Tutorial #11: Guide to negative space
Janie's basic guide to negative space
Hello everyone, welcome to my basic guide to negative space. This has been a long time coming. I don't claim to be an expert on negative space, but it is my favourite thing about icon making and I'm happiest when I'm working with negative space.
So if you think there is anything interesting about negative space I can tell you (or if you just enjoy my dulcet writing tones), come on in!
Please note that I work in Photoshop CS4, so some tools I mention might be available in other programmes under different names.
We generally use the term 'negative space' if a considerable part of the icon isn't taken up by the subject of your icon. That means that most close crops won't be thought of as negative space, but there is no exact definition of what negative space icons are.
For example, it's quite obvious that these five icons qualify as negative space icons:
appleindecay, marylou_gr, thewonderlife, blue_emotion, fiendie
But what about these five, are they negative space icons?
lemonpunch, longerthanwedo, lessrest, llenka, tinebrella
I personally don't think it really matters what you call them, but I put these icons here to remind ourselves of the fact that there are so many ways to use the space in an icon. Composition is something most people don't actively think about when they start making icons, but if you take the time to consider it, it can make a huge difference to the way you icon and the impact your icons have on your viewer.
Okay, back to what we came here for: the basics.
Choosing the image
Theoretically, almost any image can be turned into a negative space icon. There are icon makers that are experts at cutting subjects out of busy backgrounds and putting them into new canvases with lots of negative space.
I am not one of those people. (But if you want to become one of those people, check out this incredible layer mask guide by lil_art or this useful tutorial by liquidlights.)
The kind of images I like to use for negative space icons are particularly images with clean-ish backgrounds and outside shots. Like these:
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Composition
Because the majority of shots in television shows and movies are medium shots (showing subjects from the waist up), the composition of a negative space icon will usually place your subject at the bottom of the icon (see above examples). I personally like to place the subject of the icon not dead centre, but more to the side. I have a couple of reasons for this:
→ I like using text sometimes and when I do, I like to create a diagonal line for the eye to travel across the icon:
→ I am very fond of repetition; putting the image in the same icon more than once. Again, I like creating 'looking lines' in my icons:
Any kind of crop is, of course, possible, but this one (just off-centre) is my favourite, because it gives me a lot of room to play with textures.
What if there's not enough image for the composition I want?
Well, then we get to the technical part of extending our background.
There are several ways to extend your background. I'm going to list the four methods I use:
1) The scale tool.
This works well if your background is already a solid (or almost solid) colour. What I usually do is prepare my base ( 1) Image > Auto Contrast 2) duplicate my base twice and change the blending mode of one to screen and the other to soft light, then play with the opacities), then copy those layers and merge them so I have all the effects in one layer, because you need a single layer for the scale tool to work properly.
I'm using this image of Doctor Who's Rory as an example, because the background of this image is already a solid white:
What I do once I've copy + merged the layers I had, is make sure this new layer is in a canvas that already has the height I want the new background to have. In this case that's a 300x300 canvas. (I made the background layer blue so you can see it better.) I then select a tiny strip along the top of the image with the standard box selection tool:
Then I go to Edit > Transform > Scale (this may be at another place in a different graphics programme). The selected area now turns into a box-y thing with points you can pull:
And that's how you extend your background quickly and easily. The bad news is that most often, images won't have this kind of solid background, so you'll have blur out any uneven patches or brush over them. Which is some of the other methods of extending your backgrounds tend to come in handier. But if you have such a solid background, go for it!
2) The smudge tool.
The smudge tool (that little pointing finger icon in your Tool palette) is a fabulous device. You can adjust the strength of the smudge and the blending mode, but because I tend to use the smudge tool for the 'hard' work, I hardly ever use those options. I use the smudge tool to create a basis on which I can then work with texture or other ways to make the background look like it actually belongs with the image.
Again, the smudge tool works best if you want to extend a background that is already relatively smooth, or backgrounds like walls that have a distinguishing feature that is difficult to erase. Think the door or window frames or a straight horizon. You can usually smudge lines quite easily, but you have to have steady hand. Some examples where I used the smudge tool to elongate vertical lines.
3) The clone tool.
Your best friend and your worst nightmare.
The clone tool (that little stamp icon in your Tool palette) is a wonderful, wonderful instrument. It will let you copy any part of your image and paint it on any other part of your image. But it requires precision and not all images have enough even patches to make it work. For a more elaborate explanation of how the clone tool works, please read this tutorial I wrote a while ago.
An example: below are two images. One where the clone tool worked well - and one where it required patience, patience and some more patience.
Image 1
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You can see where I cloned parts from - and where I cloned them to. There is some repetition visible in the larger image, but most of it isn't very obvious (at least not in a distracting way) in the smaller version.
Image 2
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In this icon, the background was rather busy and the parts I could clone from were very small. So the repetition in the image was very visible. I tried to mask this with brushwork and textures, but it was far from ideal. Still, if you have a busy background or a background with a pattern and you don't want to alter the entire background, the clone tool sometimes is your best option.
For more technical and detailed information about creating backgrounds, read this amazing tutorial by shoqolad. For more tips on how to be creative when creating or adjusting a background, there's this fabulously inspiring tutorial by absolutelybatty.
4) Using textures
Like I said earlier, some people are geniuses when it comes to cutting out/masking subjects and creating whole new backgrounds. My favourite example is lemonpunch:
You can either use textures to replace the entire background, like lemonpunch - or parts of it, which is what I usually do. I tend to work from the background that is already there. This is ideal for when you've smudged your background, but it looks messy. Textures can easily cover this and by using layer masks, you can adjust almost anything. The trick is to find textures that work with your subject, the lighting of the original image and the original colour scheme.
If I work on a 100x100 canvas and I need to fill up space that has to be a certain way (tree tops for example) but which is difficult to do well, one trick that I have is that I cut a piece from the original image (or the image before I resized it) and work that into the image, like here:
The edge of the forest at the top (1) and the sand at the bottom(2).
Other times, I brush over the parts of the background that are distracting with a colour that is close to the dominant background colour, but a few shades lighter, then mask out my subject. Then I use textures to give the background depth:
Textures are so essential to extending backgrounds to me - and people are often surprised at how much work it can be. Negative space icons sometimes have a reputation of being the 'easy way out', but I think that if you only look at the icons + original images I posted at the top of this post, you can see what work can go into creating negative space. You don't have to, of course, but that very precise work can land you a spectacular negative space icon - and I personally would be nowhere without textures to help me create that negative space.
Speaking of textures...
They are, in my opinion, essential to interesting negative space. There are lots of cool, funny icons that have a solid background colour, but if you ask me, the best negative space icons have depth to them - and nothing creates that depth like textures do!
For example:
_omnivore_, xtine005 animotus, fan_cifully, memonechan, a_thari
What about text?
Text is good. I love text. Especially on negative space icons. But I promised someone/people/appleindecay and ohgollygeedamn a specific text guide, so I'm saving this topic for a later date.
That said, I don't want to go without saying this:
→ Balance is the key to a good icon. Make sure your negative space doesn't become to busy, especially when you are using wild textures. Spend some time on a negative space icon and be critical of your composition: where can you erase/mask certain parts of textures so that the viewers eye doesn't get distracted from its path through the icon?
→ Sharpening is very important when it comes to negative space icons. Often times, your subject will be small and face and clothing lines especially tend to get pixel-y quite quickly. So be careful there. I always copy + merge my layers a few times during my process, so I have a 'back-up' layer if I royally miss up the sharpening and can work from that layer. Although I sharpen and blur at several stages during the making of an icon, if it's a difficult one, I tend to end with a copy + merged layer set to the High Pass filter at soft light - and I smooth pixel-y edges with a soft, small blur brush.
→ Vertical lines can work wonders for your negative space icons:
xeyra, prettyquotable, fancifull, _puchula_, chouchoune,
poshing, sky_magenta, ohfreckle, xeyra, juanxyo
→ + my personal favourite: repeating part of your icon as a line in your icon (not just in negative space icons though):
→ Negative space is a thing to experiment with, especially when it comes to sharpening, "how large does my subject have to be to still be visible and have ~meaning?" and using new textures to bring colours into your negative space. Text too, is easier to experiment with in icons that have rooms to spare, obviously.
→ Negative space is beautiful and I wish there was a club I could belong to. "Hello, my name is Janie and I'm a negative space addict."
So there you have it. I have no idea if that was helpful to anyone, but I suppose that's everything I have to say on the matter. Well, not really, because I could talk about this for hours, so if you want to discuss something negative space-related with me, please just leave a comment!
Questions? Concerns? Thoughts? I'd love to hear them! :)