tutorial #01
(Background extracting and coloring with PSCS4)
Hi! This was prompted by the requests at icon_talk's Q&A post. The lovely raiindust asked for background extracting, and also requested it should have this title, and her wishes are orders to me ;)
Well. I'm not sure how to make them soft and perfect, and how could I EVER teach anything to Jess since SHE is the master of lovely softness & perfection, but there will be some background-cutting.
rowofstars asked about coloring, so I'll show you my coloring ways as well. If you want something more specific, though, please ask :)
First of all, pick an adorable cap. This is mine, (Jenna Hamilton! Awkward! Watch and icon this, everyone!) found at Rawr-caps which is just the best source for caps everrrr.
I chose it because it has clear edges, and they're always better for extracting and good enough for people of any skill level, which is what we're aiming for at this tut. Once you get good at the basics you can move on to more complicated extractions (does anyone else feel like we're talking about Inception here?), like hair porn, undefined edges or body parts cut off the screen (like tops of the heads, that you can fill up with brushes and such)
So, my cap is really huge right now, which is great for extraction. I usually do it on the original cap, because resizing takes care of minor flaws in the selection and the edges become smoother.
With the polygonal lasso tool, click around the edges of your character until it's completely selected. There's really no secret to this. Remember to use the anti-alias on the tool options bar, and using the "add to selection" and "subtract from selection" options makes your life easier since you can select different spots at a time. Don't forget the hair strands and little details, and space between elbow and body. You can zoom in to take care of the smaller details. This is my result (click for bigger)
Extracting is probably the most boring and time-consuming part of making an icon (scratch that, it's probably cap-hunting!) but the results are usually nice, specially for negative space icons, and it's extremely necessary for blending (at least for me). Sadly, there's no easy cop-out way to do it that I know of. You need to be patient. :)
When everything is selected, draw up a mask (by clicking on "add vector mask", on the bottom of your layer toolbox). This is supposed to happen (click for bigger):
The good part of working with layer masks is that it allows you to make changes in your selection, and we'll definitely need that later.
Cropping! This icon could go many ways, but for the purposes of this tutorial I'll make a negative space icon (click for bigger).
Then pick some color to use as background. Have fun here. Using the eyedropper tool, I like to pick the colors of the clothing, or a complimentary one. Here, I picked the lightest color I found on Jenna's cardigan-thingy, and created a new Solid Color layer, then put said layer below the image.
Now you'll be able to see the flaws in your selection, so use the Smudge tool (in low strength, like 10-35%) and the Brush (Set to hard, opacity 100%) to touch it up and integrate it with the background. You can also Blur (Filter > Blur > Blur) your layer mask (yes, the mask itself!) if you feel the need. My result is here (click for bigger):
Now, Stamp visible everything! (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E for me) It creates a new flattened layer with everything just as it looks on screen. I do this a lot, which is very bad of me because you can't undo any changes and have to work around your mistakes. Very definitive. But that's how I roll. Now create a copy of the new layer (duplicate), then Blur (Filter > Blur > Blur) twice the copy layer. This is how it turns out. It will give the layer a softer feel when you resize. And resized to 200x200px, it becomes like this:
Already beginning to look like an icon!
Now for the coloring. The image is too dark for me, and I want it lighter. So I duplicate the topmost layer and set to screen. Still too dark, so I duplicate it again, set it to screen again. And again. And again. 4 screen layers total. So what. :P Now duplicate again, and set to soft light. Now it's too dark, so I lower the opacity of the soft light layer until I'm satisfied, which is around 40% in this particular case. Now it's like this, which is much better!
I think her face looks a little red, though, so I'll fix that up putting a Solid color layer on #000718 (dark dark blue) set to screen at around 50% under the last soft light layer. This is it now:
Which probably looks the same to you. Awkward. :|
This is the point where I should tell you: this is a BAD way of coloring, because when you build up stamped layers, it's hard to change your coloring if you regret something. If you don't like the final results, it's hard to rework them, and more often than not I restart it from scratch.
At this size I only do the most basic coloring and lightening, so I'll stop it and move on to the next important step: more blurring. Stamp visible again, go to Filter > Blur > Blur.
Then resize to 100x100px.
Already prettier! ♥ LOL I had no idea it would be this easy. But I want some more softness & contrast on it, so I'll duplicate that layer and set it to soft light. I think it's a bit too harsh like that, so I'll blur that layer, going on Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set it to 7px Radius. BAM there's your softness :)
I don't like some parts of it, though, so I erase them. I put on a layer mask in the last layer and erase the part over her face.
It's goody goody, but I want more contrast, I think? I'll use Levels for that. Above the new "base" layer (the one set to normal), I'll create a new Adjustment > Levels layer and user the "Darker" pre-set, on the scroll-down box near the top. I like to keep the blurred soft like layer on top of everything because it takes the edge off of the layers under it and keeps the soft feeling. It looks like this now:
But now it's a bit too dark for me.
To lighten the icon a bit, create a new layer on top of everything. With your Brush set to white, hardness 0%, opacity 100%, size somewhere around 100px, create a light blob on the top left corner of the icon. You'll see I use this A LOTTTT in my icons, it's sort of embarassing how much of a crutch it is. But it looks good. :V Like this:
Then Gaussian blur it until it's not a light blob anymore, but just a soft light over the icon. In my case, I went to 45px radius.
Still too strong, though, so I lowered the opacity to around 53%.
But with this I lost much of the contrast, so I'll bring it back with another Levels Layer, set to Increase Contrast 1 this time.
Because it catches my fancy, I'll put a Gradient Fill Layer, black to white, Linear, 90°, dragged downwards a bit, aka this, set to soft light around 55% above the first levels layer, under the white blob. Gradients make everything better, look:
To give the coloring a little more oomph and make it even softer, I'll duplicate the top-most soft light layer and lower the opacity until I'm happy with how it looks like (in this case, around 35%). Like this:
The new soft light layer took away a bit of the contrast, though, and I'll fix that with another Levels layer set to "Darker", around 65% opacity.
Cool, but, Idk... How about a tad more blue? I'll put a dark blueish-purple layer (#0b0615) set on Screen, 65% between the soft light layers. Because I can.
Then I stamp visible everything again, Gaussian blur it to around 5px radius, and set to soft light ad 41% opacity. But I don't like it on her face, so I erase that part. I learnt this softness trick from a tutorial by endearest, I think, and she clearly does it much better than me.
Now for the finishing touches: This icon needs some more light, so I'll put another very blurred whit light blob on the top left corner, and set it to normal, 65% opacity, under this soft light layer. This step is optional, but I added a Vibrancy Layer at +54 Vibrance, 23% opacity. When I'm feeling like it, and this time I am, I bump the blacks a bit by opening a Selective Color Adjustment Layer, going on Black and upping the blacks (to +43%, in this case). This adds, well, blacks, to the blacks, and does wonders for the contrast. I put this layer below the last blurred layer, and lower the opacity until I like the way it looks. But It was still too light for me, so I draw up ANOTHER Levels layer, set to darker. And I think I'm satisfied now.
As you see, basically I just do lots of things and see what works. :P
Simple, right? It's that simple because of the cap chosen: good lighting will get you everywhere. When you pick a darker cap (with lots of shadows) with different light sources and colors, it's harder to integrate it with the background. But you can always take hints from the cap. Like on the following one:
While the light oh her face is blue, the wall behind her is mostly yellow. I'll use a similar yellow tone when creating my fake background, so it doesn't clash with the original cap. Honestly, the wall here is so pretty I'd probably just use it as it is, lol, but it wouldn't suit the purposes of this tut. After blurring & resizing to 200x200px, it ends up like this:
(I had a lazy and just painted over - in a new layer - the area on the top right corner)
Now I'll put some textures in that side so the two sides look less different. I picked one with a near-enough color, by erzsebet, resized, put on Screen and it did the job.
>
Now for some coloring, and voilà.
Rule of thumb: Light cap, light backgrounds; dark cap: dark backgrounds, then create "artificial" light sources with your brush to better integrate them (so the light in the bg and the cap come from the same spot). Using textures over the image also helps blending the foreground with the background, as it creates the illusion of everything being in the same place or coming from the same source (since it affects both parts)
Tl;dr version: you do the resizing in steps. Cutting out subject > blurring > resizing to somewhere halfway through > composition & coloring basics > blur again > resize to final icon size > do some more coloring > clone stamp everything > gaussian blur somewhat > set to soft light, erase parts that don't work.
So, there's no secret at all. Icons like these are quite simple to create :) Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it, and that this is what you were asking about :P Any doubts just leave a comment and I'll hapilly answer it.
You can also ask more questions and/or request tutorials at my "ask the maker" thread, here, and I'll do my best to answer them.