two tutorials
So, I was asked by muses_inc and xxsafixx if I could do tutorials for two icons from this batch and I comply. ;) First thing: I did most of those icons using a variation on this, so this might work on most caps from the episode. Second: I didn't have the psds saved (because I usually make things up as I go every time, which I shouldn't) so I tried to re-make them as close as I could to the original result - I think they're similar enough.
What we're doing:
a)
(the original is ->
)
b)
(the original is ->
)
Program: photoshop CS4
Translatable: there's a selective color layer but it's for an adjustment - you could probably translate it.
Level: ... pretty easy I think XD
So, here we have our starting cap (from homeofthenutty). Considering that the episode was vired in sepia and that I actually liked that, I was aiming for a sort of natural coloring that at the same time felt different from the ones not-vired-in-sepia from the same episode that I did - no idea if I managed it but apparently it came out nice. Anyway, I went and cropped/resized it, and that's our 100x100 base:
Yeah, not so nice. So, time to lighten it up. I'm not too fond of screen layers because whenever I use them they tend to flatten the image, so I usually do another thing to prepare the base which I tried this round as well. First thing, a color fill layer in a light-ish grey (in this case #d2d2d2) which I then put on overlay. It tends to lighten up caps a lot and keep the depth - you need to work on the opacity though. In this case I left it on 100%:
Slightly better. Then I decided to brighten it up even further and bring back some contrast - I always use curves layers. I went for a new curves adjustment layer and just had two points on RGB:
point 1: output 0 and input 43;
point 2: output 143 and input 128;
Now it's starting to look nicer. At this point this is where I start with the madness of copy-merged layers on soft light which is what I end up doing most of the times - I'm pretty sure there are quicker ways to get the same effect, but bear with me.
So, I went on edit -> select -> copy merged layers -> paste. Then I put the merged layer on soft light, then went on filters -> blur -> gaussian blur and blurred it 10px (if the soft light layer starts to look psychedelic I tend to blur it before lowering the opacity); at that point it still was too yellow, so I changed the color balance directly on that layer (image -> regulations -> color balance):
midtones: cyan -94, blue +80
result:
Still too flat and not what I wanted, so I selected-copy merged-pasted the entire thing again and put it on soft light, 100%:
Still too reddish/yellow. So since I went and put another color fill blue layer on it (8fc5db) and put it on color burn at 69%.
Now it doesn't look as red but it looks way too dark. I opened a new layer, took a white rounded soft brush, painted generously on the left side of the icon - his cheek especially. Then I went on filters -> blur -> gaussian blur, blurred it again on 10px, and put that level on soft light 100%, then since it still was too dark for my tastes I duplicated that level and put it on 50%:
Then it still was too dull and still dark-ish, so I went with another fill color layer - a pink one (fbc1c4), put it on soft light at 22% opacity:
Now, the next string of layers probably makes it seem like I was changing only minor things - I was, but it has a sort of sense in retrospective.
I wanted the whole thing to look more even, which I usually do with other blurred soft layers, so all over again with edit -> select -> copy merged layers -> paste; I put this one on soft light 30% and still blurred it with 10px in the settings.
I didn't like how his face looked slightly yellow-ish, so I went on a new selective color adjustment layer; then just adjusted the whites, putting -59 in the black settings.
Then it looked somewhat too saturated, and knowing that I was going to do the whole copy-merged-paste thing again I went and lowered the overall saturation a bit with a new hue/saturation adjustment layer - I just put -9 in the saturation settings, leaving it on normal.
I still wasn't happy with it and I went edit -> select -> copy merged -> paste all over again. Then I put a gaussian blur of 2px on that layer and put it on soft light, at 20% opacity. Always because I wanted it to look more even.
At this point his cheek was too dark again so I went with a new layer and painted in white in the same way as before - a stripe on his cheek, then I blurred it 10px, then put it on soft light, then duplicated the layer. The first still stays at 100%, the second at 50%.
Almost there! I decided for some reason that it had to look just slightly more yellow. I went with another solid color fill layer, a brown (6f4b18), at soft light, 10% opacity. It's just a slight change though.
At that point I just wanted his hat to look slightly darker, so I used the same soft brush, painted a bit in black over it, gaussian-blurred it at 10px like I did with the white on his cheek and then duplicated it. Both levels were at 100%.
Then I was done except for the sharpening - I do it using the high pass filter. It goes edit -> select all -> copy merged -> paste again, then filters -> other -> high pass -> 0.5 (I think anything between that and 1.0 works though). Then I put that layer on soft light.
et voilà! I think it's slightly darker than the original but the way I proceeded is more or less the one here. Basically I live of merged layers set on soft light.
And on to the second. This one is way, way easier and less convoluted. In the previous one I was aiming for the colors to pop out, in this one I just wanted to make his skin get a sort of natural look without getting rid of the sepia/yellow entirely.
So, this is our cap, always courtesy of the same source.
this is our base, cropped and resized:
Not so nice. I went with my first always-the-same steps (the grey layer on overlay and then adjusting it with curves). In this case the overlay layer was always #d2d2d2 at 87% opacity:
Way too pink and still too dark, but I wanted to adjust it with curves first. I went with an adjustment layer set on normal, always with two points on RGB:
point 1: output 0, input 48;
point 2: output 125, input 120;
Slightly better. Then I went with the usual parade, except that I didn't blur anything this time - just edit -> select all -> copy merged -> paste, then I put it on soft light at 100%.
Better, but too yellow. So in order to take it away I used the blue solid fill layer (basically whenever I want to take away one color, before trying anything else I go for the solid fill layer of its complementary) - the color was still #8fc5db since it worked with the other one, I put it on color burn, 50% opacity.
I wasn't aiming for it to be that dark though, so I went and painted again on the left cheek/the dark part on the image same as in the other icon - the brush was always round and soft, I used white, and then I gaussian-blurred the layer always at 10%. Then put it on soft light.
At that point it was too bright, so I went for a new adjustment selective color layer - I went on the settings for whites and put black on +41:
Then I went with the usual (I like this whole thing with soft light merged layers because a) they give depth to your icon, b) you can make subtle changes directly on them which usually work without messing too much) edit -> select -> copy merged -> paste, put this level on soft light 26% and gaussian-blurred it with 10 px:
Then I did the same thing (always copy merged-paste), without the blurring, and put it at 34% opacity, still on soft light:
At which I was done, so I did the last touch with the sharpening as before. Edit -> select all -> copy merged -> paste, filters -> other -> high pass, put it at 0.5% and then on soft light:
Aaand that's it again. I know, sounds boring but it's effective. Pretty much.
Last thing: I'm not putting up a psd (not only because I think that if you don't try yourself it doesn't work, but because in this particular case the only things you'd get out of it would be the curves layer and the solid color ones, the rest is all the original image so it'd be pointless). Don't bother asking for one - if it isn't here, then it won't be. That stated if something isn't clear or you need me to specify anything feel free to ask, especially if I stared explaining things in convoluted ways. ;)
What we're doing:
a)
(the original is ->
)
b)
(the original is ->
)
Program: photoshop CS4
Translatable: there's a selective color layer but it's for an adjustment - you could probably translate it.
Level: ... pretty easy I think XD
So, here we have our starting cap (from homeofthenutty). Considering that the episode was vired in sepia and that I actually liked that, I was aiming for a sort of natural coloring that at the same time felt different from the ones not-vired-in-sepia from the same episode that I did - no idea if I managed it but apparently it came out nice. Anyway, I went and cropped/resized it, and that's our 100x100 base:
Yeah, not so nice. So, time to lighten it up. I'm not too fond of screen layers because whenever I use them they tend to flatten the image, so I usually do another thing to prepare the base which I tried this round as well. First thing, a color fill layer in a light-ish grey (in this case #d2d2d2) which I then put on overlay. It tends to lighten up caps a lot and keep the depth - you need to work on the opacity though. In this case I left it on 100%:
Slightly better. Then I decided to brighten it up even further and bring back some contrast - I always use curves layers. I went for a new curves adjustment layer and just had two points on RGB:
point 1: output 0 and input 43;
point 2: output 143 and input 128;
Now it's starting to look nicer. At this point this is where I start with the madness of copy-merged layers on soft light which is what I end up doing most of the times - I'm pretty sure there are quicker ways to get the same effect, but bear with me.
So, I went on edit -> select -> copy merged layers -> paste. Then I put the merged layer on soft light, then went on filters -> blur -> gaussian blur and blurred it 10px (if the soft light layer starts to look psychedelic I tend to blur it before lowering the opacity); at that point it still was too yellow, so I changed the color balance directly on that layer (image -> regulations -> color balance):
midtones: cyan -94, blue +80
result:
Still too flat and not what I wanted, so I selected-copy merged-pasted the entire thing again and put it on soft light, 100%:
Still too reddish/yellow. So since I went and put another color fill blue layer on it (8fc5db) and put it on color burn at 69%.
Now it doesn't look as red but it looks way too dark. I opened a new layer, took a white rounded soft brush, painted generously on the left side of the icon - his cheek especially. Then I went on filters -> blur -> gaussian blur, blurred it again on 10px, and put that level on soft light 100%, then since it still was too dark for my tastes I duplicated that level and put it on 50%:
Then it still was too dull and still dark-ish, so I went with another fill color layer - a pink one (fbc1c4), put it on soft light at 22% opacity:
Now, the next string of layers probably makes it seem like I was changing only minor things - I was, but it has a sort of sense in retrospective.
I wanted the whole thing to look more even, which I usually do with other blurred soft layers, so all over again with edit -> select -> copy merged layers -> paste; I put this one on soft light 30% and still blurred it with 10px in the settings.
I didn't like how his face looked slightly yellow-ish, so I went on a new selective color adjustment layer; then just adjusted the whites, putting -59 in the black settings.
Then it looked somewhat too saturated, and knowing that I was going to do the whole copy-merged-paste thing again I went and lowered the overall saturation a bit with a new hue/saturation adjustment layer - I just put -9 in the saturation settings, leaving it on normal.
I still wasn't happy with it and I went edit -> select -> copy merged -> paste all over again. Then I put a gaussian blur of 2px on that layer and put it on soft light, at 20% opacity. Always because I wanted it to look more even.
At this point his cheek was too dark again so I went with a new layer and painted in white in the same way as before - a stripe on his cheek, then I blurred it 10px, then put it on soft light, then duplicated the layer. The first still stays at 100%, the second at 50%.
Almost there! I decided for some reason that it had to look just slightly more yellow. I went with another solid color fill layer, a brown (6f4b18), at soft light, 10% opacity. It's just a slight change though.
At that point I just wanted his hat to look slightly darker, so I used the same soft brush, painted a bit in black over it, gaussian-blurred it at 10px like I did with the white on his cheek and then duplicated it. Both levels were at 100%.
Then I was done except for the sharpening - I do it using the high pass filter. It goes edit -> select all -> copy merged -> paste again, then filters -> other -> high pass -> 0.5 (I think anything between that and 1.0 works though). Then I put that layer on soft light.
et voilà! I think it's slightly darker than the original but the way I proceeded is more or less the one here. Basically I live of merged layers set on soft light.
And on to the second. This one is way, way easier and less convoluted. In the previous one I was aiming for the colors to pop out, in this one I just wanted to make his skin get a sort of natural look without getting rid of the sepia/yellow entirely.
So, this is our cap, always courtesy of the same source.
this is our base, cropped and resized:
Not so nice. I went with my first always-the-same steps (the grey layer on overlay and then adjusting it with curves). In this case the overlay layer was always #d2d2d2 at 87% opacity:
Way too pink and still too dark, but I wanted to adjust it with curves first. I went with an adjustment layer set on normal, always with two points on RGB:
point 1: output 0, input 48;
point 2: output 125, input 120;
Slightly better. Then I went with the usual parade, except that I didn't blur anything this time - just edit -> select all -> copy merged -> paste, then I put it on soft light at 100%.
Better, but too yellow. So in order to take it away I used the blue solid fill layer (basically whenever I want to take away one color, before trying anything else I go for the solid fill layer of its complementary) - the color was still #8fc5db since it worked with the other one, I put it on color burn, 50% opacity.
I wasn't aiming for it to be that dark though, so I went and painted again on the left cheek/the dark part on the image same as in the other icon - the brush was always round and soft, I used white, and then I gaussian-blurred the layer always at 10%. Then put it on soft light.
At that point it was too bright, so I went for a new adjustment selective color layer - I went on the settings for whites and put black on +41:
Then I went with the usual (I like this whole thing with soft light merged layers because a) they give depth to your icon, b) you can make subtle changes directly on them which usually work without messing too much) edit -> select -> copy merged -> paste, put this level on soft light 26% and gaussian-blurred it with 10 px:
Then I did the same thing (always copy merged-paste), without the blurring, and put it at 34% opacity, still on soft light:
At which I was done, so I did the last touch with the sharpening as before. Edit -> select all -> copy merged -> paste, filters -> other -> high pass, put it at 0.5% and then on soft light:
Aaand that's it again. I know, sounds boring but it's effective. Pretty much.
Last thing: I'm not putting up a psd (not only because I think that if you don't try yourself it doesn't work, but because in this particular case the only things you'd get out of it would be the curves layer and the solid color ones, the rest is all the original image so it'd be pointless). Don't bother asking for one - if it isn't here, then it won't be. That stated if something isn't clear or you need me to specify anything feel free to ask, especially if I stared explaining things in convoluted ways. ;)