Tutorial
From this to 
Made in Photoshop CS3
Translatable
01
First thing you gotta do? Find yourself an image! I used this one of Evangeline Lilly, I suggest for this tutorial you use an image in which you can easily extend the background. Other good examples are this and this.
Afterwards, crop it! I just use the crop tool and set the settings on 100x100. I don't like wasting valuable time on cropping alone. But it doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it's fine for you, no one needs to complain! :)
I cropped it in a way I can still add negative space later on.
02
It's time to extend our background now. The Smudge Tool is an easy tool to arrange that (but if you can't work with that one, I suggest the Rectangular Marquee Tool as well). We just smudge the background so it deletes everything that doesn't need to be there. Be careful when you smudge around the person, otherwise it smudges with it.
03
Horrible, isn't it? It looks so obviously smudged. I'd hate to leave it like that. So what do we do? Fix it!
A nifty tool is the Spot Healing Brush tool. It easily fixes places in which 2 different colors come together. Just use it on those places a little and it'll blend more. On top of that, I also use the Blur tool to blend things even a little more.
04
MUCH better! Now it's coloring time! First thing I do is duplicate the base and put the new layer on Soft Light to give it some contrast to begin with. I duplicate that layer again and put that one on Screen 30%, that varies per image though.
05
Now actually 3 little steps of coloring I often use, which is actually explained here (the 3 coloring steps). It's basically an Exclusion layer to lose the contrast again, a Color Balance layer to add some reds and yellows and then a light blue Color Burn layer to lose some of the reds.
06
Afterwards I added some highlights 'cause I thought some parts were too dark. So I added a new layer and added two white blobs of 65 px of 60%. Where you place them is your choice. Or don't place them at all.
07
We still don't have a lot of contrast, don't we? I suggest we duplicate the base, drag it to the top and put it on Soft Light. And voila! Contrast! Hooray!
08
Let's finish off the coloring a little. I personally thought it was a little too greeny, so I added a Color Balance layer with these settings.
MIDTONES: +15, 0, +5
SHADOWS: +20, 0, +5
HIGHLIGHTS: 0, 0, -10
I really adore the yellow highlights, btw. I use them each and every time.
09
Now just add a little brightening via a Brightness/Contrast layer. It doesn't change much, but I like to add it. The settings are up to you because this can vary. Just make sure you don't lighten it too much.
10
Afterwards a Levels layer to darkens things a little because some places are still undercontrasted and too light. In the RGB section in the Input Levels my settings were 35; 1,00; 255.
11
We're basically done, but I like to add some other things most of the time, and I did in this case as well. First I added this one by tove_91 set on Screen and placed it in the bottom left corner. After that I added this by refuted smalled down and set on Soft Light. Placed in a way the top runs across Evangeline, but I deleted the parts that covered her.
And then we get this
Done! Comments rock and hope this helped someone! :)
If you liked this, you can always visit wicked_signs
Made in Photoshop CS3
Translatable
01
First thing you gotta do? Find yourself an image! I used this one of Evangeline Lilly, I suggest for this tutorial you use an image in which you can easily extend the background. Other good examples are this and this.
Afterwards, crop it! I just use the crop tool and set the settings on 100x100. I don't like wasting valuable time on cropping alone. But it doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it's fine for you, no one needs to complain! :)
I cropped it in a way I can still add negative space later on.
02
It's time to extend our background now. The Smudge Tool is an easy tool to arrange that (but if you can't work with that one, I suggest the Rectangular Marquee Tool as well). We just smudge the background so it deletes everything that doesn't need to be there. Be careful when you smudge around the person, otherwise it smudges with it.
03
Horrible, isn't it? It looks so obviously smudged. I'd hate to leave it like that. So what do we do? Fix it!
A nifty tool is the Spot Healing Brush tool. It easily fixes places in which 2 different colors come together. Just use it on those places a little and it'll blend more. On top of that, I also use the Blur tool to blend things even a little more.
04
MUCH better! Now it's coloring time! First thing I do is duplicate the base and put the new layer on Soft Light to give it some contrast to begin with. I duplicate that layer again and put that one on Screen 30%, that varies per image though.
05
Now actually 3 little steps of coloring I often use, which is actually explained here (the 3 coloring steps). It's basically an Exclusion layer to lose the contrast again, a Color Balance layer to add some reds and yellows and then a light blue Color Burn layer to lose some of the reds.
06
Afterwards I added some highlights 'cause I thought some parts were too dark. So I added a new layer and added two white blobs of 65 px of 60%. Where you place them is your choice. Or don't place them at all.
07
We still don't have a lot of contrast, don't we? I suggest we duplicate the base, drag it to the top and put it on Soft Light. And voila! Contrast! Hooray!
08
Let's finish off the coloring a little. I personally thought it was a little too greeny, so I added a Color Balance layer with these settings.
MIDTONES: +15, 0, +5
SHADOWS: +20, 0, +5
HIGHLIGHTS: 0, 0, -10
I really adore the yellow highlights, btw. I use them each and every time.
09
Now just add a little brightening via a Brightness/Contrast layer. It doesn't change much, but I like to add it. The settings are up to you because this can vary. Just make sure you don't lighten it too much.
10
Afterwards a Levels layer to darkens things a little because some places are still undercontrasted and too light. In the RGB section in the Input Levels my settings were 35; 1,00; 255.
11
We're basically done, but I like to add some other things most of the time, and I did in this case as well. First I added this one by tove_91 set on Screen and placed it in the bottom left corner. After that I added this by refuted smalled down and set on Soft Light. Placed in a way the top runs across Evangeline, but I deleted the parts that covered her.
And then we get this
Done! Comments rock and hope this helped someone! :)
If you liked this, you can always visit wicked_signs