Tutorial: How to Lighten and Redden an Image

This tutorial will teach you in six easy steps the basics of using Photoshop's Selective Coloring capabilities to brighten an image and bring out certain colors, in this case, red and some green. Suitable for beginners to PS and veterans who want to give their icons that extra color pop.

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Program: Adobe PS CS
Translatable: No (uses Selective Coloring)

How to Lighten and Redden an Image Caution: The image you should start off with should have some red coloring. Otherwise, the tutorial may result in a funky-looking, off-color image.
Level: Beginner ♦ Skill: Selective Coloring ♦ Extras: None ♦ Translatable: No
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Step 1. Crop your chosen image to 100x100 pixels. Sharpen edges, if needed. (I sharpened my edges to give the model a more "dollish" look.)
Step 2. Duplicate the base layer. Set the new layer to screen at 82%. This will lighten your base. Detailed. Screen is the most useful layer mode for brightening dark images and is often one of the preliminary steps in prepping an icon for further editing. If your image is especially dark, duplicate the step.
Step 3. Make a Selective Color layer. (Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Selective Color) Input the following numbers. Red: -100, 0, 0, +100 Yellow: +20, -100, -100, 0 Green: -100, -100, 0, 0 White: +100, +100, -50, -50 Detailed. This will brighten the images while bringing out more of the red of the flower. The RED option affects the reddish color the most. By moving it completely to -100, you are decreasing the amount of cyan (thus strengthening the red, the opposite of cyan) in any RED portion of the image, thus bringing out more of the RED. The same principle goes for the other colors. In this case, adjusting the WHITE allows you to control the highlights of the image.
Step 4. Make yet another Selective Color layer. Input the following numbers. Red: -100, 0, 0, +100 Yellow: +50, -100, -100, +20 White: -30, -30, -30, -50 Black: 0, 0, 0, +35 Detailed. In order to bring out the slight green glow surrounding the model, decreasing the amount of yellow (strengthening blue) and magenta (strengthening green) on all YELLOW portions of the image is key. I specifically targeted the haze around the model through this method because the haze has a lot of YELLOW pigments.
Step 5. Make the last Selective Color layer. Input the following numbers. Red: -50, +50, +100, -20 Yellow: +30, -30, -30, -30 White: -40, -40, -35, +35 Black: 0, 0, 0, +25 Detailed. By looking at this selective coloring scale, we can see at first glance which colors have been manipulated and how. For example, from the -50 of cyan and the +50 of magenta on the RED, we can see that RED has been brightened through a mix of those colors. You can keep playing around with the YELLOW to make the image greener or browner (by adjusting cyan). The best is to play around with the the colors to see what works best for you.
Step 6. Make a Brightness/Contrast layer. (Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Brightness/Contrast) Set the Brightness to +10. This makes the image a bit brighter and really makes the colors pop.
And you're done! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Let me know what you think, and show me your results! :) Feel free to ask me any questions, and let me know if you're taking the icon. Please credit properly. Credit: pour_rever Join/watch pour_rever for regular tutorial updates.