icon tutorials #3 & #4
Both tutorials requested by spg_spn_girls at Ask the Maker 2.0 (my thread is here).
Prepping the image.
With the original screencap consisted of 1 screen layer, 1 soft light layer, a Color Balance layer (+29, +1, -50) and this gradient. This is how it looks after prepping.
Select All, Copy Merged, and Paste in a 100x100 pixel square. The image doesn't fully fill the 100x100, so I smudge the background up to fill that in.
I then use Unsharpen Mask (11%, 2.1px). And a simple Curves layer (RGB - Output: 143 | Input: 118)
→
For coloring, I wanted something a lot brighter. So I use the eyedropper to pick a pink from Mary Margaret's sweater (in this case #cb5c4f) and create three color fill layers of it. From bottom to top:
1. Screen at 20% opacity
2. Soft Light at 60% opacity
3. Multiply at 10% opacity
At this point I honestly didn't know where else I wanted it to go. XD I ended up doing Select All, Copy Merged and pasting that into a new layer. On that layer I used a soft round brush (opacity 30%) to create light blobs (which ended up looking like this). I put that at Soft Light. Last thing I do is use a couple textures. This texture by innocent_lexys (that I butchered until it looked like this) set to Screen, and then this texture by me set to Soft Light opacity 40%.
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original // tutorial
First: prepping the image.
I lazily~ use smudge to remove the logo. I then do the standard Screen and Soft Light layer, and then this gradient over top (set to Soft Light).
before prepping → after prepping
I Select All → Copy Merged and Paste into a 100x100 square.
I crop it down and start out with a Color Balance (+66, -20, -52). This pops up the reds.
I want them to pop out even more though, so I create a new layer which I fill with #ad3e04 and set to Screen (20% opacity).
I then use the following textures:
by me (Screen 60%)
by me (Screen)
by me (Screen)
I take this last one and move it far to the left, where it's just enough to provide a side border there.
It still looks flat at this point to me. To fix that I Select All → Copy Merged → Paste as new layer. I use Gaussian Blur (radius at 8.5px) on the new layer and set it to Soft Light (60% opacity). I then take this texture by me and put it at Soft Light (opacity 45%).
The blacks aren't as bold as I want, so I use Selective Layering to fix that (Blacks → Black +10). And since I want to make it feel more dark as well, I take this gradient layer and set it at Soft Light.
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original // tutorial