A guide to muted, yet vibrant coloring
This is a coloring guide requested by starkwars :)
I wasn't quite sure what to call it, but I've seen some people describe it as muted, yet vibrant. So I went with that. :3
Examples of the coloring:
There are basically two key ingredients to achieve this coloring; gradient maps and curves. And as you can tell, I am addicted. :D
Take your base and brighten it up using you normal technique (I usually use duplicate on Screen).
If you want you can add some contrast and vibrance if the screencap is dull.
Here is an icon with only a screen layer and a vibrance layer:
Now comes the first trick to make things more flat and muted (which I credit to jsfunction whom included it in a tutorial some time ago). Add this gradient (which should be in your default gradients):
Set it in Normal mode around 14-20% opacity, depending on how far you want to go. :P
(this icon has the gradient map on 15%)
And to get this slight pinkish hue, you need to use curves.
Add a bit of contrast using the rgb curve like this:
The further down you make the first dot and the further up you make the second dot, the more contrast you get.
Now go to the red curve:
It's basically the same kind of curve.
This is how my icon looks like now:
Now move along to the green curve:
The shape of this curve is very important. This is where most of the look comes from!
It's a bit too blue, so I go to the blue curve and do this:
My icon now:
Sometimes I have to repeat this process a few times until I get something I'm satisfied with.
I think this icon need more vividness, so I'm adding another curves layer like this:
I want the look more soft again, so I'm adding another gradient map with this gradient:
on 11% opacity.
This process with mixed orders of layers can be repeated many times until you get what suits your screencap best. :)
For this icon in this guide, I adjusted the colors one more time using curves, then sharpened using Paint Daubs and resized to 100x100. Then I added a bit of brightness using brightness/contrast. Often times I add a vibrance layer too if they colors are too dull. :)
So the conclusion is, use gradient maps like the ones in this post, on low opacity and use curves to bring out the colors. :)
Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions!