Invitation Tutorial, Challenge 17, by rissa_jennings
Thanks to pensnest for the invite to write a tutorial for my second icon as well! This tutorial is written for Photoshop 7 and does use a bit of selective coloring, so it’s translatable except for that one step. As a warning, the post is a bit image heavy and it turned out to be much longer than I was originally anticipating, lol.
We’ll be going from this:
to this:
Crop and resize your base. I focused on Justin’s face and arm, with the way he was leaning forward. Sharpen if your base needs it; I used the unsharp mask filter (found under Filter < Sharpen < Unsharp Mask), because I find it gives a lot more control over how much to sharpen and you can change it from image to image. This is the base I used:
Next, I duplicated the base layer two times. The top layer I set to screen, and the layer beneath it I set to multiply. That gives us:
Much brighter, but it doesn’t have a lot of contrast for my liking. Normally I would duplicate the base again and set it to soft light, but it didn’t look right with this icon. Instead I added a Curves layer to play around with the brightness and contrast of the icon. Using the RGB settings only, I moved the slider around just enough to add a little depth to the icon. My settings were:
RGB: Input - 173, Output - 152
The result:
Now, to start the coloring. I created a new layer on top of everything and filled it with #0B1326, a really dark blue shade, and set it to exclusion at 100% opacity to get:
Next, I decided to experiment a little with wild colors, just to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I added another layer and filled it with #C11994, this bright magenta pink color. I set this layer to darken at 20% opacity to get:
Ugly, I know, but I was still playing around with it. Next I added a selective color layer, just to add some shadows to his face. These were my settings:
Neutrals: +30 / 0 / 0 / +15
The result:
Still dark, and I wanted to tone down the pink color a little without losing it entirely. I added yet another layer and filled it with #D5BC8B, a medium tan color, and set this layer to multiply at 60% opacity. (Using a dark blue exclusion layer and a tan layer set to multiply is a great way to get a sepia-ish look to icons, I’ve found.) With this fill layer, the icon looks like:
Now, to brighten it. Duplicate your base and drag it on top of everything. What I wanted to do was desaturate my base and change the settings to lighten the icon, and there’s a couple different ways to accomplish this. You can simply desaturate it (Image < Adjustments < Desaturate), which I find doesn’t add a lot of contrast and looks washed out. Or you can add a fill layer in black over the image and set it to color, which didn’t work so well with the coloring I already had in the image.
What I used in this icon was a gradient map. I’m just learning how to play around with this tool, but it was drastic how much of a difference it made in the contrast of the black and white image it produced. To add one, click on the little half-filled circle at the bottom of your layer palette and select gradient map, or go to Image < Adjustments < Gradient Map. Here I selected a black and white gradient map and clicked okay. This produced a really sharp black and white image of Justin on top of all the coloring I already did.
Next I merged the gradient map with the layer below it, the duplicated base I had made earlier. I set this image to soft light and left it at 100% opacity to get this:
Brighter and more contrasted, which is what I wanted. I still wanted a little more brightness to add to the grungy look I was going for, so I duplicated this layer again and changed the settings to screen at 60% opacity. I also added a brightness/contrast layer, taking down the brightness by 10 and upping the contrast by 10. Now, our coloring is finally done:
To do the brushwork, create another new layer and add a small gradient in black along the lefthand side. The idea here was to give a background so the brushwork would show up, rather than get lost in his shirt (if the color was too light) or in his vest (if the color was too dark). How big a gradient to use would depend on what brush you wanted, here I just covered a little less than half of the icon, keeping his face the focus.
On that same layer, stamp your brush. I used a grungy newspaper brush I got from liminalstate a looooong time ago. The post is over here, though I’ve no idea if the links still work or not. I used #EFDAD0 for the color of my brush, as it matched the tones of the final coloring in his skin. This is the brush (stamped in white on a black background so you can see it):
And that completes the icon:
I feel like I rambled a bit in this - please let me know if I didn’t explain something correctly or if it’s confusing. Let me know if you try it out!
We’ll be going from this:
to this:
Crop and resize your base. I focused on Justin’s face and arm, with the way he was leaning forward. Sharpen if your base needs it; I used the unsharp mask filter (found under Filter < Sharpen < Unsharp Mask), because I find it gives a lot more control over how much to sharpen and you can change it from image to image. This is the base I used:
Next, I duplicated the base layer two times. The top layer I set to screen, and the layer beneath it I set to multiply. That gives us:
Much brighter, but it doesn’t have a lot of contrast for my liking. Normally I would duplicate the base again and set it to soft light, but it didn’t look right with this icon. Instead I added a Curves layer to play around with the brightness and contrast of the icon. Using the RGB settings only, I moved the slider around just enough to add a little depth to the icon. My settings were:
RGB: Input - 173, Output - 152
The result:
Now, to start the coloring. I created a new layer on top of everything and filled it with #0B1326, a really dark blue shade, and set it to exclusion at 100% opacity to get:
Next, I decided to experiment a little with wild colors, just to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I added another layer and filled it with #C11994, this bright magenta pink color. I set this layer to darken at 20% opacity to get:
Ugly, I know, but I was still playing around with it. Next I added a selective color layer, just to add some shadows to his face. These were my settings:
Neutrals: +30 / 0 / 0 / +15
The result:
Still dark, and I wanted to tone down the pink color a little without losing it entirely. I added yet another layer and filled it with #D5BC8B, a medium tan color, and set this layer to multiply at 60% opacity. (Using a dark blue exclusion layer and a tan layer set to multiply is a great way to get a sepia-ish look to icons, I’ve found.) With this fill layer, the icon looks like:
Now, to brighten it. Duplicate your base and drag it on top of everything. What I wanted to do was desaturate my base and change the settings to lighten the icon, and there’s a couple different ways to accomplish this. You can simply desaturate it (Image < Adjustments < Desaturate), which I find doesn’t add a lot of contrast and looks washed out. Or you can add a fill layer in black over the image and set it to color, which didn’t work so well with the coloring I already had in the image.
What I used in this icon was a gradient map. I’m just learning how to play around with this tool, but it was drastic how much of a difference it made in the contrast of the black and white image it produced. To add one, click on the little half-filled circle at the bottom of your layer palette and select gradient map, or go to Image < Adjustments < Gradient Map. Here I selected a black and white gradient map and clicked okay. This produced a really sharp black and white image of Justin on top of all the coloring I already did.
Next I merged the gradient map with the layer below it, the duplicated base I had made earlier. I set this image to soft light and left it at 100% opacity to get this:
Brighter and more contrasted, which is what I wanted. I still wanted a little more brightness to add to the grungy look I was going for, so I duplicated this layer again and changed the settings to screen at 60% opacity. I also added a brightness/contrast layer, taking down the brightness by 10 and upping the contrast by 10. Now, our coloring is finally done:
To do the brushwork, create another new layer and add a small gradient in black along the lefthand side. The idea here was to give a background so the brushwork would show up, rather than get lost in his shirt (if the color was too light) or in his vest (if the color was too dark). How big a gradient to use would depend on what brush you wanted, here I just covered a little less than half of the icon, keeping his face the focus.
On that same layer, stamp your brush. I used a grungy newspaper brush I got from liminalstate a looooong time ago. The post is over here, though I’ve no idea if the links still work or not. I used #EFDAD0 for the color of my brush, as it matched the tones of the final coloring in his skin. This is the brush (stamped in white on a black background so you can see it):
And that completes the icon:
I feel like I rambled a bit in this - please let me know if I didn’t explain something correctly or if it’s confusing. Let me know if you try it out!