Simple Coloring Tutorial
Hello there =]
Today we will be going from this
to this 
Made in Photoshop Elements 5.0. Only uses Hue/Saturation and layers. Definitely translatable. Made for beginners.
Alright, so today we're going to be dealing with layers and hue/saturation. This tutorial works very well for screencaps, since most of them are rather dark. I stumbled upon it by accident when I was playing around with coloring (since I need to find an alternative most of the time, seeing as how I don't have selective coloring or curves).
Anyways, enough rambling, and on to the tut:
Step 1:
First, choose a base. I picked a screencap from Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy with Alex and Isi. Sharpen and crop your base as much as you want. I make icons 99.9% of the time, so I cropped mine to 100 px by 100 px and sharpened this particular pic 40%.
Step 2:
Duplicate your base two times. Set both of those layers to Screen at 100%
That lightens things up a bit =]
Step 3:
Now create a new color fill layer by going to Layer-->New Fill Layer-->Solid Color. Choose a light bluish, greenish color, like the one below. For this icon I used #ccf6f3
Set this layer to Color Burn, 100%
So now we have something like this:
Step 4:
Create another layer, this time going to Layer-->New Adjustment Layer-->Hue/Saturation. Set the saturation to +25 and the lightness at +5
This gets us an image like this:
Step 5:
Create another fill layer, this time with a dark navy blue (you should go so dark that it almost looks black). On this icon I used #030f22
Set this layer to Difference, 100%
Step 6:
Now we're going to add a nice peachy color on top to make it a bit more orange. Create another solid color layer, this time adding a color like #fae6cb
Set that to Soft Light, 50%
And you're done!
Now, this settings should be changed for each icon. What I mean by that is that some icons need the final peach layer to be at 100% instead of 50%, or two Difference layers instead of one. Stuff like that. Also, play around with the saturation and lightness to get the color you really want. It really all depends on the picture and the look you are going for.
I hope I was helpful! You can use any of the icons in this tutorial but please credit Lissy if you do. Comments are lovely, and I would love to see what you come up with!
Other icons made using this technique:
Today we will be going from this
Made in Photoshop Elements 5.0. Only uses Hue/Saturation and layers. Definitely translatable. Made for beginners.
Alright, so today we're going to be dealing with layers and hue/saturation. This tutorial works very well for screencaps, since most of them are rather dark. I stumbled upon it by accident when I was playing around with coloring (since I need to find an alternative most of the time, seeing as how I don't have selective coloring or curves).
Anyways, enough rambling, and on to the tut:
Step 1:
First, choose a base. I picked a screencap from Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy with Alex and Isi. Sharpen and crop your base as much as you want. I make icons 99.9% of the time, so I cropped mine to 100 px by 100 px and sharpened this particular pic 40%.
Step 2:
Duplicate your base two times. Set both of those layers to Screen at 100%
That lightens things up a bit =]
Step 3:
Now create a new color fill layer by going to Layer-->New Fill Layer-->Solid Color. Choose a light bluish, greenish color, like the one below. For this icon I used #ccf6f3
Set this layer to Color Burn, 100%
So now we have something like this:
Step 4:
Create another layer, this time going to Layer-->New Adjustment Layer-->Hue/Saturation. Set the saturation to +25 and the lightness at +5
This gets us an image like this:
Step 5:
Create another fill layer, this time with a dark navy blue (you should go so dark that it almost looks black). On this icon I used #030f22
Set this layer to Difference, 100%
Step 6:
Now we're going to add a nice peachy color on top to make it a bit more orange. Create another solid color layer, this time adding a color like #fae6cb
Set that to Soft Light, 50%
And you're done!
Now, this settings should be changed for each icon. What I mean by that is that some icons need the final peach layer to be at 100% instead of 50%, or two Difference layers instead of one. Stuff like that. Also, play around with the saturation and lightness to get the color you really want. It really all depends on the picture and the look you are going for.
I hope I was helpful! You can use any of the icons in this tutorial but please credit Lissy if you do. Comments are lovely, and I would love to see what you come up with!
Other icons made using this technique: