elite_disney Member of the Month Tutorials [2/6]

[ex_absolute]

I'm the Member of the Month over at elite_disney believe it or not. And I was so excited, I put up a tutorial request post. So these are the first two, and there will be four more (brb, dying).


Program: Photoshop 7.0
Tools: Filters, layer blend modes, brushes, layer masks, etc.
Translatable: No. Sorry. There's a selective coloring layer. D:
For: funkytrain who was particularly interested in the negative space and the lighting.

Right so, tutorial one is an icon I did not have a .psd file for. Therefore, I am making it from scratch. Actually, to be honest, this icon makes me cringe a little because, in my opinion, the process in which it was made was fairly simple and yet so many people seem to like it. D: That being said, when I made it, I thought it was cute, and I am happy other people like it too! At any rate, it was made for a challenge at disney_create. Let's get started, yes?

Note: Simply because it is the way I work, all of the steps before the final will be done on a 300x300 pixel canvas. You do not have to work that way. Just realize that all my steps and all the example images will be in accordance to that.

# The original screencap. For this tutorial, I would recommend keeping a spare copy of this cap handy because you'll need it. So if you need to resize the cap or crop or whatever, do it on a new canvas that way the original screencap is always there in tact. This is something I always do, but in this case, it'll be necessary for you guys as well; it isn't just part of my process here. It is also part of the final icon.

So. You've got one canvas with the full size screencap on it. Now, you're going to want a version of the full screencap resized down so that the width is 300 pixels.



And that image goes onto a 300x300 pixel canvas (makes sure this new canvas is transparent; when you create a new canvas, there is a setting at the bottom where you can check transparent, and when your new canvas shows up, it'll have empty space filled with little checkered boxes). You'll want to drag it down so that the bottom of the screencap lines up with the bottom of the canvas. This will leave you with a lot of empty space at the top. That's perfectly okay. Duplicate the layer with your screencap on it. You should now have two layers with the same screencap; take the bottom layer and drag it up so that the top of the screencap is in line with the top of the canvas.



Clearly we can't leave it that way. The line looks ridiculous, and there's that little ear sticking up in the back. So we need to do a little touching up. And my favorite Photoshop Concealer (lol, I am so trademarking that, okay?) is, of course, the layer mask. (If you are unfamiliar with layer masks, here is a tutorial that gives a quick run through of how to use them.)

So basically, I put a layer mask on the top layer, and then, with a soft, round brush, I masked away the bits I didn't want.



But there's still Thumper's head to deal with because, well, it would look a little silly if he had two heads, am I right? So in order to get rid of his second head (the one on top), we're going to use what we already have: the screencap itself! So I take the screencap that we resized earlier and pasted it onto my icon canvas, put it in the middle of the two layers we already have, moved it around until I had the right amount of green bits covering Thumper's second head, and then masked the excess away. Here's a quick look at my layer palette so you can get an more visual idea of what I just did.



And now we've got a base we can use. So the next bit would be the coloring which I'm going to try and get right, but it has been a bit since I made this icon and I've modified my coloring style a little since then.

# So the coloring is pretty basic because there are so many colors in the original screencap that it didn't take much to make them pop. In summary: light blobs, soft light, hue/saturation, selective coloring, diffuse glow.

First the light blobs/soft light combo. Copy merge your icon base, and then paste as a new layer. Set this layer to soft light. Then, underneath that soft light layer, make a new layer. On this new layer, use a soft, round brush (60% opacity) on a very light beige color to highlight points of focus. In this case, Thumper's ear that sticks up/new his face and right behind the girl bunny (next to her ears). And, you know, where ever else strikes your fancy. Then, probably, a little gaussian blur on that layer so that the light isn't so concentrated.

And then copy merge everything, and paste it as a new layer at the top of your layer palette (so it should be the topmost layer). Set it to soft light.





Now things start getting a little fuzzy for me. Eh, so I just, uh, approximated based on what the final image looked like. The first thing I noticed was that the saturation of the colors was a bit stronger in the final; so I opened up a Hue/Saturation layer and ramped up the Saturation (in RBG mode) to +25. This is sort of my go to number when playing with saturation. Not sure why exactly. At any rate, this gives the colors a subtle pop that they didn't have before; a little more strength.



But that still wasn't enough. If you scroll back up and have a look at the final icon again you'll see the difference immediately. The final icon is a lot warmer with more reds and yellows in it. The icon we have now has far too much cyan in it. So that needs to be worked on, and to do that we'll need Selective Coloring.

I'm looking for a more all over change, not something specific. So I scrolled down to the Neutrals in the drop down menu. We want to add red and yellow to this icon so the sliders I focused on were the Cyan and Yellow ones. Dragging the Cyan slider to the left gets rid of the Cyan and adds Red. And dragging the Yellow slider to right adds more yellow to the icon. My numbers were -7 for the Cyan slider and +44 for the Yellow slider. The numbers mean very little to me. I focus on the icon preview and keep dragging in various directions until I'm happy.



So now the icon has more warm tones, and now I'm just looking to add in the contrast that we're missing. To do that, copy merge everything and paste it on a new layer. Then frolic on up to the Filters menu. Under the Filter menu there's a drop down for Distort, and under that drop down (or, I guess, drop over. XD) there's a Filter called Diffuse Glow. Diffuse Glow is glowy. And fun. So, basically, if you play around with the sliders a bit, it should be pretty simple to figure out how Diffuse Glow works.

Graininess, I don't think I need to explain (and for this icon, make sure it is set to 0). Glow amount is, clearly, the amount of glow on the icon (and I've got it set to 8 today). And Clear amount controls the intensity of the glow (set it to 10 which is, I think, the default). Then click okay, and set the layer to Soft Light.



At this point, I thought I had it. So I copy merged onto a new canvas and resized down to 100x100. But upon comparing it to the original, I decided it was too light. And my quick fix for that was the Variations tool. I duplicated my icon, and then opened the variations tool (Image>>Adjustments>>Variations). Making sure I had the original clicked, I then gave the 'Darker' option two clicks. Then I hit okay.




New Icon Old Icon

Which is, still, slightly off. The intensity and placement of my light blobs was a bit different, and, as a result, the light and the shadows are a bit different in each. If I switched up the placement of the light blobs, and maybe masked a bit of the diffuse glow off the rabbits' faces, we might have gotten a match practically perfect in every way. But this one's not too shabby!


Program: Photoshop 7.0
Tools: Layer masks, brushes, blending modes, selective coloring, filters, etc.
Translatable: Selective Coloring again. So no.
For: chacusha who was keen on learning a bit more about the blending side of this icon.

Note: Simply because it is the way I work, all of the steps before the final will be done on a 300x300 pixel canvas. You do not have to work that way. Just realize that all my steps and all the example images will be in accordance to that.

Luckily, I do still have this icon's .psd file saved (which is why I chose to focus on this icon as opposed to the other two that were offered). The blending theory in all my icons is, for the most part, the same. Layer masks are a HUGE part of it though. Although, I suppose you could find a way to use the eraser tool or the lasso tool to do the same sort of thing. I just like the flexibility of the layer mask.

# The original screencaps. Right. So. I should probably talk a little bit about picking out caps. In this case, I made the icons for the elite_disney 'Stairs' challenge so I needed the stairs, but you have to put a little more into your screencap selection than that. You've got to look for screencaps that work together. Screencaps that will blend together seamlessly. Not all of them do you know! So usually (not always) it's good to go with a distance shot and then a close up shot. That's what we've got in this case.

So then you get your screencaps into Photoshop (or whatever program you're using), and you've got to decided the next step. How to arrange your screencaps. You don't have to know exactly, but it is good to have an approximation before you start in on anything. In this case, since I needed the stairs to be visible, I put them at the bottom so I wouldn't need to blend them with anything. That meant the other screencap was going on the top.

So resize your screencaps, and put them onto your icon canvas together. They should (and they will) overlap each other and look clunky at this point because, obviously, they haven't been blended together as of yet. Kida kneeling by her father should be the topmost layer on the layer palette because that screencap is on top. Set that layer to lighten. Now I don't always leave the layer on lighten. But having it on lighten now will help you move your screencap around to find the perfect place for it.



You can see both screencaps at once so you can use the Move Tool to move the top screencap around. What you're looking for is a place where all the important details from the bottom screencap and from the top screencap are visible. Once you've found your place (in the case of this icon, I moved the top screencap up until Kida's face was almost cut off in order to get everything I wanted to see visible), it's time for the layer mask.

An important thing to remember while you're masking is this: you don't want any visible lines. The line where the top cap ends? Don't want to see it. The line where the bottom cap start? Yeah, don't want to see that either. So add your layer mask to the top layer, and using a soft, round brush, mask away the details you don't want. (Tip: If the edges you've masked away look too rough, you can blur your layer mask the same way you would blur a layer.)

Once you've finished masking, set the layer back to normal. Why didn't I leave it on lighten? Because, as you could probably see, the way the caps blended together on lighten looked funny. That doesn't always happen. The dark the bottom cap is, the more likely caps will look seamless on Lighten. However, the bottom cap in this case was light enough for it to look silly. So setting it back to normal was the best option.



And now our two caps are blended together! You can use the same technique to blend all sort of things together.
Other Examples:






Blending is one of those things you have to take the time to look at and plan out (to a certain degree). And the more you do it, the easier it gets. And while that sounds patronizing, it is completely true. And depending on your caps, you can make it easier or harder on yourself. For example, 'King Undisputed' would have been an easy blend. The caps are from the same scene and the colors were the same. Plus, I used text to hide the line where the two caps were blended together. However, the Finn/Rachel icon would have taken time to blend together nicely, and all the tricks I have up my sleeve to make it look smooth.

# ANYWAY. Back to the Kida icon. After I finished the blending bit, I went into coloring it. In quick summary: Variations, light blobs/soft light combo, selective coloring, diffuse glow. I'm just going to run through it quick since the emphasis was just supposed to be on the blending.

So to begin with, I wasn't keen on how blue and boring the icon looked. So to fix that, I copy merged onto a new layer, and I opened up Variations (Image>>Adjustments>>Variations). Making sure I had the original clicked, I then gave the Yellow option one click and the Lighter option one click. Then I hit okay.



Then I copy merged onto a new layer, set it to soft light, created a new layer underneath it, used a soft, round brush with a light beige color on 60% opacity to brush focal points and lighten up shadowy places, then I copy merged and placed that new layer on the very top, and set it to soft light.



However, as you can see, the icon is a bit too dark at the moment. To lighten it up, I copy merged onto a new layer, and set that layer to screen at 50%. That lightened up the icon all across the board, but the lessened opacity made sure that nothing got blown out. Then, to add some of the contrast we lost back in, I went to Filters>>Other>>High Pass. I keep my radius set to 60.0 pixels. Then I set the layer to soft light. This High Pass layer adds back contrast without overdoing the saturation and blurring details with shadows the same way a regular soft light layer would.




Then I made some subtle color changes and enhancements using Selective Coloring. First of all, I was really keen on getting rid of the red. I have a thing against red. So, yeah, it had to go. So, under RED in the drop down menu, I pushed the Yellow slider to the left. This takes yellow out of the reds in your icon, and by doing so turns them pink/purple. However, by doing this, I took too much yellow out of the icon. So. To fix that, I went to NEUTRALS under the drop down menu, and pushed the yellow slider to the right to increase the yellow in the icon. I also added a bit of magenta.



Finally, I needed one last layer to make everything bright, glowy, and vibrant. So. Diffuse Glow to the rescue! Filters>>Distort>>Diffuse Glow. And I played around until I was happy, and then set the layer to soft light. Wah lah! Then I sharpened on a new layer, copy merged, pasted onto a new canvas, and resized.