Three Icon Tutorials!
Wow, okay I made three icon tuts! A few people requested them and I had the .psd files saved so I thought, why not! Anyway, onto the tuts...
Warning, its quite image heavy.
All icons made in Photoshop CS2
Tutorial 1
From this
to this
1. Duplicate your base and set to Screen 100% (You may need to do this more than once, depending on your base)
2. Okay, here comes the real colourizing part! Create a new Selective Colour layer with the following inputs:
RED
Cyan : -100%
Magenta : +100%
Yellow : +100%
Black : +100%
YELLOW
Cyan : +100%
Yellow : -100%
NEUTRALS
Cyan : -25%
Black : -5%
As you can see the image is all pinky/orangey coloured now. Bleh...but we'll fix that in a minute.
3. Make another Selective Colour layer with the following inputs:
RED
Cyan: -34%
Magenta: +25%
Yellow: +97%
Black: +8%
YELLOW
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: -100%
CYANS
Cyan: -100%
NEUTRALS
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: -19%
This layer brings out the blue/cyan in the shadows of the image and also makes the pink colour from the previous layer more orangey.
4. Add a Levels layer with the following inputs:
RGB
36 1.24 255
I love using Levels! They bring more contrast to the image.
5. Finally (but this step isn't always neccessary) add a Brightness/Contrast layer:
Contrast: +9
This layer didn't make all that much of a difference in this particular icon, but sometimes it helps to make the colours stand out a bit more.
So there you go!
Here are some other examples of icons made with this technique:
Download PSD
The tut works well with screencaps from movies like Pride and Prejudice because the colours are quite washed out. However, if the base you want to use is already very colourful you might have to reduce the saturation a bit with a Hue/Saturation layer, particularly reducing the Red saturation, placing this above the Screen layer. I hope that made sense!
Tutorial 2
From this
to this
1. Duplicate your base and set it to Screen (this may need to be done more than once, depending on your base)
It's become a bit of a habit of mine to make this Screen layer, it usually helps with colouring and I do it all the time now!
2. Next, make a new Colour Balance layer with the following inputs:
Shadows -27 -5 +51
Midtones +30 -11 +26
Make sure Preserve Luminosity is ticked.
3. Make a new Selective Colour layer with the following inputs
REDS
Cyan: -100%
Magenta: +21%
Yellow: +58%
YELLOWS
Cyan: -86%
Yellow: +44%
NEUTRALS
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: -26%
Black: -12%
4. Duplicate this Selective Colour layer
One Selective Colour layer on its own may do for some images, but in this case I needed to duplicate it to really make the colours stand out.
5. Make a new Hue/Saturation layer with the following inputs:
MASTER
Saturation +26
Now, the colours look really vibrant and lively! Yay!
6. Add any brushes or text you want. In this case I made a small white rectangle and then used a tiny text brush from The Magic Box
And voila!
Other example icons with this tut:
Download PSD
As always, this tut won't work on all images so you have to adapt it to the base you are using. Play around with the Screen and Selective Colour layers especially.
Tutorial 3
From this
to this
1. I shifted my base to the left a bit to get a white border and make the icon a bit more interesting. Obviously, you don't have to do this if you don't want to!
2. Duplicate the base and set it to Screen
3. Duplicate the base again, bring it to the top and set it to Soft Light
4. Make a new colour layer with the code #bdfbfa and set to Soft Light.
5. Make a new Hue/Saturation layer with the following inputs:
MASTER
Saturation +43
REDS
Saturation +24
6. A new Selective Colour layer with the following inputs:
REDS
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: +83%
Black: +2
YELLOWS
Magenta: +100%
NEUTRALS
Cyan: +100%
Magenta: -5%
Yellow: -24%
7. Create a new Colour Balance layer with the following inputs:
Shadows: +50 0 0
Midtones: -40 0 +66
Make sure Preserve Luminosity is ticked
This brings out some contrast in the image, otherwise it looks a bit washed out.
8. Add text, brushes, whatever you want!
Other example icons made with this technique:
Download PSD
This tut in particular only works on some images. It took me ages to find pics to use for the example icons because it just looked horrible on some pics so be warned!
These tuts were based on icons I posted here.
Well, I hope these tuts have proved useful to you all! But of course these are just tutorials, not guidelines. They are just to give you some ideas for your own colouring and so on. It would be really boring if you just made an icon that had exactly the same colouring as the ones I've made, so be creative! Have fun playing around with the different layers and experiment! :D
Ooh, and please leave comments! This is my first time writing a tut so I want to know if I did everything was okay!
Warning, its quite image heavy.
All icons made in Photoshop CS2
Tutorial 1
From this
to this
1. Duplicate your base and set to Screen 100% (You may need to do this more than once, depending on your base)
2. Okay, here comes the real colourizing part! Create a new Selective Colour layer with the following inputs:
RED
Cyan : -100%
Magenta : +100%
Yellow : +100%
Black : +100%
YELLOW
Cyan : +100%
Yellow : -100%
NEUTRALS
Cyan : -25%
Black : -5%
As you can see the image is all pinky/orangey coloured now. Bleh...but we'll fix that in a minute.
3. Make another Selective Colour layer with the following inputs:
RED
Cyan: -34%
Magenta: +25%
Yellow: +97%
Black: +8%
YELLOW
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: -100%
CYANS
Cyan: -100%
NEUTRALS
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: -19%
This layer brings out the blue/cyan in the shadows of the image and also makes the pink colour from the previous layer more orangey.
4. Add a Levels layer with the following inputs:
RGB
36 1.24 255
I love using Levels! They bring more contrast to the image.
5. Finally (but this step isn't always neccessary) add a Brightness/Contrast layer:
Contrast: +9
This layer didn't make all that much of a difference in this particular icon, but sometimes it helps to make the colours stand out a bit more.
So there you go!
Here are some other examples of icons made with this technique:
Download PSD
The tut works well with screencaps from movies like Pride and Prejudice because the colours are quite washed out. However, if the base you want to use is already very colourful you might have to reduce the saturation a bit with a Hue/Saturation layer, particularly reducing the Red saturation, placing this above the Screen layer. I hope that made sense!
Tutorial 2
From this
to this
1. Duplicate your base and set it to Screen (this may need to be done more than once, depending on your base)
It's become a bit of a habit of mine to make this Screen layer, it usually helps with colouring and I do it all the time now!
2. Next, make a new Colour Balance layer with the following inputs:
Shadows -27 -5 +51
Midtones +30 -11 +26
Make sure Preserve Luminosity is ticked.
3. Make a new Selective Colour layer with the following inputs
REDS
Cyan: -100%
Magenta: +21%
Yellow: +58%
YELLOWS
Cyan: -86%
Yellow: +44%
NEUTRALS
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: -26%
Black: -12%
4. Duplicate this Selective Colour layer
One Selective Colour layer on its own may do for some images, but in this case I needed to duplicate it to really make the colours stand out.
5. Make a new Hue/Saturation layer with the following inputs:
MASTER
Saturation +26
Now, the colours look really vibrant and lively! Yay!
6. Add any brushes or text you want. In this case I made a small white rectangle and then used a tiny text brush from The Magic Box
And voila!
Other example icons with this tut:
Download PSD
As always, this tut won't work on all images so you have to adapt it to the base you are using. Play around with the Screen and Selective Colour layers especially.
Tutorial 3
From this
to this
1. I shifted my base to the left a bit to get a white border and make the icon a bit more interesting. Obviously, you don't have to do this if you don't want to!
2. Duplicate the base and set it to Screen
3. Duplicate the base again, bring it to the top and set it to Soft Light
4. Make a new colour layer with the code #bdfbfa and set to Soft Light.
5. Make a new Hue/Saturation layer with the following inputs:
MASTER
Saturation +43
REDS
Saturation +24
6. A new Selective Colour layer with the following inputs:
REDS
Cyan: +100%
Yellow: +83%
Black: +2
YELLOWS
Magenta: +100%
NEUTRALS
Cyan: +100%
Magenta: -5%
Yellow: -24%
7. Create a new Colour Balance layer with the following inputs:
Shadows: +50 0 0
Midtones: -40 0 +66
Make sure Preserve Luminosity is ticked
This brings out some contrast in the image, otherwise it looks a bit washed out.
8. Add text, brushes, whatever you want!
Other example icons made with this technique:
Download PSD
This tut in particular only works on some images. It took me ages to find pics to use for the example icons because it just looked horrible on some pics so be warned!
These tuts were based on icons I posted here.
Well, I hope these tuts have proved useful to you all! But of course these are just tutorials, not guidelines. They are just to give you some ideas for your own colouring and so on. It would be really boring if you just made an icon that had exactly the same colouring as the ones I've made, so be creative! Have fun playing around with the different layers and experiment! :D
Ooh, and please leave comments! This is my first time writing a tut so I want to know if I did everything was okay!