Unnatural Coloring Guide
I love icons with unnatural colors, and afeastforme asked me about how I do coloring. Honestly, the answer is "in many different ways", but she gave me two examples, so I will focus on the two techniques used in those two icons.
I work with Photoshop CS4 on Windows.
Difficulty: advanced (I'm not explaining every step)
The first technique is not translatable, because PS is the only program that has Gradient Maps. Unless anyone is interested in how to imitate Gradient Maps in other programs, because I have an unposted tutorial on that lying around. *g*
The second one is definitely translatable.
Example:
Technique 1: Gradient Maps
This is the cap:
I always start with cropping the image I want and masking it. I work on a 100x100 canvas, because I hate resizing in the middle of the process. It often makes the icon lose details I really wanted to see, and I like to know what exactly I'm getting from the start.
Size+Crop, Mask, make Black&White, Contrast:
+
->
Background texture by lookslikerain:
I'll spare you the details of how I came up with the background... suffice it to say that a fortuitous accident with exclusion layers had me end up with this:
->
I liked it so much, I decided to make Flynn those same colors.
The easiest way to give an image the colors you want is using a gradient map on Normal blend mode. If you don't know how gradient maps work at all, check out this guide: http://good-tutorial.livejournal.com/11012.html
You have to clip the gradient map layer to the layer with Flynn, so the gradient map is only applied to him (Alt-click on the line between the layers to clip them together) :
It took me a while to fiddle with the gradient map so it fit the background. If you choose the exact colors from the background, the subject will vanish in it:
->
To make him stand out better, you can add a simple black+white gradient layer on soft light.
Or - like I did - add two more colors to the ends of the gradient: choose the darkest color a little darker than the darkest color from the background (blue), and the lightest color a little lighter than the lightest (orange). This way, the gradient will include the colors from the background but still make the subject stand out better. I also added an reddish orange to the middle of the gradient, because blue-yellow turned his face too green for my taste. This is the final gradient, but it took me quite a while to find the right colors and the right positions for the stops.
I ended up with this:
->
[And then I added more brightness and contrast and some more light on the left side etc. but that's not part of the coloring process.]
Basically, this technique means lots of fiddling with the gradient map until the colors are where you want them. You also should take care to balance your image so it spans the whole range from white to black before you start on the gradient map. This will give you the best results.
I don't do this often, but I found a few more examples where I used gradient maps to colorize my icons (not all on Normal blend mode, though) :
Example:
Technique 2: Solid Color Times 3
This technique basically consists of painting over stuff in different colors. If you don't already have the subject masked or want to color the background in different colors, it's a lot of work, there's no way around it. Otherwise, the subject mask is enough and it's not that complicated. :)
This is the cap:
It's very dark, so I had to do some invasive lighting and sharpening on it:
It's pretty fugly... :/. I really wanted to icon this particular scene, though, so I decided to use fake coloring to hide the inferior cap quality.
So, to achieve the tone-in-tone background, this is what I do: I choose a color and fill the layer with it. (You can also use a solid color adjustment layer, no difference at all.) Then I duplicate it twice. I set the first one to color, the second one to multiply, the third one to lighten.
1) Solid color -> Color blend mode (100%) , again on Multiply (100%) , then again on Lighten (70%):
->
->
+
->
Adding the same color on multiply and lighten will make the highlights darker (and this color) and the shadows lighter (and this color). This is exactly what you want for your background, because it will still be visible but nicely low-contrast and all in one color. Of course, you can change the opacity of each layer and mask parts as needed. You can also use different colors for each, if you like.
Of course you can paint different parts of the icon in different colors.
2) Solid Color -> Color blend mode (70%):
+
->
Etc etc with every part you want colored. I obviously wasn't even very accurate with the mask there. It's not so noticeable, apparently. Not to me, anyway. ;)
You may not need all those modes in every single icon (but it's likely you will). In this one, for example, Multiply alone was totally enough, because the background was very bright already and not very contrasted:
Prepared cap -> Multiply Cyan (100%) -> Multiply Green (100%):
+
->
+
->
It all depends on your cap. As always. :D I didn't even bother with masks (much) in that one, apparently, just painted right into the layer.
If you look at those color layers, especially on that large tree in the middle, you can tell I use the smudge tool a lot. With this type of coloring, you don't have to be as accurate as with cutting out subjects, especially if the colors are as similar as they are here.
Here are some other examples where I used this technique:
image links updated
Let me know if this was helpful. This is my first time on Ask the Maker and I appreciate all feedback.
If you don't understand everything, don't be afraid to ask me. I know I left out a lot of basic information, but I'll answer everything you want to know to the best of my ability, and I can point you to other tutorials and guides.
x-posted from dw (comments:
)
I work with Photoshop CS4 on Windows.
Difficulty: advanced (I'm not explaining every step)
The first technique is not translatable, because PS is the only program that has Gradient Maps. Unless anyone is interested in how to imitate Gradient Maps in other programs, because I have an unposted tutorial on that lying around. *g*
The second one is definitely translatable.
Example:
Technique 1: Gradient Maps
This is the cap:
I always start with cropping the image I want and masking it. I work on a 100x100 canvas, because I hate resizing in the middle of the process. It often makes the icon lose details I really wanted to see, and I like to know what exactly I'm getting from the start.
Size+Crop, Mask, make Black&White, Contrast:
+
->
Background texture by lookslikerain:
I'll spare you the details of how I came up with the background... suffice it to say that a fortuitous accident with exclusion layers had me end up with this:
->
I liked it so much, I decided to make Flynn those same colors.
The easiest way to give an image the colors you want is using a gradient map on Normal blend mode. If you don't know how gradient maps work at all, check out this guide: http://good-tutorial.livejournal.com/11012.html
You have to clip the gradient map layer to the layer with Flynn, so the gradient map is only applied to him (Alt-click on the line between the layers to clip them together) :
It took me a while to fiddle with the gradient map so it fit the background. If you choose the exact colors from the background, the subject will vanish in it:
->
To make him stand out better, you can add a simple black+white gradient layer on soft light.
Or - like I did - add two more colors to the ends of the gradient: choose the darkest color a little darker than the darkest color from the background (blue), and the lightest color a little lighter than the lightest (orange). This way, the gradient will include the colors from the background but still make the subject stand out better. I also added an reddish orange to the middle of the gradient, because blue-yellow turned his face too green for my taste. This is the final gradient, but it took me quite a while to find the right colors and the right positions for the stops.
I ended up with this:
->
[And then I added more brightness and contrast and some more light on the left side etc. but that's not part of the coloring process.]
Basically, this technique means lots of fiddling with the gradient map until the colors are where you want them. You also should take care to balance your image so it spans the whole range from white to black before you start on the gradient map. This will give you the best results.
I don't do this often, but I found a few more examples where I used gradient maps to colorize my icons (not all on Normal blend mode, though) :
Example:
Technique 2: Solid Color Times 3
This technique basically consists of painting over stuff in different colors. If you don't already have the subject masked or want to color the background in different colors, it's a lot of work, there's no way around it. Otherwise, the subject mask is enough and it's not that complicated. :)
This is the cap:
It's very dark, so I had to do some invasive lighting and sharpening on it:
It's pretty fugly... :/. I really wanted to icon this particular scene, though, so I decided to use fake coloring to hide the inferior cap quality.
So, to achieve the tone-in-tone background, this is what I do: I choose a color and fill the layer with it. (You can also use a solid color adjustment layer, no difference at all.) Then I duplicate it twice. I set the first one to color, the second one to multiply, the third one to lighten.
1) Solid color -> Color blend mode (100%) , again on Multiply (100%) , then again on Lighten (70%):
->
->
+
->
Adding the same color on multiply and lighten will make the highlights darker (and this color) and the shadows lighter (and this color). This is exactly what you want for your background, because it will still be visible but nicely low-contrast and all in one color. Of course, you can change the opacity of each layer and mask parts as needed. You can also use different colors for each, if you like.
Of course you can paint different parts of the icon in different colors.
2) Solid Color -> Color blend mode (70%):
+
->
Etc etc with every part you want colored. I obviously wasn't even very accurate with the mask there. It's not so noticeable, apparently. Not to me, anyway. ;)
You may not need all those modes in every single icon (but it's likely you will). In this one, for example, Multiply alone was totally enough, because the background was very bright already and not very contrasted:
Prepared cap -> Multiply Cyan (100%) -> Multiply Green (100%):
+
->
+
->
It all depends on your cap. As always. :D I didn't even bother with masks (much) in that one, apparently, just painted right into the layer.
If you look at those color layers, especially on that large tree in the middle, you can tell I use the smudge tool a lot. With this type of coloring, you don't have to be as accurate as with cutting out subjects, especially if the colors are as similar as they are here.
Here are some other examples where I used this technique:
image links updated
Let me know if this was helpful. This is my first time on Ask the Maker and I appreciate all feedback.
If you don't understand everything, don't be afraid to ask me. I know I left out a lot of basic information, but I'll answer everything you want to know to the best of my ability, and I can point you to other tutorials and guides.
x-posted from dw (comments:
)