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[justmyb0nes]

to



This tutorial is made for the ask the maker activity at icon_talk . It was requested by partitioning.

Tools used under Photoshop CS6:
- brightness/contrast
- color balance
- vibrance

Textures:


by endearest

STEP 1
I resized the picture. I went to Image -> Resize. Be sure to have "constrain proportions" ticked to keep your aspect ratio right (screencapture here). Then, I opened a 100*100 pixel base. I slided the resized cap to the base.
This icon was made for a theme challenge so I knew from the beginning it had to be dark so I did my best to have as much as darkness as I could.



STEP 2
As weird as it sounds, the best way to have a dark icon is to used a the brightness/contrast tool. The reason? It is the best way I found to balance the light (brightness) with the darkness (contrast).

Layer -> New Adjustement layer -> brightness/contrast layer
brightness : +35
contrast : +34



STEP 3
I wanted to increase the contrast between the brightness and the darkness. For that, I want to use the base as a soft layer but BEFORE I need to brighten his face so that nothing would look too contrasted or dark. This texture is always perfect for that. As the bright side is on the left, I rotated the texture.
I didn't want to touch at the coloring for the moment so I desaturated the texture.

Image -> Adjustements -> desaturate


STEP 4
I set up the texture to soft light. As you can see, the darkness and the brighteness are both enhance with this effect.



STEP 5
Then I decided to work on the coloring. I have no idea why I wanted it purple but I did. So I worked on that. I used a color balance layer and worked on the shadows and the midtones because the icon is dark.

Layer -> New Adjustement layer -> color balance
Shadows: +4, +6, +11
Midtones: -27, -91, 0



STEP 6
As I thought it wasn't purple enough, I used a vibrance tool to make the purple "pimp" a little bit.

Layer -> New Adjustement layer -> vibrance
vibrance +42



STEP 7
The icon didn't look dark enough to fit the challenge so I duplicated the base at the top of the layers and set it to soft light. Then, I slowly decreased the opacity to 56% in order to not make too dark.



STEP 8
With the soft layer, I lost the little touch of the texture. It was easily corrected with a brightness/contrast layer. This technique always works with me when I want to give a soft light touch of light in an icon.

Layer -> New Adjustement layer -> brightness/contrast layer
brightness : +14



I merged all the layers and saved into a .png file.

- Don't even think about asking for a .PSD.
- Fell free to ask all the questions you want!
- You can ask a tutorial of everything posting in that comm.
- Sorry for any spelling & grammatical mistakes.
- Keep in mind those settings may not work on your pictures!