Vibrant Coloring in Photoshop CS5 (using Prince Caspian caps)
or 
Program: Photoshop CS5
Difficulty: Easy-Medium (depending on your knowledge of PS)
Translatable?: No (uses selective color and vibrance)
PSD?: yes!
Other examples:
(please redirect all questions and comments here, thanks).
DO NOT COPY THIS TUTORIAL EXACTLY! USE YOUR OWN IMAGE!! I'm putting the psd up, but if I see copies I will take it down!
Make your base. I got mine from spareoom.net. I find this coloring to work best with Narnia caps (the first two movies anyway) because there is so many bright green colors. This also brightens other bright colors such as purple and orange (like Susan and Lucy's outfits). When making my own bases, I get my caps from homeofthenutty.
Duplicate your base and set it to Screen 100% to brighten up the image.
To add contrast, duplicate the base layer again, drag it to the top, and set it as Softlight 100%.
Now this is really good and the contrast is great, but it is very bland. So duplicate the base layer again, drag to the top, and set to Luminosity 100% (change the opacity based on the colors of your image).
Now the colors are really pretty and are starting to pop and become vibrant. The image itself, however, is pretty dark. Plus the colors aren't bright enough. So, add a vibrance layer.
Go to Layer>Adjustment Layer>Vibrance and set it to Vibrance: 100, Saturation: 20.
Now the greens, reds, and other bright colors are really popping out. However, it still looks pretty dark and drained at this point.
Add a selective color layer (Layer>Adjustment Layer>Selective Color)
Settings:
Reds: C: +15, M: +6, Y: -35, B: -28
Yellows: C: +10, M: +15, Y: -10, B: -8
Neutrals: C: +10, M: -6, Y: +11, B: -10
Blacks: C: 0, M: 0, Y: 0, B: -5
Adjust this to fit your image. This makes the whole image way brighter, and also the colors we were trying to make pop.
Now, as you can see, there are some really nasty green spots on Peter's white shirt. Sometimes these spots can be in your subject's hair, wherever. So to remedy this, add a new layer, paint over the spots with about a 1 px soft brush, and set to color. For this particular icon this made the shirt look gray. So I had to paint over everything white on Peter's wardrobe, set the layer to Color 100%. Then, to make it actually white, I had to duplicate the layer and set the top one to Softlight 43%.
Now the shirt looks really good and uniformly colored. However, it is still dark, as is the rest of the image. So in order to brighten it, add a brightness/contrast layer.
Layer>Adjustment Layer>Brightness/Contrast
Brightness: +10
Contrast: +5
Next add a Hue/Saturation Layer
Layer>Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation
Master: +5
Reds: +5
Yellows: -2
Greens: -2
Cyans: +4
On this icon it made a subtle different, but it still changes the colors.
Now his skin color is a really nasty tone. I hated it. If your skin color of your person is messed up, add a new layer.
Paint over all the skin with a light peach color #e8d1b3. Set this layer to Screen 20%. Test this out. Since the skin is already a nasty pukish color, setting the layer to color just made the skin darker. Screen was the only blend mode that lightened it up.
Now I wanted to brighten up the greens some more and make the dark greens darker, and the navy in his sweater. So add a new selective color layer.
Reds: C: -9, M: +9, Y: +7, B: +14
Yellows: C: +12, M: -5, Y: -10
Cyans: C: +11, M: 0, Y: 0, B: +8
Whites: C: +31, M: +16, Y: -25, B: -18
Blacks: C: +12, M: +2, Y: -13, B: +5
This added different greens to the trees and made the navy pop, while also adding contrast to Peter's hair.
Now an effect I love on most of my icons.
Layer>New Fill Layer. Fill with #404040. Set to Lighten 35%. This can be adjusted to the amount of dark colors in your image. But it really brightens it up.
The coloring is very bright, pretty, and done!
Now just add a new layer. Take a large soft brush in #ffffff and add a blob to brighten up a specific part of the image. Set the layer to Softlight 100%.
Then press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E and go to Sharpen>Sharpen. Set that layer to around 50-60% opacity.
That's it for the first result!
For the second result, I made the colors even BRIGHTER. DO NOT PUT THE SHARPEN LAYER if you want the second result.
Instead, hit Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E. Then go to Sharpen>Smart Sharpen. For this icon I left the default settings, because it was perfect. However, some icons this will make too dark. So just toy with the settings.
That's it!
.psd
Other Examples: