Icon tutorial: Max Changmin of DBSK (Coloring techniques, mainly)

Yay, my first tutorial! Made in CS2, and doesn't use selective coloring, but it does use hue/sat layers and brightness/contrast layers. Which are in the same place as selective coloring. :S It's more than likely translatable to other PS programs, but I'm not sure about anything other than Adobe.

I tried to make it as understandable as possible, but if you have any questions I'll be sure to answer them. I'd rate this a little over beginners, and it's fairly image heavy (sixteen 100x100 pics? :S)

mutane_kurosaki wanted to know how I made this icon of Max Changmin from Dong bang Shin Ki, so I'm going to show you all:



Unfortunately, I didn't save my .psd file with all my layers, but I'm going to try and recreate it the best I can. All of the icons from this particular batch used the same basic style of coloring and such, so let's hope I can do it. \o/



OKAY. So let's start with the obvious first few steps, and then we'll get to the fun stuff. :D

Get your copy of the pic and crop it, then under image>>adjustments, use your automatic contrast. Sometimes, I will also use the automatic color, but with this image it made Changmin look kind of dark and mucky, and I liked it with only the contrast. So, after that I ended up with this:



Ew, blurry. No one likes a blurry icon, so I went under Filter>>Sharpen and hit sharpen. It was clearer, but I like my boys to be shiny and pretty, so I sharpened it another time. It looks too sharp, now right? So I went under Edit>>fade sharpen and set it to 80% opacity. Perfect. And you end up with this:



Ok, so next we want to make him shine. So, I went under Layer>>New adjustment layer>>brightness/contrast layer. Now, if you're doing this tut right and using a different image (XD), you may need different numbers than I had. But, if you want something to go by, I had 10 for brightness and 15 for contrast. Which left me with this:



Now, I use the dark blue exclusion layer later in this tut, so I need to make sure the saturation is perfect when I do, because that type of layer can squish colors in an image. So, I enlisted the help of a hue/saturation layer, located under Layer>>New adjustment layer. I ONLY changed the saturation on all the colors, which are located on the little drop-bar at the center top. My numbers were:

Master: +25
Reds: +8
Yellows: +8
And for all the remaining colors: +10

After that, you get this:



Now, this may seem a little unorthadox, but I decided to do my dark blue exclusion layer next, then use all of my gradients. This was mainly so I could see what the effect would be and when I should stop. So, to do this, go to Layer>>New>>new layer. Then, go to your little color boxes to the left and in the forefront box, pick out a nice dark blue. I used 040534. Then, go to Edit>>fill, and when the little box pops up, be sure it says foreground color, normal and 100% opacity. Click ok, and bam there's a blue square in front of your image.

Next, right click on the layer for it in your layers tab to the right and select blending options. Go to the drop-box where it says normal and select exclusion, 100%. After that, go down to your cropped and sharpened base and duplicate it, then drag it to the top. Set it to soft light, the same way you set the blue to exclusion. The last thing you'll do with this part is go up to Image>>Adjustments and hit desaturate. And you've got your dark blue exclusion layer done. You'll end up with this:



Now, this is IMPORTANT. The gradient layers will go UNDERNEATH the exclusion layer!! So, click on the hue/saturation layer, but don't do anything with it. You're simply highlighting it so that all new layers will go directly after it and under the exclusion layer.

Ok, now it's time for the actual coloring. I used the lovely gradients from fraoch_icons' tropical flowers pack, which fit the video perfectly, given its pretty tropical/beach setting. Convenient, no? XD If you don't have this gradient pack, I advise you to get it, because it's so very prettiful. But I'll go ahead and put up the gradients for your convenience.

So, our first pick is this lovely gradient here:



Open it up, then select your move tool, which is on your tool bar on the left. It's usually a little cursor type thing, and on CS2 it's on the right side, at the very top. Click the gradient and drag it onto your icon, then move it so that it's perfectly aligned. Once you've done that, go to your layer bar and set it to soft light. And then you'll end up with this:



A little too greeny for my tastes, so I decided to give it some more color. Here is our next gradient:



So, open, drag and set soft light, once again. But it's too red/orange. So, go to blending options and set the opacity to 70%. And you get this:



Now, I wanted to add some blue, because tropical and all, needs rainbow-y colors imo. SO, next gradient prease:



Do your thing, soft light, all that jazz, and you get this, which is *__*:



Now, we need some yellow:



Kinda bright, huh? So, set the opacity at about 80%. Now I like the coloring and I'm pretty satisfied...but I'm a dork and I like my exclusions. SO, duplicate your exclusion layer. You end up with:



Which is actually pretty close to the orginal icon and makes me a very happy little dork. :DDDDD

Now, for my tiny text, which is another obsession of mine. I used Trebuchet MS, font size 1, kerning 3000. (For those of you who don't know what kerning is: it's the little drop box on your text tab located on the right side. The third one down. On the left side of the drop-box there will be an in image 'A V' with an arrow underneath.) I don't really write anything of major importance in my tiny text. Usually it's something like 'oh changmin you're so sexy and cute ilu'. >.> So, feel free to write whatever. As for the look of it, I used the anti-alias crisp and duplicated the layer. Then on the duplicated layer, I changed the anti-alias to sharp. And here is your almost finished icon:



Next, I used a heart brush, which are yet another obsession. Haha. It's from the Scribble Hearts brush pack by spell_caster18, which is a lovely pack and I encourage you to dl it. Here is the brush I used:



On your color boxes, make sure the dark blue you used is still the first one. Now, create a new layer again. Ok. When I used the brush, I'd used it from the .abr file, so it was the perfect size. Since you are more than likely saving it from this tut, it probably won't be the right size. Of course, first you'll have to turn it into a brush and here is how you do it.

Open the image you saved (make sure you have the brush selected on your tool bar), go to Edit>>define brush. A box will pop up asking what you're naming it. Name it and you have your brush!

Now, stick the cute brush where you want it on your icon, and set it to soft light.

Here is my finished icon:



THE END.

Remember-- don't copy this tut EXACTLY. Play around with it and come up with your own coloring!! It's a guide, use it as so.

If you like what you see, feel free to friend my ijournal, saillicons. I'll be making another post soon, once I get my things sorted out. I have like...fifty million icons to post. @__@

Thanks for reading, and mutane_kurosaki, I hope this was helpful!!