20// Two W.I.T.C.H. tutorials
I've been asked by a couple people to do tutorials for some of the icons in my recent W.I.T.C.H. icon batches, so:
From
to
in 8 steps, using Adobe Photoshop 7. It involves Curves and Color Balance, so I'm not sure if it's translate-able to other programs.
01. Crop and resize your icon to 100x100. This was the original image I used.
02. I decided to mess around with Curves next, so I made a Curves layer. If you don't know what a Curves layer is, or you want to learn more about it, I suggest reading this tutorial by herdestiny. It's really informative and teaches you pretty much all there is to learn about Curves. :) But anyways, I made a new Curves layer by going to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves. Then I entered in these settings:
RGB:
Input: 102
Output: 164
I made a couple different notches in this setting, so this might be hard to understand, but:
RED:
Input: 65
Output: 67
Input: 121
Output: 134
Input: 213
Output: 216
Again, I made a couple different notches:
GREEN:
Input: 92
Output: 20
Input: 167
Output: 128
Input: 214
Output: 199
Once again, a couple more notches:
BLUE:
Input: 91
Output: 49
Input: 146
Output: 123
Input: 215
Output: 216
03. That was entirely too red, so to correct it I made a Color Balance layer. Color Balance is exactly what the title says, it balances the colors out. To make a Color Balance layer, go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Color Balance. I used these settings:
Cyan/Red: -63
Magenta/Green: +100
Yellow/Blue: +100
04. Ah, it's looking much better now. I thought it looked a bit plain though, and I wanted to bring out the blush in her cheeks, so I made another Curves layer (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves) and inserted these settings:
RED:
Input: 51
Output: 75
Input: 126
Output: 129
Input: 176
Output: 186
GREEN:
Input: 134
Output: 142
Input: 204
Output: 158
BLUE:
Input: 76
Output: 108
Input: 127
Output: 148
Input: 198
Output: 161
05. Now I'm done with the coloring, and I'm going to fix a few minor things. I start off by erasing the snowballs in Will's hat, I just find them kind of annoying and distracting. First I make a new layer, then I zoom in and find the color of her hat (#100023) and go over the snowballs with a circular paint brush. There's a few parts in the hat that a darker (020000) so again, I go over that with a paint brush.
06. Next I get rid of the Disney logo and the tiny bit of building you can see, again using a circular paint brush. I first do the darker parts of Will's jacket (#00000B), then do the pink hues in the background (#66002C and #2F0000).
07. Since there's snow falling everywhere else in the icon, it looks sort of strange that there isn't any over the parts we corrected in the last step, I use a circular paint brush (3 pixels big) and dab it over the left side.
08. Now all that's left to do is sharpen and smooth out the icon. I merge all my layers (Layer >> Merge Visible) and go to Filter >> Sharpen >> Sharpen. It looks entirely too sharp, so I go to Edit >> Fade... to lessen the effect. I lower it to somewhere around 18%, but it still looks a bit rough, so I use the Smudge tool at about 5% strength and go over the sides of her face and hair.
From
to
in 3 steps, using Adobe Photoshop 7. It involves Curves and Hue/Saturation, and it's really simple. This is the coloring I used on most of the images in my W.I.T.C.H. mood theme, and it's more of a image-prepping tutorial than a finished icon tutorial. You can obviously leave it that way if you prefer the simple look (which personally, I do) but it also gives you a nice base if you'd rather add some additional coloring.
01. Crop and resize your icon to 100x100. This was the original image I used.
02. The image looked way too green and sickly, so I decided to use a simple Curves layer to correct it. Go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves and use this setting:
GREEN:
Input: 144
Output: 120
03. Now it just looks plain and a bit dull, so I added a Hue/Saturation layer to make it pop. Go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Hue/Saturation and push the Saturation to +33.
And voila! You're done. That wasn't too painful, was it? ;) If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Oh, and please don't use this tutorial verbatim, expand it a little bit, add your own touch. If you do use this, I'd love to see your finished products. :D
From
to
in 8 steps, using Adobe Photoshop 7. It involves Curves and Color Balance, so I'm not sure if it's translate-able to other programs.
01. Crop and resize your icon to 100x100. This was the original image I used.
02. I decided to mess around with Curves next, so I made a Curves layer. If you don't know what a Curves layer is, or you want to learn more about it, I suggest reading this tutorial by herdestiny. It's really informative and teaches you pretty much all there is to learn about Curves. :) But anyways, I made a new Curves layer by going to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves. Then I entered in these settings:
RGB:
Input: 102
Output: 164
I made a couple different notches in this setting, so this might be hard to understand, but:
RED:
Input: 65
Output: 67
Input: 121
Output: 134
Input: 213
Output: 216
Again, I made a couple different notches:
GREEN:
Input: 92
Output: 20
Input: 167
Output: 128
Input: 214
Output: 199
Once again, a couple more notches:
BLUE:
Input: 91
Output: 49
Input: 146
Output: 123
Input: 215
Output: 216
03. That was entirely too red, so to correct it I made a Color Balance layer. Color Balance is exactly what the title says, it balances the colors out. To make a Color Balance layer, go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Color Balance. I used these settings:
Cyan/Red: -63
Magenta/Green: +100
Yellow/Blue: +100
04. Ah, it's looking much better now. I thought it looked a bit plain though, and I wanted to bring out the blush in her cheeks, so I made another Curves layer (Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves) and inserted these settings:
RED:
Input: 51
Output: 75
Input: 126
Output: 129
Input: 176
Output: 186
GREEN:
Input: 134
Output: 142
Input: 204
Output: 158
BLUE:
Input: 76
Output: 108
Input: 127
Output: 148
Input: 198
Output: 161
05. Now I'm done with the coloring, and I'm going to fix a few minor things. I start off by erasing the snowballs in Will's hat, I just find them kind of annoying and distracting. First I make a new layer, then I zoom in and find the color of her hat (#100023) and go over the snowballs with a circular paint brush. There's a few parts in the hat that a darker (020000) so again, I go over that with a paint brush.
06. Next I get rid of the Disney logo and the tiny bit of building you can see, again using a circular paint brush. I first do the darker parts of Will's jacket (#00000B), then do the pink hues in the background (#66002C and #2F0000).
07. Since there's snow falling everywhere else in the icon, it looks sort of strange that there isn't any over the parts we corrected in the last step, I use a circular paint brush (3 pixels big) and dab it over the left side.
08. Now all that's left to do is sharpen and smooth out the icon. I merge all my layers (Layer >> Merge Visible) and go to Filter >> Sharpen >> Sharpen. It looks entirely too sharp, so I go to Edit >> Fade... to lessen the effect. I lower it to somewhere around 18%, but it still looks a bit rough, so I use the Smudge tool at about 5% strength and go over the sides of her face and hair.
From
to
in 3 steps, using Adobe Photoshop 7. It involves Curves and Hue/Saturation, and it's really simple. This is the coloring I used on most of the images in my W.I.T.C.H. mood theme, and it's more of a image-prepping tutorial than a finished icon tutorial. You can obviously leave it that way if you prefer the simple look (which personally, I do) but it also gives you a nice base if you'd rather add some additional coloring.
01. Crop and resize your icon to 100x100. This was the original image I used.
02. The image looked way too green and sickly, so I decided to use a simple Curves layer to correct it. Go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Curves and use this setting:
GREEN:
Input: 144
Output: 120
03. Now it just looks plain and a bit dull, so I added a Hue/Saturation layer to make it pop. Go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Hue/Saturation and push the Saturation to +33.
And voila! You're done. That wasn't too painful, was it? ;) If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Oh, and please don't use this tutorial verbatim, expand it a little bit, add your own touch. If you do use this, I'd love to see your finished products. :D