of mr spock's face, near his eyes. then i duplicated the layer three times. you can do that by going to layer/duplicate layer. (or use the keyboard combination: ctrl+j, boy i *love* keyboard combinations.)
on the last duplicated layer i made some adjustments. i placed one dot using the white brush on the right side of spock's face which was already brighter and i find it too bright. to deal with that, i changed the color to black, set the brush's opacity to 30% and placed some dots to that area to make it less lighter. other sides of the icon, on the other hand, now became too dark. for example the left bottom corner. i did there the same thing with the white brush until i was satisfied with the icon.
now mine looks like this:
the icon is now too dark and i think it could do with some more contrast so i created a new curves layer
RGB
first dot: output 181/input 134
second dot: output 72/input 52
i'm kinda satisfied with this already but just to give you more tips, you could also create a new soft light layer. we don't fill this one. select your brush tool again, the size is once again about 100 pxs, hardness 0% but set opacity to 100%. the brush's color should be #8480ff. i placed two dots on the icon, one to nurse chapel's left hand, the other to the right upper corner of the icon. like i said i was pretty satisfied with the icon before this, so i lowered the layer's opacity to 50%.
also, to sharpen it, first you'll have to merge all visible layers (ctrl+shift+e or layer/merge visible) and then go to filter/sharpen/smart sharpen. to amount i entered 60 to radius 0,3.
and that's it, i think, here's my final version:
if you have any questions, feel free to ask them, also, this took me longer than i thought so please do comment. thanks and hope it was helpful or at least interesting.
psd is uploaded, you can download it from here
to
maan, i love tutorials. it's just so fascinating to see how other iconmakers do their business. skydawnjade just did a great tutorial here and it made me do a tutorial myself.
i'll be making a mr spock icon. i love iconing mr spock but not just because he's one of my favorite characters, also, because star trek screencaps are perfect to create pretty colors. the caps themselves by default already have strong tones and that makes my job easier. what also makes my job easier is trekcore that has hq screencaps of season one and of a couple other episodes as well. so if you're a beginner iconmaker i strongly urge you start watching tos (;
open the "from" icon in a new tab/window to view it in full size. if you'd like to do this with the same picture i used. which if you're new to this i think would be wise.
i always start making icons or in fact any sorts of graphics by cropping and immediately resizing. especially when i plan to put emphasis on the coloring. because if you color the picture first and resize only later on, it'll have a different effect. i've always done it this way, i only realized the difference when i wanted to make icons out of a larger graphic i made. i had to readjust the coloring after resizing. so to save us time and effort we'll crop the image and resize it right after.
so i cropped mr spock and resized him and now he looks like this:
and now right on to coloring. for the basic coloring i mostly use curves, sometimes color balance and rarely selective coloring if there's a specific tone that i want to change. also, i make all these as different layers, you can find these options under layer/new adjustment layer. so make sure you put these on top of each other same way as i did otherwise you won't have the same overall effect/results. but i think i'll post the psd as well sou you should be able to check it easily.
what you also need to know about my coloring is that i don't exactly plan ahead. so if i make an adjustment using curves i might cancel out or soften that very adjustment using color balance. like i said, i don't plan ahead, i just put on these layers, experimenting with what looks better.
now first we'll use curves. on top of the table at channel make sure it says RGB. it's by default set on that so you shouldn't have to bother changing it. anyway, first we'll just make it brighter. i use curves for that as well.
where it says output i entered 180. and 118 to input. now hit enter.
now make another new curves layer, unless the icon's really dark this is when i start with the coloring.
to RGB i first entered 178 to output then 137 to input. then i created another "dot" along the baseline, the numbers there were 70 at the output and 65 at the input
next to channel, select red, from now on, i'll just give you the numbers i think by now you should get the hang of how it works.
first dot: output 169/input 158
second dot: output 57/input 60
now on to green
first dot: output 144/input 136
second dot: output 63/input 68
and finally blue
first dot: output 177/input 183
second dot: output 95/input 93
third dot: output 33/input 45
now hit enter.
i think this could still do with some more contrast and stronger colors. so we'll make another curves layer
RGB
first dot: output 142/input 142
second dot: output 62/input 69
red
first dot: output 138/input 132
green
first dot: output124/input 122
second dot: output 58/input 63
now mine looks like this:
i think we're done with the coloring now. what i usually do next is create a new soft light layer. go to layer/new layer and set the layer's mode to soft light. after that i instantly fill it with black. i don't even think about, if i don't like it, i can edit it later on. oh, and the layers opacity is 100%.
now that you've done this, select your brush tool, select a preset round brush, set its opacity to 50%, and its size to about a 100 pixels you can find these options here:
also, hardness should be 0%, you can set that by rightclicking on the image. (while you're brush tool is selected, obviously.)
now make sure that the color of the brush is white. than place a few dots to the places you want to emphasize. i placed two dots to the two sides of mr spock's face, near his eyes. then i duplicated the layer three times. you can do that by going to layer/duplicate layer. (or use the keyboard combination: ctrl+j, boy i *love* keyboard combinations.)
on the last duplicated layer i made some adjustments. i placed one dot using the white brush on the right side of spock's face which was already brighter and i find it too bright. to deal with that, i changed the color to black, set the brush's opacity to 30% and placed some dots to that area to make it less lighter. other sides of the icon, on the other hand, now became too dark. for example the left bottom corner. i did there the same thing with the white brush until i was satisfied with the icon.
now mine looks like this:
the icon is now too dark and i think it could do with some more contrast so i created a new curves layer
RGB
first dot: output 181/input 134
second dot: output 72/input 52
i'm kinda satisfied with this already but just to give you more tips, you could also create a new soft light layer. we don't fill this one. select your brush tool again, the size is once again about 100 pxs, hardness 0% but set opacity to 100%. the brush's color should be #8480ff. i placed two dots on the icon, one to nurse chapel's left hand, the other to the right upper corner of the icon. like i said i was pretty satisfied with the icon before this, so i lowered the layer's opacity to 50%.
also, to sharpen it, first you'll have to merge all visible layers (ctrl+shift+e or layer/merge visible) and then go to filter/sharpen/smart sharpen. to amount i entered 60 to radius 0,3.
and that's it, i think, here's my final version:
if you have any questions, feel free to ask them, also, this took me longer than i thought so please do comment. thanks and hope it was helpful or at least interesting.
psd is uploaded, you can download it from here