2012 - guide: working with disney.
Requested in part by twinstrike, fouroux and zhaoxun.
Warning: Unfortunately, pretty image heavy.
Cropping
Original Screencap -> Resized to 396px x 300px -> Copied into new canvas: 250px x 250px ->
Original Screencap -> Resized to 533px x 300px -> Copied into new canvas: 250px x 250px ->
Original Screencap -> Resized to 391px x 220px -> Copied into new canvas: 300px x 300px ->
Original Screencap -> Resized to 391px x 220px -> Copied into new canvas: 200px x 200px ->
Original Screencap -> Resized to 533px x 300px -> Copied into new canvas: 200px x 200px ->
Base Prep
Left: Base prior to prep.
Centre: Base after prep with no modifications.
Right: The opacity of layer 5 & layer 6 was lowered to 20%, and the opacity of layer 7 was lowered to 50%.
Left: Base prior to prep.
Centre: Base after prep with no modifications.
Right: The opacity of layer 5 was lowered to 20%, and the opacity of layer 6 was lowered to 30%.
Left: Base prior to prep.
Centre: Base after prep with no modifications.
Right: The opacity of layer 5 was lowered to 10%, and the opacity of layer 6 was lowered to 20%.
Left: Base prior to prep.
Centre: Base after prep with no modifications.
Right: The opacity of layer 5 & layer 6 was lowered to 20%, and the opacity of layer 7 was lowered to 50%.
Left: Base prior to prep.
Centre: Base after prep with no modifications.
Right: The opacity of layer 5 & layer 6 was lowered to 20%, and the opacity of layer 7 was lowered to 50%.
Basic Colouring
Left: Base prep with modifications.
Right: The following layers applied:
Hue/Saturation
Master | Hue: +7, Saturation: +20, Lightness: +10
Brightness/Contrast:
Brightness: +5, Contrast: +10
Color Balance
Midtones | +5, +5, -20
Selective Color
Reds | Yellow: +25, Black: +25
Yellows | Black: +20
Cyans | Yellow: +100
Blues | Cyan: +100, Magenta: -25, Yellow: -100, Black: +15
Neutrals | Black: +5
Blacks | Black: +5
Left: Base prep with modifications.
Right: The following layers applied:
Hue/Saturation
Master | Hue: +5, Saturation: +20, Lightness: +5
Magentas | Lightness: +5
Brightness/Contrast:
Brightness: +5, Contrast: +10
Color Balance
Midtones | +10, +10, +10
Selective Color
Reds | Yellow: +25, Black: +10
Yellows | Yellow: -10, Black: +25
Cyans | Yellow: +100, Black: +100
Blues | Magenta: -15, Yellow: +10
Neutrals | Black: +5
Blacks | Black: +5
Left: Base prep with modifications.
Right: The following layers applied:
Hue/Saturation
Master | Hue: +10, Saturation: +20, Lightness: +10
Cyans | Saturation: +10
Brightness/Contrast:
Brightness: +20, Contrast: +50
Color Balance
Midtones | -5, +5, +10
Selective Color
Cyans | Magenta: +10, Yellow: -100
Blues | Magenta: -15, Yellow: +10
Neutrals | Black: +10
Blacks | Black: +10
Left: Base prep with modifications.
Right: The following layers applied:
Hue/Saturation
Master | Saturation: +15, Lightness: +5
Yellows | Saturation: +20
Magentas | Hue: +10, Lightness: +15
Brightness/Contrast:
Brightness: +20, Contrast: +10
Color Balance
Midtones | 0, +5, -35
Selective Color
Reds | Yellow: +50
Yellows | Yellow: +50, Black: +20
Greens | Yellow: +50
Neutrals | Black: +5
Blacks | Black: +5
Left: Base prep with modifications.
Right: The following layers applied:
Hue/Saturation
Master | Hue: +5, Saturation: +20, Lightness: +5
Brightness/Contrast:
Brightness: +10, Contrast: +10
Color Balance
Midtones | +20, 0, -20
Selective Color
Reds | Yellow: +10
Yellows | Yellow: +80
Greens | Yellow: +100
Magentas | Magenta: +100, Yellow: -100
Neutrals | Black: +5
Blacks | Black: +5
Parting Ways
Light Blobs
I like to use light blobs for a couple of things: to accentuate certain colours in an icon, and to give a certain layer of softness to an image. In the case of the Alice icon, there were so many colours that I wanted to show how they could become a little shinier through the use of light blobs, and how this could soften the icon in general.
Left: Basic colouring applied to the icon.
Centre: Icon with light blobs having been applied. There are several layers - over the yellow of Alice's hair, the blue of her dress, the green of the leaves and the colours of the flowers. Each of the layers, having been "painted on" is blurred (using box blur in this case) and duplicated. The top layer is set to screen at 100% opacity, while the original layers opacity has been lowered to 50%.
Right: While the layers set to normal opacity worked to maintain some of the natural contrast that was in the first image, some was lost - so I copy merged a layer (Ctrl + Shift + C), blurred it and set it to Soft Light at 50% opacity to give it a little intensity back.
Left: Once I'm satisfied with the colours and softness of the icon (as I was in this case), its time to resize. I copy merge (Ctrl + Shift + C) the layers, paste it to the top, use the Gaussian Blur filter at 1.0 and set the opacity of the layer to 20% opacity. I then copy merge those layers, paste it to the top, use the Sharpen filter and resize my image to 100x100 pixels.
Right: I wanted a touch more brightness, so I used: this (by lumsx) and set the texture to Soft Light at 40% and this (by drankmywar) and set the texture to Screen at 20% opacity. I then added a final Hue/Saturation layer to bump up the colours a touch more.
Background Removal
I'm a fan of negative space, and Disney caps are perfect for playing with negative space where you get to fill in backgrounds, because they've (generally) got lovely lines that are easy to work around. I replace backgrounds for two (or so) reasons. The first, demonstrated with the Beauty and the Beast cap, is to create a more significant focus on the characters within the icon. By taking away the background, the focus is on the characters. It also gives me a nice way to add decorative accents to as well. The second reason, demonstrated by the Hercules and Peter Pan caps, is that negative space is already there in the icon, but its not as smooth as I'd like. So by filling in the background it becomes more smooth and cohesive.
Normally I tend to pick a colour that is already in the image for my fill background layer. Sometimes its the one with the largest focus (green in the Peter Pan image) but other times its to create some contrast (purple against the blue and yellow in the Beauty and the Beast image). In the case of the Hercules image, I picked the one that was most like the background because I wanted it to blend in with the rest of the image.
There are two basic ways I remove backgrounds but it's important to note that I always create a new layer simply because sometimes later into the icon I find the background being removed doesn't work, so I can simply delete the layer or hide its visibility and take the image in a new direction without having to begin again.
Left: Basic colouring applied to the icon.
Centre: To remove the background here, I used the eye-drop tool to pick a light purple that was in the edge of the wall, created a new layer and began to paint around Belle and the prince formerly known as Beast (apparently known as Prince Adam. IDK. Super sleuthing told me that it's not revealed so lets with the title of the prince formerly known as beast). A large brush was good for the most part, but a few areas required a brush size about 5 pixels in size.
Right: The edges seemed slightly sharp for me, so I duplicated the layer, and applied a Box Blur filter to it, then set it to 50% opacity to soften them a little. This is something I generally do when I think the edges could be a little smoother.
Left: Basic colouring applied to the icon.
Centre: In this case, I picked a black/blue that was one of the deeper shades of the background, and painted over half the darker part of the image, leaving Hades and the lower bottom out of it. This was to smooth the background out and make it nice and even. I then applied a Box Blur filter a couple of times, and applied a layer mask to remove the blurred areas that had begun to cover Hades/the lower bottom of the image.
Right: A visual representation of what the layer that has been applied looks like.
Left: Basic colouring applied to the icon.
Centre: The background of this icon was both pixelated and murky, so I picked one of the brighter greens from the image with the eye-dropper tool, and then played with the colour until it was brighter, then created a new fill layer over the image. I applied a layer mask, lowered the opacity and began erasing the parts over Tiger Lily. Once I was satisfied most had been removed, the layer opacity was moved to 100% again, and the background was brighter, bolder and looked a lot better.
Right: A visual representation of what the layer mask that has been applied looks like.
Composition
Sometimes negative space in an icon makes it look empty rather than complete, so with the Beauty and the Beast cap I decided to use some decorative textures to fill in the space and play with the composition of the image. Before that however, I wanted to add some other larger textures to give the image a little bit of life, as it currently seemed a little dark and dull.
Left: With the background applied to the icon.
Centre: Larger textures were used to give the image a little lightness and texture. This texture (by unknown) was set to screen at 75%, this texture (by unknown) was set to soft light at 30%, this texture (by endearest) was blurred and set to overlay at 50%, this texture (by mm3butterfly) was flipped horizontally and set to screen at 100% and this texture(by mm3butterfly) was flipped vertically and set to screen at 50%.
To give the image a little more contrast, I copy merged a layer (Ctrl + Shift + C), used the Crosshatch filter and set the layer to Soft Light at 50%. I then picked a yellow from Belle's dress and in a new layer, painted over her dress then set the layer to Color Burn at 30% to make the yellows a little deeper. Finally I added a new Hue/Saturation layer to give the colours a little bit of brightness.
Right: Now to the composition. They looked like they were in a picture, so I picked this texture(by jaehos) and resized until they were framed by the image. I set the layer to Soft Light at 100% opacity, but that meant I could see some of Belle's dress beneath the frame. To fix this, I hid the layer, picked a pink near where Belle's dress was on the edge of the image, and created a new layer and filled it with the color. I moved the layer over to the edge and then showed the Frame layer again, aligned the two and volia! No more dress and the frame worked for the image.
The middle of the image looked a little empty, so I resized this texture (by slayground), inverted and then set it to Screen at 80% opacity. I moved it around on the canvas until I was happy with where it sat, then applied a layer mask to mask away the parts that covered Belle's hair so it looked like it was coming from behind Belle and the prince formerly known as Beast.
Left: Generally happy with the icon, it's time to resize. I copy merge the layers, use the Gaussian Blur filter at 1.0 and set the opacity of the layer to 20% opacity. I then copy merge those layers and use the Sharpen filter, lowering the opacity to 50% and resize my image to 100x100 pixels.
Right: The edges are slightly sharp still, so I copy merge the entire thing, and using the Smudge tool (on 30% strength) with a small brush (approximately 4 pixels) I smudge around the edges until they are a little softer, and then we're done!
Other Examples
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Using this texture (by unknown), inverted and set to screen. The final icon uses several other icon textures to lighten the colours up and create a more monotone effect.
Text
The end result of the Hercules icon was my wanting to add text, because Hades is a BAMF and everyone needs to know this. When working with Disney, text is a lot of fun to add mainly because there are so many fabulous quotes that come out of Disney movies, and also amazing lines that can be applied to Disney screencaps. However before text can be added (I tend to never add text before it's been resized because it plays with the sharpness in a not fun way) I wanted to use some light textures to show another way you can add the light shinyness to icons.
Left: With the background applied to the icon.
Right: Texture time. I used this texture (by drankmywar), which needed to be transformed (Ctrl + T) until it covered the canvas, then rotated it horizontally and vertically until the light blue covered the blue in the corner, then set the layer to screen at 100% opacity. I then used this texture (by daynawashere), flipped it vertically and set the layer to screen at 50% opacity.
I wanted a texture that would give the blacks in the top a little bit of a blue look, so I picked this texture (by realproof), cropped a bit from the darker part, resized till it was 200x200 pixels then set the layer to screen at 50% opacity, blurring the texture so it was a soft of fill colour layer instead.
Finally I wanted to add a little bit of visible texture to the icon, so I picked this texture (by mm3butterfly) and set the layer to screen at 100% opacity and this texture (by scoobyatemysnax), rotated it 90 degrees counter clockwise and set the layer to soft light at 10% opacity. To finish up with contrast, I added a Brightness/Contrast layer, and a Hue/Saturation layer.
Left: Resize time. The blurred layer was set to 20% opacity, while the sharpen layer was set to 100% opacity.
Centre: Text time. The awesome thing about Hades is that he's Hades, and he introduces himself as such. So I took half his quote "Names Hades, lord of the dead. Hi, how you doing?" and decided I wanted the negative space to be filled by it. The blues picked come from the lower half of the icon, but I wanted them to be slightly dull to compliment Hades rather than become the focal point. "Names Hades" text is Drawing Pad, and "Lord of the Dead" is AR Darling. I was happy, except I didn't like the amount of space that was left between where the font ended and where Hades began.
Right: To fix this I hid the font layers, copy merged the image and moved Hades up 4 pixels. I then had this annoying overlay, so I picked some blues at the bottom that were similar, created a new layer and painted over the lines of overlay. I blurred this a couple of times, then duplicated the layer. Finally, I copy merged again, and smudged down Hades arm till it met the bottom of the canvas.
I then made the text layers visible again, and decided to use the drankmywar texture to give the layers of text a little big of lighting. I added one final Hue/Saturation layer to brighten the blues yet again, and I was done.
Less Is More
Simplicity is a lot of fun, and Disney images have this amazing capacity to achieve a less is more approach on a regular basis, because sometimes negative space does work. Generally I find facial expressions and movement of characters tend to draw out a simplicity focus because everything you want to emphasise is in the image already. However I still have a tendency to use textures to brighten everything up, because Disney images are also lots of fun to make bright and happy and stuff.
Left: With the background applied to the icon.
Right: Large texture time, to give a little bit of texture back to the background. I used this texture (by elli) and set the layer to Exclusion at 20% opacity. I then used this texture (by elli), picked a light blue area and set the layer to Soft Light at 80% opacity. Finally, I used this texture (by elli), picked a blackish area, bluured it a little, and set the layer to Soft Light at 30% opacity.
Left: Resized icon: blurred layer at 25% opacity, sharpened layer at 100% opacity.
Centre: To add a little bit of diversity into the background I added some icon sized textures. I used this texture (by drankmywar), twice, on either side of Tiger Lily. I wanted to give the background a nice bit of lightness, so I dragged the texture out a little on both sides, set the layers to Screen at 100% opacity, then masked away the green that was covering Tiger Lily. I then used this texture (by daynawashere), blurred it and set it to Soft Light at 100%. I wanted the yellow/green to be the focus, so again I dragged the texture out until it was giving a nice lightness to the background, then masked away the area over Tiger Lily.
Right: To make it a little softer, I copy merged the icon, and used a Crosshatch filter, setting the layer to 10% opacity. I then added a final Hue/Saturation layer to give the natural greens a focus.
Textures
It's safe to say the day I have to exist without textures is the day I stop iconing. There's so much a texture can do, from add colour and contrast to an icon, to create a decorative statement, to just make everything seem a little fuller and bolder. They can be utilized so wonderfully in so many ways, and so much magic happens when you explore ways you can use, abuse and utilise textures in icons.
Left: I was quite content with the colours of this icon, so I resized after the basic colouring, with the blurred layer at 20% opacity and the sharpened layer at 50% opacity.
Centre: Then it was time to add something to the icon - and in this case it was textures. I began with this texture (by 3psy), inverting the texture, flipping 90 degrees counter clockwise, and setting it to Screen at 50% opacity. I then used this texture (by erzsebet) to create a contrast in the colours, setting it to Soft Light at 50% opacity. I wanted to emphasise the green, so I used this texture (by erzsebet) and set the layer to Soft Light at 70% opacity. To add a little light over the first texture, I used this texture (by kawaii_chicken), inverted and blurred the texture, and set it to Screen at 50% opacity. To emphasise the pinks in the bow, I used this texture (by midnight_road) and set the layer to Soft Light at 50% opacity. I wanted to add some texture texture now, so I used this texture (by lumsx) and set the layer to Soft Light at 50% opacity, and this texture (by barstr7), inverted the texture and set it to screen at 100% opacity.
Right: I was happy with the textures, however I wanted the same sort of brightness the icon originally had. So I added a Hue/Saturation layer, a Color Balance layer to up the reds and the yellows, and another Hue/Saturation layer to give the colour a little more punch.
Other Examples
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Using this texture (by barstr7), inverted, rotated and set to screen at 100% oapcity, this texture (by drankmywar), set to screen at 20% opacity, this texture (by fprintmoon), set to screen at 20% opacity, this texture (by innocent_lexys), set to Soft Light at 50% opacity, then again set to Subtract at 30% opacity and this texture (by elli) set to Exclusion at 50% opacity.
The final icon has a Vibrance layer, a Brightness/Contrast layer to create a little more contrast.
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Using this texture (by barstr7), transformed so the white is not visible, set Soft Light to at 50% opacity, this texture (by barstr7) inverted and set to Screen at 50% opacity, this texture (by midnight_road) blurred and set to Screen at 50% opacity and this texture (by mm3butterfly) set to Soft Light at 50% opacity.
The final icon has a vibrance layer and a soft light layer to add contrast to the icon.
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Using this texture (by raiindust) set to Screen at 80% opacity, a copy merged Soft Light layer set to 20% opacity, and this texture (by mm3butterfly) inverted and set to Screen at 50% opacity.
The final icon has a vibrance layer and a soft light layer to add contrast to the icon.
The End
As always, any follow up questions to anything mentioned will be given as best a response as possible, so feel free to ask away - especially about the parts where I skim over settings and potential extra layers that didn't hold much relevance to the actual post. Otherwise, I hope you have enjoyed the rambles.