Icon Tutorial - Coloring Dark Images
This tutorial will step back into a bit of the basics to color dark images.
to
Using Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
Uses: Color Fills, Brightness/Contrast, Gradient Map
Level of Difficulty: Written for Beginners
to Using Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
Uses: Color Fills, Brightness/Contrast, Gradient Map
Level of Difficulty: Written for Beginners
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The image I chose was not too dark, as I know that many screencaps can turn out being. So if you can barely make out the subjects in your image, this tutorial will not be enough to help you. But, the process can start you out on one of the paths you can follow. I took mine back to Color Fills. While I've grown to appreciate and use Levels more, Color Fill is a perfectly capable tool of coloring images in a relatively few number of steps when used in specific ways. Our tendency, including myself, is to use too many steps from other, more complicated, tools when the process can be duplicated in easier ways. It's not a bad thing, we all have tools we prefer.
This tutorial is going to be simple. It's purpose is not to completely light up the image, but instead to give it some color. Take your image, crop it, and prepare it for coloring. Sharpen or blur where needed.
Step One - If you want to bring out flesh tones, which is what I want, you will need to first create a Color Fill Layer (Layer->New Fill Layer->Solid Color). I keep my first one at 100% full opacity, because it sets the base. Keep it at Overlay or Soft Light, but beware that Overlay can richen the color too much. Myself, I chose Soft Light. It's a bit more tame. As for the color, stay now within the oranges, but not the actual radioactive orange. The paler colors work better, just from what I've seen (I picked #c89770, but mine might not work for you).
You can now see that your icon has established an overtone that you can now build on. But, don't go overboard when making this first step. When beginning, I know a lot of people get carried away. It's normal, we want to see the fastest results in the shortest amount of time possible. But, here is what you do NOT want:
The first is too orange, the second too red, and the third too yellow. While those are the colors you want to focus on, stay away from the saturated versions of them. Just from experience, I've noticed that staying near the neutral versions (brown, gray, white) produce better results. To provide a visual, stay around the areas marked in red.
Keep the general idea when applying other colors.
Step Two - Create another Color Fill. I kept mine at half opacity and set it to Soft Light. See what works best for you. Now you're going to focus on lighting by working with the grays. Grays are overlooked as a good source of lighting or darkening an image without it being so flat. I keep to the mid-grays, myself. For this image, I used #9a8a82. Punch that in, if you want, but you'll find you'll need to see which specific shade you need for your image.
Being subtle is something I think is underrated. It's too easy to take these tools too far.
Step Three - Make a Gradient Map (Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Gradient Map). I've said it once, I'll say it again: Gradient Map is an underappreciated tool. Like all tools, it can hardly be explained in one tutorial, and I don't expect to teach you everything it has to offer. Like everything in Adobe, GIMP, and PSP, tools are best learned when just playing around with different images. You have many, many options with this tool, and double when you see you can reverse them. You have the colors pre-selected, or you can choose two and make your own custom. Since this is written for beginners, I stuck with a pre-existing color.
My personal favorites is this tool are the spectrums (or rainbow shades), blue-orange, yellow-purple, orange-violet, and red-yellow. Those tools just seem to work best when trying to bring out flesh tones, especially when set to Soft Light (I kept mine at half opacity). If you're new to this tool, try sticking around Color Harmonies One, or the Simple Maps. But, to provide examples, here's what you do NOT want:
I threw in some examples from my favorite Maps to show that despite that you make like a certain color or tool, it does not mean that it goes well with all images. In the end, I chose blue-orange. It just suited me best. If you find that you just hate Gradient Map (not all tools are for everybody), a couple extra steps of Color Fill can produce similar effects.
Step Four - Clean things up by creating a Brightness/Contrast layer. Beginners, by now you should know that this is probably one of the easiest tools you will ever use. Set to Normal, full opacity, pushing the arrow to the right will up brightness and contrast, and to the left will lower it. Set it to what you need to set it to. Mine needed no more thant +10 on both settings.
Now make a new Color Fill, set to Overlay/Soft Light, at half opacity (raise or lower the opacity where needed), Go back to the first Color Fill and apply the same general idea here. If the same color itself does not look good, such as it did not for mine, go towards the grays. I ended up going to #ab876f, which is a bit darker than the first Color Fill. I still had to lower the opacity a bit more.
That is it. Add some more Color Fills if you need, but that's the general idea. I hope it helped.
The image I chose was not too dark, as I know that many screencaps can turn out being. So if you can barely make out the subjects in your image, this tutorial will not be enough to help you. But, the process can start you out on one of the paths you can follow. I took mine back to Color Fills. While I've grown to appreciate and use Levels more, Color Fill is a perfectly capable tool of coloring images in a relatively few number of steps when used in specific ways. Our tendency, including myself, is to use too many steps from other, more complicated, tools when the process can be duplicated in easier ways. It's not a bad thing, we all have tools we prefer.
This tutorial is going to be simple. It's purpose is not to completely light up the image, but instead to give it some color. Take your image, crop it, and prepare it for coloring. Sharpen or blur where needed.
Step One - If you want to bring out flesh tones, which is what I want, you will need to first create a Color Fill Layer (Layer->New Fill Layer->Solid Color). I keep my first one at 100% full opacity, because it sets the base. Keep it at Overlay or Soft Light, but beware that Overlay can richen the color too much. Myself, I chose Soft Light. It's a bit more tame. As for the color, stay now within the oranges, but not the actual radioactive orange. The paler colors work better, just from what I've seen (I picked #c89770, but mine might not work for you).
You can now see that your icon has established an overtone that you can now build on. But, don't go overboard when making this first step. When beginning, I know a lot of people get carried away. It's normal, we want to see the fastest results in the shortest amount of time possible. But, here is what you do NOT want:
The first is too orange, the second too red, and the third too yellow. While those are the colors you want to focus on, stay away from the saturated versions of them. Just from experience, I've noticed that staying near the neutral versions (brown, gray, white) produce better results. To provide a visual, stay around the areas marked in red.
Keep the general idea when applying other colors.
Step Two - Create another Color Fill. I kept mine at half opacity and set it to Soft Light. See what works best for you. Now you're going to focus on lighting by working with the grays. Grays are overlooked as a good source of lighting or darkening an image without it being so flat. I keep to the mid-grays, myself. For this image, I used #9a8a82. Punch that in, if you want, but you'll find you'll need to see which specific shade you need for your image.
Being subtle is something I think is underrated. It's too easy to take these tools too far.
Step Three - Make a Gradient Map (Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Gradient Map). I've said it once, I'll say it again: Gradient Map is an underappreciated tool. Like all tools, it can hardly be explained in one tutorial, and I don't expect to teach you everything it has to offer. Like everything in Adobe, GIMP, and PSP, tools are best learned when just playing around with different images. You have many, many options with this tool, and double when you see you can reverse them. You have the colors pre-selected, or you can choose two and make your own custom. Since this is written for beginners, I stuck with a pre-existing color.
My personal favorites is this tool are the spectrums (or rainbow shades), blue-orange, yellow-purple, orange-violet, and red-yellow. Those tools just seem to work best when trying to bring out flesh tones, especially when set to Soft Light (I kept mine at half opacity). If you're new to this tool, try sticking around Color Harmonies One, or the Simple Maps. But, to provide examples, here's what you do NOT want:
I threw in some examples from my favorite Maps to show that despite that you make like a certain color or tool, it does not mean that it goes well with all images. In the end, I chose blue-orange. It just suited me best. If you find that you just hate Gradient Map (not all tools are for everybody), a couple extra steps of Color Fill can produce similar effects.
Step Four - Clean things up by creating a Brightness/Contrast layer. Beginners, by now you should know that this is probably one of the easiest tools you will ever use. Set to Normal, full opacity, pushing the arrow to the right will up brightness and contrast, and to the left will lower it. Set it to what you need to set it to. Mine needed no more thant +10 on both settings.
Now make a new Color Fill, set to Overlay/Soft Light, at half opacity (raise or lower the opacity where needed), Go back to the first Color Fill and apply the same general idea here. If the same color itself does not look good, such as it did not for mine, go towards the grays. I ended up going to #ab876f, which is a bit darker than the first Color Fill. I still had to lower the opacity a bit more.
That is it. Add some more Color Fills if you need, but that's the general idea. I hope it helped.