Fun Backdrop colours - Photoshop
I love playing with wild colours in icons. There's no limit to what you can create. I often like to change the "backdrop" or background colour of an icon to something bright and fun. There is probably already a tutorial on this, but what will one more hurt?
From a lime green background to
I forgot to save the original base for this tutorial, but it's not that important. I started by cropping my original image and leaving a considerable amount of open wallspace. The original image was very vivid, with a bright green walls and hot pink clothing.. There wasn't much I needed to do for the colouring. I used my recent tutorial and tweaked it.. so I'm all set to go for the actual colouring of my subject.
There are a few ways to select the background. One would be using the Quick Mask mode. You can learn about that here at the very bottom of this tutorial by ealias Another way, which I use, is to select the background with the Magic Wand. This works when your background is mainly one colour. I zoomed in very close, with the tolerance set to about 28 and "Anti-alias" checked. I clicked around the green walls many, many times. You'll probably have to hold down Shift while you do thise, so that you can select multiple parts at one time. This took awhile, and I was constantly adjusting the tolerance, especially around her hair.
Product:
I created a new layer for the soon-to-be background colour. Of course my "selecting" had some flaws, so I went to Select >> Feather >> 1px. It just softens the selection a little. Then I went to Select >> Modify >> Smooth >> 3-5px. I filled the new layer with a hot pink. Because the pink looked a bit fuzzy around my subject, I sharpened this layer twice. Incase you're confused.. this was my History.
Product:
I experimented a lot with blend modes for this. I don't usually leave the solid colour at "Normal" unless it looks fine that way. I finally settled on setting the pink layer to Overlay.
Product:
I find little flaws in icons. I can't help it. A lot of the time, I just don't care and leave the mistakes. But for this, I zoomed close and found the places where I messed up with my Magic Wand.
After erasing the pink over her hair and skin, I added some text and I was finished. :)
This most likely will not work on all icons. Just experiment.
From a lime green background to
I forgot to save the original base for this tutorial, but it's not that important. I started by cropping my original image and leaving a considerable amount of open wallspace. The original image was very vivid, with a bright green walls and hot pink clothing.. There wasn't much I needed to do for the colouring. I used my recent tutorial and tweaked it.. so I'm all set to go for the actual colouring of my subject.
There are a few ways to select the background. One would be using the Quick Mask mode. You can learn about that here at the very bottom of this tutorial by ealias Another way, which I use, is to select the background with the Magic Wand. This works when your background is mainly one colour. I zoomed in very close, with the tolerance set to about 28 and "Anti-alias" checked. I clicked around the green walls many, many times. You'll probably have to hold down Shift while you do thise, so that you can select multiple parts at one time. This took awhile, and I was constantly adjusting the tolerance, especially around her hair.
Product:
I created a new layer for the soon-to-be background colour. Of course my "selecting" had some flaws, so I went to Select >> Feather >> 1px. It just softens the selection a little. Then I went to Select >> Modify >> Smooth >> 3-5px. I filled the new layer with a hot pink. Because the pink looked a bit fuzzy around my subject, I sharpened this layer twice. Incase you're confused.. this was my History.
Product:
I experimented a lot with blend modes for this. I don't usually leave the solid colour at "Normal" unless it looks fine that way. I finally settled on setting the pink layer to Overlay.
Product:
I find little flaws in icons. I can't help it. A lot of the time, I just don't care and leave the mistakes. But for this, I zoomed close and found the places where I messed up with my Magic Wand.
After erasing the pink over her hair and skin, I added some text and I was finished. :)
This most likely will not work on all icons. Just experiment.