Invitation Tutorial, Challenge 22, by rissa_jennings
Thanks again to pensnest for the invitation to write another tutorial! This uses Photoshop 7, but should be fairly translatable if you know your way around your program of choice.
We’ll be going from this
to this:
First, to get our base. I didn’t see an obvious crop I liked with this picture of pretty Viggo, so I started by opening up a new 100x100 pixel canvas and copy and pasting the entire image into it. Then I resized and rotated the image until I found something I liked - in this case, tipping his face into the corner so it was offset a little. At this point, sharpen if your base needs it; in this case, I did, if only so the details would show a little better. I use the Unsharp Mask filter to sharpen (found under Filters < Sharpen < Unsharp Mask), because it lets you control how much is sharpened and you can change it for every icon. This gives us the base:
Sharpening made his skin a little pixilated, however. So I duplicated the layer and used the smudge tool to smooth out the places that really looked awful to my eye. Depending on this image, you may not need this step; I duplicated the layer just in case I made a mistake and had to start all over again. The idea with the smudge tool is to use a soft brush (I used one 6px wide with soft edges) at a low opacity (I used 30 percent). You only want to go over the places where the skin should be smooth, avoiding details like the lines on his face. I also smudged the background on the left a little, just to even out the texture - and because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the background just yet. The final result was:
Now, to start the coloring. I wanted to desaturate my base and set it on top of everything else, and my favorite way to do this as of late is to use a gradient map. First, I copied all my layers via Copy Merged and paste this as a new layer on top of everything. Then, add a black and white gradient map on top of this layer by going to Layer < New Adjustment Layer < Gradient Map, or through the shortcut menu at the bottom of your layer palette.
Using a gradient map, I find, makes a more contrasted, brighter desaturated layer than simply desaturating the layer (which provides little contrast) or setting a fill layer in black to color on top of the icon (more contrast, but not great unless you’ve done some prep work to brighten the icon beforehand). I then merged the gradient map with the layer beneath it, the duplicated base. This new black and white layer I set to multiply to get:
Dark, but that can be fixed. I added a Brightness/Contrast layer, upping the brightness by 23 and the contrast by 11:
I copy merged again, pasting this image as a new layer. This layer I set to soft light at 40 percent opacity, to add a little contrast back to the icon. His face still looked dark, so I added a light grayish fill layer in #D1CCB7 underneath the layer I had just pasted on top of the icon. The subsequent result brightens and adds some more contrast back in for what the grey washes out:
Final step: some texture work. I took an old texture from colorfilter, from her thank you set I do believe, and pasted it on top of the icon and set it to Linear Burn at 100 percent opacity. I rotated the texture so it followed the curve of Viggo’s face and the direction of the icon, so the lightest part was focused on his face.
Then, I added a layer mask, since the texture darkened his face more than I would like. With a low opacity, big soft brush, I went over his face just enough to highlight it, making it stand out from the rest of the icon.
And there you have it: A smexy Viggo icon:
Questions? Comments? Something I didn’t explain? Please let me know! :D
We’ll be going from this
to this:
First, to get our base. I didn’t see an obvious crop I liked with this picture of pretty Viggo, so I started by opening up a new 100x100 pixel canvas and copy and pasting the entire image into it. Then I resized and rotated the image until I found something I liked - in this case, tipping his face into the corner so it was offset a little. At this point, sharpen if your base needs it; in this case, I did, if only so the details would show a little better. I use the Unsharp Mask filter to sharpen (found under Filters < Sharpen < Unsharp Mask), because it lets you control how much is sharpened and you can change it for every icon. This gives us the base:
Sharpening made his skin a little pixilated, however. So I duplicated the layer and used the smudge tool to smooth out the places that really looked awful to my eye. Depending on this image, you may not need this step; I duplicated the layer just in case I made a mistake and had to start all over again. The idea with the smudge tool is to use a soft brush (I used one 6px wide with soft edges) at a low opacity (I used 30 percent). You only want to go over the places where the skin should be smooth, avoiding details like the lines on his face. I also smudged the background on the left a little, just to even out the texture - and because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the background just yet. The final result was:
Now, to start the coloring. I wanted to desaturate my base and set it on top of everything else, and my favorite way to do this as of late is to use a gradient map. First, I copied all my layers via Copy Merged and paste this as a new layer on top of everything. Then, add a black and white gradient map on top of this layer by going to Layer < New Adjustment Layer < Gradient Map, or through the shortcut menu at the bottom of your layer palette.
Using a gradient map, I find, makes a more contrasted, brighter desaturated layer than simply desaturating the layer (which provides little contrast) or setting a fill layer in black to color on top of the icon (more contrast, but not great unless you’ve done some prep work to brighten the icon beforehand). I then merged the gradient map with the layer beneath it, the duplicated base. This new black and white layer I set to multiply to get:
Dark, but that can be fixed. I added a Brightness/Contrast layer, upping the brightness by 23 and the contrast by 11:
I copy merged again, pasting this image as a new layer. This layer I set to soft light at 40 percent opacity, to add a little contrast back to the icon. His face still looked dark, so I added a light grayish fill layer in #D1CCB7 underneath the layer I had just pasted on top of the icon. The subsequent result brightens and adds some more contrast back in for what the grey washes out:
Final step: some texture work. I took an old texture from colorfilter, from her thank you set I do believe, and pasted it on top of the icon and set it to Linear Burn at 100 percent opacity. I rotated the texture so it followed the curve of Viggo’s face and the direction of the icon, so the lightest part was focused on his face.
Then, I added a layer mask, since the texture darkened his face more than I would like. With a low opacity, big soft brush, I went over his face just enough to highlight it, making it stand out from the rest of the icon.
And there you have it: A smexy Viggo icon:
Questions? Comments? Something I didn’t explain? Please let me know! :D