in 9 steps
made in PS CS5
uses Selective Coloring, sorry.]
step 1: sharpen, crop, whatever your base so it looks nice and clean. this tutorial works well with pictures of something with red in it. I choose this picture of Miley Cyrus just for fun. but her shirt and the stop sign behind her both have red in it.
step 2: new fill layer: #ffffff
set it to soft light.
opacity 30%
this just brightens the icon alittle.
step 3: new fill layer: #00031d
exclusion 100%
this gives the icon the classic dark blue exclusion coloring.
it will be more visible in later steps.
step 4: new fill layer: #291c11
luminosity 56%
this will look weird for now but it helps bring out the red in Miley's shirt and the stop sign.
step 5: now we have to fix the darkness in the icon with a few curves layers.
RGB: output 134 input 74
output 200 input 161
Red: output 181 input 187
100%
step 6: now I still wanted to brighten it up some more so duplicate that curves layer and set it to 10% fill.
step 7: one more curves layer to get the finishing brightness.
RGB: output 96 input 74
100%
step 8: selective coloring layer
Reds:
cyan -40
yellow +20
this brings out alot of red and yellow in the icon.
step 9: selective coloring layer
Reds:
cyan: -32
Blacks
black +10
this just adds some extra red pop.
ta da, all finished. :]
hope you like it.
I'd love to see your results.