Tutorial 8
1. Choose an image and crop it to the size you want. In this case, this picture was already just the right size so I didn't have to do anything to it.
2. Next we're going to talk about lightness. In order for this tutorial to work, it needs to be bright, but not too bright. About normal for your every-day picture. Again, I got lucky with this picture and it was just right. If you're having problems getting yours to a normal look, I would recommend pulling up curves (ctrl+m) and using the auto setting, then duplicating the layer and setting it to screen on a low opacity.
3. Next we have selective coloring. I used the following settings, but depending on the original color of your image, you'll need to lower and raise these levels. So, use a new selective color layer (layers >> new adjustment layer >> selective coloring...) with these settings:
RedsYellowsBluesNeutralsBlacks
Cyan: -100
Megenta: +16
Yellow: +100
Black: -40
Cyan: +35
Magenta: +9
Yellow: -100
Black: -40
Cyan: +100
Magenta: 0
Yellow: 0
Black: 0
Cyan: +15
Magenta: 0
Yellow: -5
Black: -15
Cyan: 0
Magenta: 0
Yellow: 0
Black: +25
4. And we need another selective coloring layer, using these settings:
RedsYellowsCyansWhitesNeutrals
Cyan: -81
Megenta: +20
Yellow: +35
Black: -18
Cyan: -39
Magenta: +40
Yellow: -27
Black: -11
Cyan: 0
Magenta: -100
Yellow: -53
Black: 0
Cyan: 0
Magenta: 0
Yellow: 0
Black: -6
Cyan: +10
Magenta: 0
Yellow: -3
Black: +18
5. Next, duplicate the base and bring it to the top. You'll want to apply a slight gaussian blur (Filter >> blur >> gaussian blur...), this will give it an extra glow when we're done. I set the radius on 1.2.
6. Next, set the layer to soft light.
7. Now, you could call the coloring done at this point, and that's a nice, rich color, but I wanted it to be just a little softer, so I went ahead and just lowered the opacity on the soft light layer, down to 40%.
8. Now, you just need to give it a finishing touch. Text, a border, a simple texture, whatever suits your fancy. In this case, I'm just going to finish it off with a simple border. Create a new layer (shift+ctrl+n) and select all (ctrl+a). And now we're going to stroke it twice. Open the stroking window (edit >> stroke...). Change the color to white (#FFFFFF) and set it for normal, 100% opacity, inside location, and 11 pixels. Hit okay. Emma's not got a nice white border. But to finish it off, bring it up again, this time using a light gray (such as #B0B0B0) and set it the same way, but this time just one pixel.
And voila! Our finished product!
for more examples of this coloring, you can see them at this post.