icon tutorial numero uno!
HAI THAR EVERY1. A few words of wisdom before we start with the whole tutorial:
- This tutorial is going to teach you, basically, to move from the dark orangey lighting to a more white fluorescent-esque lighting. I don't know if it's translatable since I'm not a big fan of tutorials but if it is, then yay.
- That said, the program used for this tutorial is Adobe Photoshop CS3 and you will be using tons of Curves, Color Balance and Selective Coloring as well as some help from Level adjustments and layer options. I don't recall anymore but if previous PS versions have all of those, then yay. :D
- No colored layers were ever used in the creation of the final product. I was a little too lazy and didn't experiment. >.>;;
- This tutorial consists of 13 steps.
- It has always been my personal advice to never stop even after a tutorial ends so don't. What I mean is that even after you've gone through all the steps, if the final product still looks iffy, I say scrap some of the layers or keep on adjusting the image.
- I'm actually giving you a very ickle sneak peak at my graphic post to come but w/e, right? Who cares? XD
1.)
So obviously, we're going to start with our supposedly unappealing base and the one I chanced upon is bad on a lot of accords. It's very dark, very single-toned, the contrast is lame and it basically doesn't have an oomph aside from being a big oomph of orange.
This is where step 1 really starts: move your mouse to the menu bar and click Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Levels as can be seen hereunder:
Why the hell are we doing this and not just use a quick Ctrl + L to get it over with? Obviously because there are tons of different orange images out there and not every tutorial works for every image. Creating a new adjustment layer is going to make your life easier if you want to tweak a few values or delete it altogether in the future.
After you've done that, a dialogue box is going to pop up to your screen -- just click OK. Next, a Levels window is going to spring up and your Layers tab (if you still don't have that, go to your menu bar and click Windows → Layers or simply hit F7) is going to look something like this. Don't worry if your histogram/Levels graph looks a little different from what I have -- that's bound to happen if you're using a different image.
On the levels window, there are three boxes beneath the graph, right? Key in the following values:
[ 13 ] [ 1.28 ] [ 234 ]
Leave everything else as they are and then click OK! So you're resulting image should look like...
2.)
The results aren't very drastic but hay, the contrast looks a little different! :D Die (the guy) still looks very jaundiced, though, so let's move on. Once you've done the levels, go to Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Curves this time and click OK when a window pops up. On the Curves window, imitate the following screencap:
And I'm really sorry if this totes makes the tutorial difficult now 'cause I only thought to do it belatedly and didn't expect the lack of...input-able values in the curves. ._. In any case the values don't have to be exact, I don't think! Just get the gist of the shape, same difference! :DDD
3.)
And this is the resulting image. Hurray, Die looks a little brighter! :D He could still use a little more color, though, so we're giving him that! Go next to Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Color Balance, OK and you're presented with the Color Balance window! Input the following values:
For Midtones:
[ -46 ] [ -12 ] [ +19 ]
For Shadows:
[ -4 ] [ +15 ] [ -15 ]
For Highlights:
[ -9 ] [ +4 ] [ +20 ]
4.)
Hurray colors! Which aren't much, just a hint of green, lighter orange and all that...but it's still improvement! We need moar colors to do away with the golden lighting, though, and that is why we will result to Selective Coloring! Cautiously, that is. We wouldn't want our icon looking like an alien chewed up and spat out three times over. :D Hit Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Selective Coloring then OK. Follow the following values:
RedsYellowNeutrals
Cyan+33-9-49
Magenta-17+25-20
Yellow+15-33+38
Black0-31+27
5.)
Awright! Hellooo, Handsome! We're finally getting rid of the excessive orangeness and making him look a little more human. :D But...the colors look a little washed out, don't you think? Especially on his skin and we don't really want our man to look like that. I thought this was a problem with the lighting of the image so I decided to remedy it by adding another Curves layer. Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Curves, OK, imitate the following cap:
Resulting image:
6.)
Still looks pale, a little flat and a little colorless. Sigh. So add another Color Balance layer by going to Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Color Balance, OK, and input the following values:
For Midtones:
[ -62 ] [ -29 ] [ +14 ]
For Shadows:
[ -10 ] [ -3 ] [ +3 ]
For Highlights:
[ 0 ] [ 0 ] [ 0 ]
7.)
Starting to look a little more human with a little more color depth! This is good. Now, the problem I (personally) encounter when I correct lighting and colors like here is that when I use too much adjustment layers, I eventually lose sight of the original image which I would still very much like to keep. I don't know if this helps you guys but it does me so here comes the step that does not make a simple *.PSD of this tutorial reasonable if you wanna know how to really do it...my style. :B First, select all the layers you have so far and not just Ctrl + A -- I mean on your Layers tab, click on Layer 1, hold Shift, scroll up then click on Color Balance 2 or whatever you named it or basically the last layer you have.
Like so! Now, right click on the name of the layer (i.e. on 'Color Balance 2') and click Duplicate Layers -- or you can just go to Layer → Duplicate Layer... in the menu bar, that also works. XD;; Click OK and you'll still get the same image but your Layers tab would be more populated by now of copies of your selected layers. Hit Ctrl + E to merge all those duplicated layers. Still no new image, right?
Here's where it changes -- and I'll teach it to you the more careful way! While on your latest layer -- that is, the flattened duplicated layers or, at least on my file, the one named "Color Balance 2 copy 2" -- go to Layer → Layer Style → Blending Options (or you can follow this image if you get lost). Once there, click the drop down box of Blend Mode and choose Screen. Look for Fill Opacity and on the box beside its slider, type "45%". Then click OK!
8.)
A little brighter, right? Probably a little too bright. So here's what we do (and this is the ~main~ part of "maintaining to base image"): in the Layers tab, scroll alllll the way down to the Layer 1 or the layer of your base image or the first layer that is not the background. Duplicate that layer and drag it all the way to the top of your topmost layer -- you can do this by either clicking and dragging the layer in the Layers tab or hitting Shift + Ctrl + ] or Layers → Arrange → Bring to Front. Once that's done, go to Layer → Layer Style → Blending Options. For Blend Mode, use Soft Light and make your Fill Opacity "40%" then click OK.
9.)
Hurray color depth! See, there's an advantage to doing it this way. XD It still looks far off but don't look now, we're nearly there! For the next step, create another Color Balance layer (Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Color Balance) and use the following values:
For Midtones:
[ -80 ] [ -18 ] [ +11 ]
For Shadows:
[ +9 ] [ +6 ] [ -8 ]
For Highlights:
[ 0 ] [ 0 ] [ 0 ]
10.)
Whoooah, what a farcry from our very orange base! We've only got a few more steps to go. Continue with a new Selective Color layer (Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Selective Coloring) then click OK. The values are:
RedsYellowGreensCyansNeutrals
Cyan-51+33-48-48+23
Magenta-14+21+30+30+8
Yellow+8-14-52-49+4
Black0-41+690-8
11.)
The result is an image that looks a lit-tle brighter/fairer. Follow it up with a new Curves layer via Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Curves and do the following:
12.)
And now, for the final step (because that looks a little too bright), grab one last Color Balance layer (Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Color Balance as always) and copy the values:
For Midtones:
[ +10 ] [ +4 ] [ +5 ]
For Shadows:
[ -16 ] [ -2 ] [ +3 ]
For Highlights:
[ -12 ] [ -9 ] [ 0 ]
Annnd...
13.)
Presto! Our finished product! :D
If you ask me, it's actually not exactly very correctly colored just yet, I mean the image still has a little yellow and orange and blue we could defs do away with but I decided to stop here because I am enjoying the kind of drama my image's colors have in their combination. ♥ Maybe in the future, I'll figure it out. :D Or maybe you guys should try it out and tell me the secret, huh? XD
On a final note, I did my best to recreate the image as I did the tutorial and that is, follow the steps I stated above without much gratuitous use of the *.psd (which I might up...after I post the graphic set XD;;). If there's also a step that completely does not make sense, please tell me and I will retrace. :D Hope you guys followed just fine and can use this tutorial in your graphical adventures! ♥♥♥
Edit; Download the *.psd here.
ice_cubed;
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