colorbars and colorbar tutorial

[desertfireicons]

[01] Tutorial
[01] Narnia colorbar
[01] Breakfast on Pluto colorbar
[09] Cillian Murphy colorbars

Killing two birds with one stone here since blushingsigh requested a tutorial on how I make colorbars and playswithstars requested a Narnia colorbar.



I use Photoshop CS2, so all instructions will be for that program. But this is extremely easy to do, so I'm sure these tips will work for any program...

for this colorbar I made a new document, 700x120 and another one 100x120. The second, smaller one is for making sure I get the pictures that are going to be in the colorbar the right size. I take a picture and resize it in my smaller document, when it looks good I copy and past it into the colorbar document. Once all your pictures are sized and laid out the way you want them the next step that I do to make the colorbars just that extra bit nice, is to clean the images up. I use the smart sharpen filter and depending on the quality of the picture, the blur tool to make the skin look soft. It's best to just use good quality pictures in the first place so you don't have to do much work.



After I clean up the images I like to adjust the image depth and lightness by duplicating the files twice and setting the first file to overlay. That makes the image have more depth if it is originally a bit dull looking. The next file should be placed on top of the overlay file and set to screen, this lightens the picture up. I find that the colorbar will turn out better if you try to get all the images in it to have relatively the same lightness and depth.



Okay, next I add white lines with the square brush size 1 set to basic white #ffffff. All this really serves is to make a distinction between the images and make the colorbar look a little better.



Now the finale part; color! I see a lot of people try to make colorbars by taking each image and changing the color through the adjustments settings. But it's way easier and nicer looking to just use a basic rainbow gradient. Simply set your rainbow gradient on the image and set it to color in your layers pallet drop down filter list. For this colorbar I used a radial gradient, medium spectrum rainbow gradient.



I hope this made sense to everyone, it really is quite simple to make really nice colorbars ^^

And now for the finale result...



Chronicles of Narnia is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbartutorial04A.png" border="0" >
Chronicles of Narnia is Love





Love is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar11D.png" border="0" >
Love is Love



Love is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar11C.png" border="0" >
Love is Love



Cillian in Dazed is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar02B.png" border="0" >
Cillian in Dazed is Love



Cillian is desert love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar03B.png" border="0" >
Cillian is desert love



Cillian is fashionable Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar04B.png" border="0" >
Cillian is fashionable Love



Cillian is press conference Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar05B.png" border="0" >
Cillian is press conference Love



Cillian in Italian Vouge is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar06B.png" border="0" >
Cillian in Italian Vouge is Love



Cillian Murphy is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar07B.png" border="0" >
Cillian Murphy is Love



Cillian shares the Love!

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar08B.png" border="0" >
Cillian shares the Love!



Cillian Murphy is love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar09B.png" border="0" >
Cillian Murphy is Love



Cillian Murphy is love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar09C.png" border="0" >
Cillian Murphy is Love



Cillian Murphy is love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar09D.png" border="0" >
Cillian Murphy is Love



Cillian is Love

http://www.livejournal.com/users/desertfireicons">http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Ameyao22005/icon requests/colorbar requests/colorbar10D.png" border="0" >
Cillian is Love

Thanks for looking!
Feel free to take for use on LJ, but be sure to comment and credit please ^^
If you enjoyed these, please friend me ^^ There is a lot more on the way...

-more Naomi Watts
-Sarah Brightman
-more Cillian Murphy
-female musicians mega post
-various horror films