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We're going to be changing a screencap from this:
to this:
in Photoshop CS4, using basic colouring, ie. layers, and not Selective Colours or Curves.
First, you get your raw cap (my BSG cap is from here). Caps are usually quite large - this one is 1600x900 pixels, so even if you think the colouring looks a bit wrong, when you resize it down it's going to look a lot better.
First, of course, open your screencap in Photoshop:
right now it looks, well, like a raw cap. We're going to be using this area of CS4 to change it:
First, duplicate your layer (Ctrl+J). It should look like this:
To change layers, use the drop down menu here:
This is a pretty dark screencap, so first we'll change the layer from "normal" to "screen".
The setting is at 100%, but you can play around and see what level is best for your screencap. It really varies show to show, and because BSG screencaps are typically either very very dark or very oversaturated, i'm going to stay with 100%.
Screen is a good layer to start with for any cap, be it dark like a BSG or Supernatural cap, or light, such as a Gossip Girl or Pushing Daisies cap.
The screencap now looks like this:
I know. its not too pretty, but its going to be.
To get the effect in the final product, we're going to have to make the cap a little brighter. To do this, copy the layer you just made twice (Ctrl+J).
Change the layer you are on now from "screen" to "soft light":
Your cap will go from this:
To this:
Much better, no?
Copy this layer once and then change "soft light" to "luminosity".
This will give the colour-drained cap some vibrancy.
Now we're going to copy again and change the layer to lighten:
Then copy again and change to screen:
Then one last time, changing to soft light:
Now your cap looks like this, with all its layers:
Now your colouring is done! You can use it for banners, graphics, icons, ect. I tend to use mine for picspams, so i do a basic resize to 500x pixels width, keeping the proportions of the image.
In the top toolbar that says file, edit, image ect, click image:
Go down to image size:
It will open up into this box:
Change the first box, width, to 500, and click OK:
Done! Now all you have to do is save your altered cap (File > Save As). I would recommend saving your image as a PNG - it saves the high quality of your image, especially if youre going to open it in another program such as Paint, or Photoshop/Tinypic editors. To do this just go to the dropdown menu in your save box and select PNG:
Voila! Your screencap now looks like this:
Layers is an easy way to edit your screencaps if you're just starting in Photoshop. A good knowledge of layers is also a great starting place to learning other editing tools in CS4, like Curves and Adjustment Layers.