021 | Tutorial
OKAY SO trekchic asked about my coloring process for a few of my Avengers icons, so have a tutorial and .psd (with a lot more on their way, when I have time to write them). Also be warned that my entire process is "throw things at the icon until I like it" so this might not make tons of sense at some points.
>
from this post
made in Photoshop CS5; fully translatable
I use Photoshop CS5, and my workspace has the adjustments panel (window > adjustments) docked at all times. All of the adjustment layers represented here can also be found under layer > new adjustment layer. Fair warning, I'm also working on a Mac, so PC keyboard shortcuts might be different than the ones I'm giving here.
The first thing I did was move my cap onto a 400x400 canvas. I resized the image from its original using the free transform function (cmd+ t) and then changing the numbers in the toolbar. When you do this, make sure the lock icon is clicked so your aspect ratio stays right. I'm not sure what the dimensions would have been on my larger canvas, but on a 100x100 canvas, it's 127 x 114 px, where it looks like a good size for the canvas. Then I dragged it around to find a cap that I liked. Since I'm boring, that's a center crop.
To start my coloring, I added a curves layer to a) brighten up the base a bit and b) bring out the lovely greens and blues in the icon. I added another curves layer on top of that to enhance the blues even further.
>
>
At this point, I'd usually use levels or color balance to mess around with the colors a bit more so they were properly contrasted, but apparently I was very happy with them, as I went straight to a selective color layer to pump up the greens.
Reds: -13, -7, 14
Yellows: 11, -5, 11
Greens: -28, 0, 0
Cyans: 41, -25, 14
Blues: -53, 2, 50
Magentas: -27, 20, 100
Neutrals: 3, -3, 1
>
Then I wanted to do a subtle bump of the reds, so I did another selective color layer. I masked out the right side of Tasha's face and her arm because this made them a tad too red.
R: -100, 0, 0
>
>
I wanted to make Natasha stand out from the background a bit, so I added another selective color layer and masked out the background so it would only affect her.
Reds: 20, 5, 21
Yellows: 16, -10, 3
Greens: 2, 0, 0
Cyans: 69, -17, 29
Blues: 49 , -25, -46
Magentas: 4, 0, 0
Neutrals: -6, -1, 1
Blacks: -8, 0, 1
Continuing that process, I created another selective color layer, copied the mask from the previous over to it (alt+ drag), and inverted the mask (command + i) so it would affect only the background.
Cyans: -51, 9, 63
Blues: 30, 14, 33
Neutrals: 7, -2, 4
>
>
I was pretty happy with how the colors looked at this point, but I wanted to brighten them up a bit and add a smidge more green and blue to the icon. I added a color mixer layer to increase contrast between the colors I have and add those hues.
Red: 120, -10, -10
Green: -5, 115, -5
Blue: -10, -10, 128
>
I copy-merged the layers (cmd+alt+shift+e) and set the resulting layer to screen, 30% opacity, to lighten up the icon a bit. I copy-merged that and set it to linear burn, 15% opacity, because I want the colors to be sort of deep and muted, and linear burn will do that for you when set at a low opacity. And then to add a bit of contrast, I copy-merge one more time and set the layer to soft light, 20%.
>
>
>
For the time being, I'm done with the coloring, so it's time to work on the lighting.
The scene has okay lighting, but there is some weird light distribution over Natasha's face, etc., so I am going to make it not so. When I work on lighting, I simply grab a soft brush, create new layers, paint on them with white or black where I want highlights or shadows, gaussian blur them as needed, set the layers to soft light, and adjust the opacity.
I'm not going to talk you through every adjustment I make here, but generally I'll add shadows at the bottom of the eyes, along the side of the nose (very lightly depending on the cap), below the lips, at the hairline, on the eyebrows, and on the part of the cheek below the cheekbone and downward to the chin and neck. Highlights are usually on the cheekbones, along the top of the nose (sometimes), and on really awesome hair (which I will sometimes complement with shadows). In this icon, I also chose to paint a little bit of red over Natasha's hair to add a bit of color into it against all those greens and blues.
Helpful keyboard shortcuts for this include: b (selects the brush tool), d (resets your palette with the default colors, black and white), x (toggles between foreground and background colors), [ (makes your brush smaller), ] (makes you brush larger), cmd + space (zooms in when you click), cmd + alt (zooms out, likewise), and cmd + f (apply last filter; I usually keep this set on gaussian or box blur and hold down the two keys until things are blurry enough).
Below are composites of the light and dark blobs I added, put on a background so you can see them. The first example shows all the layers at 100%; the second shows them at the actual opacity they were on the icon.
,
+
>
>
After this, the icon was looking a little to yellow for my tastes, so I added photo filter: cooling (80) at 20% density, opacity 100% to counteract that. Since the problem was primarily with Natasha's skin, I inverted the mask and then painted over the problem areas with a white brush. That left the other bits too yellow, so I faded the mask to 58% (window > masks > density slider).
>
I wanted a bit more color at this point, so I added a vibrance layer, set at +50 and 100% opacity. A hue/saturation layer with +20 saturation and 100% opacity has basically the same effect, for those not using CS5.
>
Now I want a tad more brightness and contrast. I duplicate my base again and set it to screen, 20%. I copy-merge my layers and set the new layer to soft light, 23% to bump up the contrast. I notice that Natasha's face still has some really awkward shadowy and lighty things, so I create a new layer, grab my brush again, and paint over them with colors pulled from the image (hold down alt when you're in brush mode to select colors easily), then set it to 70% opacity. Once Natasha's face is smoother, I'm finally ready to move on.
>
>
>
And I'm happy with the lighting there! I copy-merge everything so I have a clean base to work with and start searching for textures to add some more light and color.
My first texture is a green light texture by jyuufish, set to screen 15%. I'm all about minor adjustments normally, so oftentimes I'll have textures set at low opacity. I mask out the right side of the texture because it's too rough-looking for the icon.
=
+
Next, I add a lovely piece by smyra0 that both adds green and messes with the lighting. It's set to soft light, 30%. I decide that I'd rather have only the lighting effects, so I create a black and white adjustment layer with default settings and set it as a clipping mask to the texture (cmd+shift+g)
=
+
Very rarely do I make an icon without textures by midnight_road, and this icon has two. The first, set to soft light, 23%, adds green and blue to the background and red to Natasha, and makes the background lighter also. The next, set to soft light, 15%, adds to the greens the other texture brought out and shifts the light toward the upper lefthand corner of the icon.
=
+
=
+
A blue light texture by blame, set to screen at 10%, adds some more blues to the right side of the icon.
=
+
Then I add a couple of textures by raiindust that, together, manage to a) make the greens a little less yellow; b) add a bit of light to Natasha's face; and c) generally lighten up the icon. The first is set to soft light, 15%, and the second to soft light, 12%.
=
+
=
+
To light up the icon a little more, I copy-merge and set the layer to screen, 30%. To keep the colors from getting too washed out, I add a vibrance layer at +25, set at 100% opacity, to add some more color into the piece. A hue/saturation layer with +8 saturation has basically the same effect.
>
>
Then to add a little more contrast, I copy-merge and gaussian blur the new layer until it looks good, then set it to soft light, 34%. I'm close to being done now! I just need to do a few fixes on the sharpening of the icon, and then make sure it looks ~finished. I copy-merge my base because I like to have a clean layer on the bottom of whatever I'm doing at the time, then duplicate it and select my blur tool.
When I blur, it's always with the knowledge that I'll be sharpening next, so I blur not only things that are too sharp at the moment, but also things I think may become too sharp. The areas that are usually in the most danger of being over sharpened are those that are high in contrast. Here, I've blurred her eyes, her neckline, the line of her necklace, and possibly other things that I can't see because I don't know where to look.
>
After I'm done blurring, I copy-merge my icon and use an unsharp mask (filter > sharpen > unsharp mask), amount 20% and radius 1.0 pixels, to sharpen my icon. The lines where her arms meet her dress and the background are looking a tad sharp, comparatively, so I mask them out, then copy-merge my layers and do another unsharp mask with the same settings (but no layer mask).
>
>
>
I'm happy with the sharpness, but the icon doesn't look quite done yet, so I grab a texture by raiindust and set it to screen, opacity 40%, to add some interesting lightness to the icon. I also add a texture by innocent_lexys set to screen, opacity 60%.
=
+
=
+
The background is getting a tad too light and making the icon look flat, lighting-wise, so I create a blank layer, brush over the top corners with a black brush, and gaussian blur the layer until it looks good. I set it to soft light, 12% opacity.
>
I add another vibrance layer at +32, 100% opacity, to bring out the colors more. A hue/saturation layer with saturation +10 will do the trick as well.
>
Now I just have a few little fixes to make. The light greenish patch on the side of Natasha's neck is bugging me greatly, so I create a new layer and paint over it as I did before; I blur the layer some to smooth out the edges and set it to 60% opacity. I make another new layer and add a black to white radial gradient to draw light to Natasha's face. It's set at soft light, 10%. Then I notice that Natasha's left arm is terrifyingly green, and have to fix that. I create a new layer, grab the color from her skin (probably the shadowed skin on her face, as it's about the same in hue), paint over the arm, and set it to Hue, 55% opacity.
>
>
>
For a final bump in contrast and color, I copy-merge my icon, gaussian blur it some, and then set it to soft light, 60% opacity. I save the final product as a .png.
>
download .psd
I hope I've managed to explain everything clearly. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! I really appreciate your feedback, as I'll be posting quite a few tutorials in the upcoming weeks (months?) from Ask the Maker. If there's anything you'd like to request (or second, so it gets done faster), head on over there. :)
>
from this post
made in Photoshop CS5; fully translatable
I use Photoshop CS5, and my workspace has the adjustments panel (window > adjustments) docked at all times. All of the adjustment layers represented here can also be found under layer > new adjustment layer. Fair warning, I'm also working on a Mac, so PC keyboard shortcuts might be different than the ones I'm giving here.
The first thing I did was move my cap onto a 400x400 canvas. I resized the image from its original using the free transform function (cmd+ t) and then changing the numbers in the toolbar. When you do this, make sure the lock icon is clicked so your aspect ratio stays right. I'm not sure what the dimensions would have been on my larger canvas, but on a 100x100 canvas, it's 127 x 114 px, where it looks like a good size for the canvas. Then I dragged it around to find a cap that I liked. Since I'm boring, that's a center crop.
To start my coloring, I added a curves layer to a) brighten up the base a bit and b) bring out the lovely greens and blues in the icon. I added another curves layer on top of that to enhance the blues even further.
>
>
At this point, I'd usually use levels or color balance to mess around with the colors a bit more so they were properly contrasted, but apparently I was very happy with them, as I went straight to a selective color layer to pump up the greens.
Reds: -13, -7, 14
Yellows: 11, -5, 11
Greens: -28, 0, 0
Cyans: 41, -25, 14
Blues: -53, 2, 50
Magentas: -27, 20, 100
Neutrals: 3, -3, 1
>
Then I wanted to do a subtle bump of the reds, so I did another selective color layer. I masked out the right side of Tasha's face and her arm because this made them a tad too red.
R: -100, 0, 0
>
>
I wanted to make Natasha stand out from the background a bit, so I added another selective color layer and masked out the background so it would only affect her.
Reds: 20, 5, 21
Yellows: 16, -10, 3
Greens: 2, 0, 0
Cyans: 69, -17, 29
Blues: 49 , -25, -46
Magentas: 4, 0, 0
Neutrals: -6, -1, 1
Blacks: -8, 0, 1
Continuing that process, I created another selective color layer, copied the mask from the previous over to it (alt+ drag), and inverted the mask (command + i) so it would affect only the background.
Cyans: -51, 9, 63
Blues: 30, 14, 33
Neutrals: 7, -2, 4
>
>
I was pretty happy with how the colors looked at this point, but I wanted to brighten them up a bit and add a smidge more green and blue to the icon. I added a color mixer layer to increase contrast between the colors I have and add those hues.
Red: 120, -10, -10
Green: -5, 115, -5
Blue: -10, -10, 128
>
I copy-merged the layers (cmd+alt+shift+e) and set the resulting layer to screen, 30% opacity, to lighten up the icon a bit. I copy-merged that and set it to linear burn, 15% opacity, because I want the colors to be sort of deep and muted, and linear burn will do that for you when set at a low opacity. And then to add a bit of contrast, I copy-merge one more time and set the layer to soft light, 20%.
>
>
>
For the time being, I'm done with the coloring, so it's time to work on the lighting.
The scene has okay lighting, but there is some weird light distribution over Natasha's face, etc., so I am going to make it not so. When I work on lighting, I simply grab a soft brush, create new layers, paint on them with white or black where I want highlights or shadows, gaussian blur them as needed, set the layers to soft light, and adjust the opacity.
I'm not going to talk you through every adjustment I make here, but generally I'll add shadows at the bottom of the eyes, along the side of the nose (very lightly depending on the cap), below the lips, at the hairline, on the eyebrows, and on the part of the cheek below the cheekbone and downward to the chin and neck. Highlights are usually on the cheekbones, along the top of the nose (sometimes), and on really awesome hair (which I will sometimes complement with shadows). In this icon, I also chose to paint a little bit of red over Natasha's hair to add a bit of color into it against all those greens and blues.
Helpful keyboard shortcuts for this include: b (selects the brush tool), d (resets your palette with the default colors, black and white), x (toggles between foreground and background colors), [ (makes your brush smaller), ] (makes you brush larger), cmd + space (zooms in when you click), cmd + alt (zooms out, likewise), and cmd + f (apply last filter; I usually keep this set on gaussian or box blur and hold down the two keys until things are blurry enough).
Below are composites of the light and dark blobs I added, put on a background so you can see them. The first example shows all the layers at 100%; the second shows them at the actual opacity they were on the icon.
,
+
>
>
After this, the icon was looking a little to yellow for my tastes, so I added photo filter: cooling (80) at 20% density, opacity 100% to counteract that. Since the problem was primarily with Natasha's skin, I inverted the mask and then painted over the problem areas with a white brush. That left the other bits too yellow, so I faded the mask to 58% (window > masks > density slider).
>
I wanted a bit more color at this point, so I added a vibrance layer, set at +50 and 100% opacity. A hue/saturation layer with +20 saturation and 100% opacity has basically the same effect, for those not using CS5.
>
Now I want a tad more brightness and contrast. I duplicate my base again and set it to screen, 20%. I copy-merge my layers and set the new layer to soft light, 23% to bump up the contrast. I notice that Natasha's face still has some really awkward shadowy and lighty things, so I create a new layer, grab my brush again, and paint over them with colors pulled from the image (hold down alt when you're in brush mode to select colors easily), then set it to 70% opacity. Once Natasha's face is smoother, I'm finally ready to move on.
>
>
>
And I'm happy with the lighting there! I copy-merge everything so I have a clean base to work with and start searching for textures to add some more light and color.
My first texture is a green light texture by jyuufish, set to screen 15%. I'm all about minor adjustments normally, so oftentimes I'll have textures set at low opacity. I mask out the right side of the texture because it's too rough-looking for the icon.
=
+
Next, I add a lovely piece by smyra0 that both adds green and messes with the lighting. It's set to soft light, 30%. I decide that I'd rather have only the lighting effects, so I create a black and white adjustment layer with default settings and set it as a clipping mask to the texture (cmd+shift+g)
=
+
Very rarely do I make an icon without textures by midnight_road, and this icon has two. The first, set to soft light, 23%, adds green and blue to the background and red to Natasha, and makes the background lighter also. The next, set to soft light, 15%, adds to the greens the other texture brought out and shifts the light toward the upper lefthand corner of the icon.
=
+
=
+
A blue light texture by blame, set to screen at 10%, adds some more blues to the right side of the icon.
=
+
Then I add a couple of textures by raiindust that, together, manage to a) make the greens a little less yellow; b) add a bit of light to Natasha's face; and c) generally lighten up the icon. The first is set to soft light, 15%, and the second to soft light, 12%.
=
+
=
+
To light up the icon a little more, I copy-merge and set the layer to screen, 30%. To keep the colors from getting too washed out, I add a vibrance layer at +25, set at 100% opacity, to add some more color into the piece. A hue/saturation layer with +8 saturation has basically the same effect.
>
>
Then to add a little more contrast, I copy-merge and gaussian blur the new layer until it looks good, then set it to soft light, 34%. I'm close to being done now! I just need to do a few fixes on the sharpening of the icon, and then make sure it looks ~finished. I copy-merge my base because I like to have a clean layer on the bottom of whatever I'm doing at the time, then duplicate it and select my blur tool.
When I blur, it's always with the knowledge that I'll be sharpening next, so I blur not only things that are too sharp at the moment, but also things I think may become too sharp. The areas that are usually in the most danger of being over sharpened are those that are high in contrast. Here, I've blurred her eyes, her neckline, the line of her necklace, and possibly other things that I can't see because I don't know where to look.
>
After I'm done blurring, I copy-merge my icon and use an unsharp mask (filter > sharpen > unsharp mask), amount 20% and radius 1.0 pixels, to sharpen my icon. The lines where her arms meet her dress and the background are looking a tad sharp, comparatively, so I mask them out, then copy-merge my layers and do another unsharp mask with the same settings (but no layer mask).
>
>
>
I'm happy with the sharpness, but the icon doesn't look quite done yet, so I grab a texture by raiindust and set it to screen, opacity 40%, to add some interesting lightness to the icon. I also add a texture by innocent_lexys set to screen, opacity 60%.
=
+
=
+
The background is getting a tad too light and making the icon look flat, lighting-wise, so I create a blank layer, brush over the top corners with a black brush, and gaussian blur the layer until it looks good. I set it to soft light, 12% opacity.
>
I add another vibrance layer at +32, 100% opacity, to bring out the colors more. A hue/saturation layer with saturation +10 will do the trick as well.
>
Now I just have a few little fixes to make. The light greenish patch on the side of Natasha's neck is bugging me greatly, so I create a new layer and paint over it as I did before; I blur the layer some to smooth out the edges and set it to 60% opacity. I make another new layer and add a black to white radial gradient to draw light to Natasha's face. It's set at soft light, 10%. Then I notice that Natasha's left arm is terrifyingly green, and have to fix that. I create a new layer, grab the color from her skin (probably the shadowed skin on her face, as it's about the same in hue), paint over the arm, and set it to Hue, 55% opacity.
>
>
>
For a final bump in contrast and color, I copy-merge my icon, gaussian blur it some, and then set it to soft light, 60% opacity. I save the final product as a .png.
>
download .psd
I hope I've managed to explain everything clearly. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! I really appreciate your feedback, as I'll be posting quite a few tutorials in the upcoming weeks (months?) from Ask the Maker. If there's anything you'd like to request (or second, so it gets done faster), head on over there. :)