Battlestar Galactica Tutorial
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This tutorial was requested by kissyoulater, the icon is from this post. And yay, this one isn't even half as long as my previous tutorial, probably because I actually had an idea of what I was doing this time. The coloring works best on (dark and) blue-ish images!
.01 Let's start with the base. I used this cap (made by me), copied it into a blank 100x100 canvas and resized it and moved it around until I was happy with the result, a.k.a. the base.
I probably sharpened it, using the unsharpen mask, before I started with the coloring.
.02 The image is a) really dark and b) really blue. I'll deal with the blue-part later and focus on the dark-part for now.
First thing I usually do with too dark images is duplicating the base and setting it to screen. For this icon, I duplicated the base twice and set both copies to screen, the first at 100%, the second one at 75%.
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.03 The icon looks pretty washed now (screen layer tend to do that), so I added another copy of the base and set that layer to soft light at 49% to add some contrast.
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Better, but the icon got a bit darker once again.
.04 Curves adjustment layers are a great way to brighten up your images without losing contrast. I'm not going to dwell on how curves layers work and what they'll do to your image, because there's so much more you can do with them than just adjust the brightness of your image ( here is a handy little video tutorial I found the other day. Check it out if you want to know more about how curves work.). But for now, that's what I'll use them for.
In the RGB Channel, create two new dots on the line, one at:
Input:135, Output: 163
and the other one at
Input: 46, Output: 56
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.05 The image is considerable brighter now, so let's focus on the blue-part! The easiest way to get rid of a color in your image is to add more of the complementary color. Complementary colors are:
RED <-> CYAN
GREEN <-> MAGENTA
BLUE <-> YELLOW
So I used a new layer, filled it with a bright yellow (#ffde00) and set the layer to soft light at 26%. This works just as well with color balance layers or curves layers or whatever works bets for you.
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.06 The image still looks rather pale. I decided to use a selective color adjustment layer to bring out the colors a bit more. Here are my settings:
Red Channel
Cyan: -78%
Magenta: +12%
Yellow: +28%
Black: +26%
Yellow Channel
Cyan: -74%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: +52%
Black: +39%
Cyan Channel
Cyan: +69%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: -24%
Black: 00%
White Channel
Cyan: 00%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: 00%
Black: -12%
Neutral Channel
Cyan: -06%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: +04%
Black: +07%
Black Channel
Cyan: 00%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: 00%
Black: +20%
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.07 The icon looks a bit too bright and washed out. I decided to add a little contrast by adding a new layer. I filled it with a dark brown (#271b11) and set it to difference at 47%.
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.08 Because the difference layer made the icon darker once again, I copy/merged all layers and pasted it in as a new layer (I always have trouble explaining this, Ctrl+A - Ctrl+Shift+C - Ctrl+V) and set it to screen at 49%.
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.09 The icon is a bit cyan-ish. So I decided to add some red/orange, using another new layer. I filled it with a bright red/orange (#ff4800) and set it to screen at 18%.
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Setting it to screen instead of soft light (for example) give the icon a nice glowy look.
.10 I added another selective color adjustment layer in order to bring out the colors some more. My settings:
Red Channel
Cyan: -22%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: +34%
Black: +18%
Yellow Channel
Cyan: 00%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: +51%
Black: +15%
White Channel
Cyan: 00%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: 00%
Black: +2%
Neutral Channel
Cyan: 00%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: 00%
Black: +10%
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.11 I added a brightness/contrast adjustment layer to add a little depth to the image. Brightness: -9, Contrast: +3
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.12 In order to change the lighting of the icon I added another new, blank layer. I used a soft, round brush and added some dark spots where the icon was too bright (or I felt was necessary) and set the layer to soft light at 87%.
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(Note: the background of the layer should be transparent (make sure you don't change the file extension, it's an interlaced .png!), just in case you want to use it.)
.13 Then I added a hue/saturation adjustment layer and raised the saturation a little bit (master, +11)
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.14 And a final selective color adjustment layer. My settings:
Red Channel
Cyan: -12%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: 00%
Black: 00%
Neutral Channel
Cyan: -11%
Magenta: 00%
Yellow: +01%
Black: +01%
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And we're done!
You can dowload the .psd file here:
PLEASE comment if you download a .psd file! The .psd from my last tutorial has been downloaded 330 times as of yesterday and nowhere near that many people have commented.
[x] Please let me know if I messed something up!
[x] You can find all my other tutorials here (tutorial tag)
[x] Feel free to request a tutorial on the respective icon post (I can only speak for myself here because the other girls are currently pretty busy)
[x] Watch distractiions for updates!
[x] Have fun and experiment! :D