[artes] Tutorial . Natural Lighten
Otherwise known as "Working With Those Damn Dark and Blue Screencaps"
While I was doing the Tales of Vesperia intro video screencaps, I couldn't help but notice just how many of the sections were so very, very dark and dismal (most amusing - or most annoying - is the fact that this tends to occur with Yuri on screen). It doesn't make for easy icons to work with something so dark, to be sure, but with some fiddling, it's certainly doable. Different shots require different colors and a couple of extra bits of work, but even the darkest, bluest shot can be turned into something a lot more natural.
As such, we'll work with this friendly little encounter of Yuri and Yeager.
to
(made with Photoshop CS2, should be pretty much translatable)
Tutorial . Natural Lighten
So, as per any icon, you take your base image and resize/crop to your desired area of 100x100 pixels.
Duplicate the base and set it to Screen (100%), and then make a new layer above this, filled with the color #0d228c. Set this to Exclusion (100%), and then duplicate it twice.
Duplicate the base again, dragging this new duplicate up to the top, and set this layer to Overlay (100%).
Make another new layer, filling it with #efe2c8, and then set this to Linear Burn (100%) ("Color Burn" works as well, it just makes the image a little lighter; I'm not sure how PSP's "Burn" looks, but I'd imagine it should work, as well). Make another layer above this, filled with #a026be and set to Linear Dodge (20%) ("Screen" also works; the image will just be a little more yellow/beige).
Time for a Hue/Saturation filter layer. Up the Saturation to +35, and then up the lightness to +10.
Now a Brightness/Contrast filter layer. Up the brightness to +10 and the contrast to +15. This just brightens it up a little more and brings out the shadows some.
And now just for some final little additions. I added this light texture by myrasis@weapon_icons, set to Screen (55%). Then I added this radial texture by candycrack@xgraphicjunkie (I rotated it 180 degrees), set to Screen (60%). Finally, I added some tiny text (Georgia, 1pt, sharp, letter spacing 700, line height 2pt; alternatively, you can just take that image and set it to Screen). And that's that.
A similar method was used for these icons:
The only difference was that the Overlay layer was a merged copy of the base and its screen duplicate, the linear burn color was #f0c4a1, and the linear dodge color was #26beae, and the values for the Hue/Saturation were 0/+25/0.
While I was doing the Tales of Vesperia intro video screencaps, I couldn't help but notice just how many of the sections were so very, very dark and dismal (most amusing - or most annoying - is the fact that this tends to occur with Yuri on screen). It doesn't make for easy icons to work with something so dark, to be sure, but with some fiddling, it's certainly doable. Different shots require different colors and a couple of extra bits of work, but even the darkest, bluest shot can be turned into something a lot more natural.
As such, we'll work with this friendly little encounter of Yuri and Yeager.
to
(made with Photoshop CS2, should be pretty much translatable)
Tutorial . Natural Lighten
So, as per any icon, you take your base image and resize/crop to your desired area of 100x100 pixels.
Duplicate the base and set it to Screen (100%), and then make a new layer above this, filled with the color #0d228c. Set this to Exclusion (100%), and then duplicate it twice.
Duplicate the base again, dragging this new duplicate up to the top, and set this layer to Overlay (100%).
Make another new layer, filling it with #efe2c8, and then set this to Linear Burn (100%) ("Color Burn" works as well, it just makes the image a little lighter; I'm not sure how PSP's "Burn" looks, but I'd imagine it should work, as well). Make another layer above this, filled with #a026be and set to Linear Dodge (20%) ("Screen" also works; the image will just be a little more yellow/beige).
Time for a Hue/Saturation filter layer. Up the Saturation to +35, and then up the lightness to +10.
Now a Brightness/Contrast filter layer. Up the brightness to +10 and the contrast to +15. This just brightens it up a little more and brings out the shadows some.
And now just for some final little additions. I added this light texture by myrasis@weapon_icons, set to Screen (55%). Then I added this radial texture by candycrack@xgraphicjunkie (I rotated it 180 degrees), set to Screen (60%). Finally, I added some tiny text (Georgia, 1pt, sharp, letter spacing 700, line height 2pt; alternatively, you can just take that image and set it to Screen). And that's that.
A similar method was used for these icons:
The only difference was that the Overlay layer was a merged copy of the base and its screen duplicate, the linear burn color was #f0c4a1, and the linear dodge color was #26beae, and the values for the Hue/Saturation were 0/+25/0.