tutorial #16 - coloring SPN caps
From THIS to 
Tutorial for: Photoshop CS2
Made in: Photoshop CS2
Level of Difficulty: Easy, if you know your adjustment layers and are familiar with layers and the tools of your program.
Image Heavy? Yes. And I talk alot.
Translatable? Yes. There's no selective coloring at all in this tut. Just color balance, curves and hue/saturation are involved.
PSD? Yep.
Coloring SPN icons. The way I do it. I know there a tons of tutorials out there on coloring SPN caps, and I'm not saying that my way is the best way -- but having some options when it comes to these types of caps is always a good thing in my book. Ok, enough babbling. Onto the tutorial:
YOUR IMAGE/CROPPING
001. First step's always the same. Grab your screencap. Mine is of Dean Winchester of Supernatural. My favorite pretty boy to icon right now. I got my cap from striped wall.com and it's from 1x12 Faith. One of my favorite episodes!
On a totally unrelated anduseless sidenote, I don't usually icon boys. Most of my icons are of females. So to start off, iconning Supernatural was a challenge right from the start. Not to mention that the caps are suck to work with because of the overall lack of color. The lighting can also be very difficult. They do however, have the right amount of contrast. Go figure. And I've said it before in my previous tutorials I'm a contrast!whore -- the more the better...in moderation of course.
002. It seems that every time I post a new tutorial I've adopted some new methods. That will prove to be true here. Lately, I've been cropping my icons (especially the ones that start off huge) in the following method:
--> With the screencap at it's largest size (which in this case is 1014x810), I pasted it into a 200x200 square.
-- SELECT ALL --> EDIT --> COPY
-- FILE --> NEW = type 200 into both the height and width fields and hit OK.
And then:
-- EDIT --> PASTE
Ok, so now we have this really large image on a more workable canvas. Let's crop shall we?
003. At this point I zoom out a few times so I can get a better perspective on what I'm cropping. I usually zoom out three or four times @33.3 percent. That's much better.
004. Grab your free transform tool. I can't remember what the equivalent of free transform is in PSP at the moment. If you are familiar with your program this step shouldn't require much explanation. In Photoshop I will perform the following steps to finish out my cropping.
-- EDIT --> FREE TRANSFORM (or hit CTRL+T)
-- While holding down the shift key, I use the arrows on the bounding box around the image (usually will look like dashed lines) to scale the image down. I use the arrow keys on my keyboard to move the image from side to side or up and down, depending on what kind of crop I want. Sometimes I will rotate the image slightly to the side for an interesting angle. Most of the time, this is on the fly. Basically, experiment with moving, rotating and scaling the image down. Sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes the image won't cooperate. In that case, move onto another image. Cropping makes or breaks the icon for me. If I can't crop it worth a darn, the image wasn't meant to be iconized, LOL.
With this icon, I wanted to cut Dean's eyes out and focus more on his neck and lips. RAWR.
Anyway. ;)
005. I double-click on my zoom tool icon in my toolbar to bring the image back to its 200x200 state. And this is my crop:
Sometimes I will free transform it a second time or move the image around further if it still doesn't look the way I want it. But, I'm happy with it here. I resize to 100x100 (IMAGE -->RESIZE = type 100 into height and width fields, hit OK) and am now ready to color.
BASE PREP
006. Always study your image before coloring.
Most Season 1 and 2 SPN caps are the same: dark, bland and colorless. Season 3's are a challenge on their own as suddenly you are faced with all this color! But that's a different post. So. To color.
After some fruitless and horribly ugly attempts my first time out with SPN caps, I finally found a coloring that really really works well with these images. And it's pretty much the only coloring I use for my SPN icons. You learn to embrace faded orange or brown colorings with these caps and that was tough for me as I usually go with a lighter or more natural coloring on my icons. Not the trend I know -- but that's my style.
007. My base prep is a lot different than it used to be. I used to crop and color with virtually no base prep whatsoever. But, SPN icons require a lot more effort to really pull some color out, so I've had to mix it up in my methods as of late. Base prep is as follows: (these are NOT adjustment layers!)
-- IMAGE --> ADJUSTMENTS --> AUTO CONTRAST
-- Fade the auto contrast as you see fit. EDIT --> FADE and pull the slider to the amount you want faded. In this case, I'm going to fade to 50%. This amount will be different for me on every single icon I make. Sometimes the auto contrast won't alter the image at all. Again, experimentation is the key. And you don't want overly-contrasted icons. Ugly. I hit ok once I was happy with the result.
-- IMAGE --> ADJUSTMENTS --> CURVES on the RGB channel:
This step adds some brightness and contrast and yields more satisfying results than a simple brightness/contrast layer or even selective color I've found. WIth this icon I went with (I'll be making two different points on this channel) :
POINT ONE:
Input: 240 (drag this point further to make it brighter if needed)
Output: 255 (make sure this number does not change! You should be dragging the point directly to the left, not up or down)
POINT TWO
Input: 8 (drag this point further to add more contrast. I don't recommend going further than 15, though)
Output: 0 (make sure this number does not change! You should be dragging the point directly to the right along the bottom of the graph, not up or down. This is key to adding contrast and is an important step.)
I hit ok once I was happy with the result. I usually will not deviate from these numbers at this step, going beyond the values listed here will make the icon too bright, overly-contrasted and 'crispy' looking.
-- IMAGE --> ADJUSTMENTS --> HUE/SATURATION
-- HUE: 0, SATURATION: +15, LIGHTNESS: O (15 is the maximum I will go with this adjustment. All you're really doing is adding more light and color.)
And that's my base prep. The icon so far:
Now we'll go onto the actual coloring.
COLORING
008. Lucky for me
imaginary_lives @
wicked_signs posted a brilliant tutorial awhile back that I find works most awesomely on SPN icons. You can find the original tutorial here. Yes, I will use the steps exactly because this color really works for these images. I will make subtle changes, increasing or decreasing the values, but for the most part I'll follow the tut step by step. I do of course, add my own touches along the way. If this is considered copying then *shrug* call the copying police...or something. I find that using tutorials on icons is really beneficial, and I of course give credit where credit is due. You can find credits for all the tutorials I use on my icons in my resource post.
Anyway.
-- I right click my base and duplicate the layer, setting to the blending mode to Screen at 60%.
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> COLOR BALANCE
MIDTONES: +25, +15, +25
SHADOWS: +25, +5, -35
HIGHLIGHTS: 0, 0, +25
The SHADOWS channel is the one I will adjust if necessary. If the icon starts looking more red than I like I will lower the reds to +15 and lower the yellows to -25, to take out the intensity of the reds. For this icon, I left the values as is.
Result:
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> LEVELS
-- RGB: 5, 1.00, 255
-- BLUE: 15, 1.00, 255
Result:
At this point in the process, I will deviate from the tutorial sometimes. If the image is darker than I like at this point, I will duplicate my base, drag it to the top and set it to Screen around 37%, to add a little more brightness. I felt this image was bright enough, so I didn't do that this time.
-- I right click my base, duplicate it, drag it to the top and set the blending mode to Softlight at 20%. The tutorial actually calls for this layer to be at 10% and to be set to softlight or colorburn. I went with softlight and actually upped the opacity of the layer because I like the amount of color and contrast it gives, so yeah. It brightened the icon a little more too. Hence an additional screen layer is not needed.
Result:
-- I went back down to my Screen layer (it should be labeled Layer 1 copy) and selected it. I then went:
LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> HUE/SATURATION
HUE: O, SATURATION: +25, LIGHTNESS: O
Most of the time I will not go all the way to 25, but like I said above, SPN caps need a little more effort when it comes to coloring.
Result:
And that completes the coloring. Pretty simple, right? :)
FINISHING OUT THE ICON
To complete the icon I usually go with the same steps:
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> GRADIENT FILL (make sure foreground color is set to white)
-- I clicked inside the gradient box and selected the second gradient (foreground to transparent)
-- I left the Style setting alone this time, but sometimes I will choose radial or reflected.
-- I set the radius to 137.04 and clicked ok.
Obviously this step washes out the icon, that's why I lower the opacity of the layer as follows:
OPACITY: 25%
FILL: 75%
Result:
I didn't like how I lost some color and contrast in there, so I did the following (make sure your topmost layer is selected) :
-- SELECT ALL --> EDIT --> COPY-MERGED
-- EDIT --> PASTE
-- I set this layer's blend mode to Softlight and lowered the opacity of the layer to my liking, which in this case was 75%. I add this step because I think it makes the icon looker softer and crisper, all at the same time.
Result:
But, I still lost some contrast and color in there, so I add two more steps:
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
Brightness: 0
Contrast: +7
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> HUE/SATURATION
HUE: 0, SATURATION: +7, LIGHTNESS: 0
And the final result:
At this point, I'm happy with the way the icon looks. It's a little brighter than I like, but I'll leave it because the color is perfect. At this point, I will flatten and save. Of course, additional effects like textures or text are a nice touch, but I felt that that was unecessary with this icon.
And that's it!
I've included my layers palette and a .PSD file of the tut below. Feel free to ask any questions or tell me to shut the hell up or something, I love all comments and feedback. And don't forget to check out my other TUTORIALS as well! :D
Layers Palette: LINK
.PSD
Tutorial for: Photoshop CS2
Made in: Photoshop CS2
Level of Difficulty: Easy, if you know your adjustment layers and are familiar with layers and the tools of your program.
Image Heavy? Yes. And I talk alot.
Translatable? Yes. There's no selective coloring at all in this tut. Just color balance, curves and hue/saturation are involved.
PSD? Yep.
Coloring SPN icons. The way I do it. I know there a tons of tutorials out there on coloring SPN caps, and I'm not saying that my way is the best way -- but having some options when it comes to these types of caps is always a good thing in my book. Ok, enough babbling. Onto the tutorial:
YOUR IMAGE/CROPPING
001. First step's always the same. Grab your screencap. Mine is of Dean Winchester of Supernatural. My favorite pretty boy to icon right now. I got my cap from striped wall.com and it's from 1x12 Faith. One of my favorite episodes!
On a totally unrelated and
002. It seems that every time I post a new tutorial I've adopted some new methods. That will prove to be true here. Lately, I've been cropping my icons (especially the ones that start off huge) in the following method:
--> With the screencap at it's largest size (which in this case is 1014x810), I pasted it into a 200x200 square.
-- SELECT ALL --> EDIT --> COPY
-- FILE --> NEW = type 200 into both the height and width fields and hit OK.
And then:
-- EDIT --> PASTE
Ok, so now we have this really large image on a more workable canvas. Let's crop shall we?
003. At this point I zoom out a few times so I can get a better perspective on what I'm cropping. I usually zoom out three or four times @33.3 percent. That's much better.
004. Grab your free transform tool. I can't remember what the equivalent of free transform is in PSP at the moment. If you are familiar with your program this step shouldn't require much explanation. In Photoshop I will perform the following steps to finish out my cropping.
-- EDIT --> FREE TRANSFORM (or hit CTRL+T)
-- While holding down the shift key, I use the arrows on the bounding box around the image (usually will look like dashed lines) to scale the image down. I use the arrow keys on my keyboard to move the image from side to side or up and down, depending on what kind of crop I want. Sometimes I will rotate the image slightly to the side for an interesting angle. Most of the time, this is on the fly. Basically, experiment with moving, rotating and scaling the image down. Sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes the image won't cooperate. In that case, move onto another image. Cropping makes or breaks the icon for me. If I can't crop it worth a darn, the image wasn't meant to be iconized, LOL.
With this icon, I wanted to cut Dean's eyes out and focus more on his neck and lips. RAWR.
Anyway. ;)
005. I double-click on my zoom tool icon in my toolbar to bring the image back to its 200x200 state. And this is my crop:
Sometimes I will free transform it a second time or move the image around further if it still doesn't look the way I want it. But, I'm happy with it here. I resize to 100x100 (IMAGE -->RESIZE = type 100 into height and width fields, hit OK) and am now ready to color.
BASE PREP
006. Always study your image before coloring.
Most Season 1 and 2 SPN caps are the same: dark, bland and colorless. Season 3's are a challenge on their own as suddenly you are faced with all this color! But that's a different post. So. To color.
After some fruitless and horribly ugly attempts my first time out with SPN caps, I finally found a coloring that really really works well with these images. And it's pretty much the only coloring I use for my SPN icons. You learn to embrace faded orange or brown colorings with these caps and that was tough for me as I usually go with a lighter or more natural coloring on my icons. Not the trend I know -- but that's my style.
007. My base prep is a lot different than it used to be. I used to crop and color with virtually no base prep whatsoever. But, SPN icons require a lot more effort to really pull some color out, so I've had to mix it up in my methods as of late. Base prep is as follows: (these are NOT adjustment layers!)
-- IMAGE --> ADJUSTMENTS --> AUTO CONTRAST
-- Fade the auto contrast as you see fit. EDIT --> FADE and pull the slider to the amount you want faded. In this case, I'm going to fade to 50%. This amount will be different for me on every single icon I make. Sometimes the auto contrast won't alter the image at all. Again, experimentation is the key. And you don't want overly-contrasted icons. Ugly. I hit ok once I was happy with the result.
-- IMAGE --> ADJUSTMENTS --> CURVES on the RGB channel:
This step adds some brightness and contrast and yields more satisfying results than a simple brightness/contrast layer or even selective color I've found. WIth this icon I went with (I'll be making two different points on this channel) :
POINT ONE:
Input: 240 (drag this point further to make it brighter if needed)
Output: 255 (make sure this number does not change! You should be dragging the point directly to the left, not up or down)
POINT TWO
Input: 8 (drag this point further to add more contrast. I don't recommend going further than 15, though)
Output: 0 (make sure this number does not change! You should be dragging the point directly to the right along the bottom of the graph, not up or down. This is key to adding contrast and is an important step.)
I hit ok once I was happy with the result. I usually will not deviate from these numbers at this step, going beyond the values listed here will make the icon too bright, overly-contrasted and 'crispy' looking.
-- IMAGE --> ADJUSTMENTS --> HUE/SATURATION
-- HUE: 0, SATURATION: +15, LIGHTNESS: O (15 is the maximum I will go with this adjustment. All you're really doing is adding more light and color.)
And that's my base prep. The icon so far:
Now we'll go onto the actual coloring.
COLORING
008. Lucky for me
imaginary_lives @wicked_signs posted a brilliant tutorial awhile back that I find works most awesomely on SPN icons. You can find the original tutorial here. Yes, I will use the steps exactly because this color really works for these images. I will make subtle changes, increasing or decreasing the values, but for the most part I'll follow the tut step by step. I do of course, add my own touches along the way. If this is considered copying then *shrug* call the copying police...or something. I find that using tutorials on icons is really beneficial, and I of course give credit where credit is due. You can find credits for all the tutorials I use on my icons in my resource post. Anyway.
-- I right click my base and duplicate the layer, setting to the blending mode to Screen at 60%.
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> COLOR BALANCE
MIDTONES: +25, +15, +25
SHADOWS: +25, +5, -35
HIGHLIGHTS: 0, 0, +25
The SHADOWS channel is the one I will adjust if necessary. If the icon starts looking more red than I like I will lower the reds to +15 and lower the yellows to -25, to take out the intensity of the reds. For this icon, I left the values as is.
Result:
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> LEVELS
-- RGB: 5, 1.00, 255
-- BLUE: 15, 1.00, 255
Result:
At this point in the process, I will deviate from the tutorial sometimes. If the image is darker than I like at this point, I will duplicate my base, drag it to the top and set it to Screen around 37%, to add a little more brightness. I felt this image was bright enough, so I didn't do that this time.
-- I right click my base, duplicate it, drag it to the top and set the blending mode to Softlight at 20%. The tutorial actually calls for this layer to be at 10% and to be set to softlight or colorburn. I went with softlight and actually upped the opacity of the layer because I like the amount of color and contrast it gives, so yeah. It brightened the icon a little more too. Hence an additional screen layer is not needed.
Result:
-- I went back down to my Screen layer (it should be labeled Layer 1 copy) and selected it. I then went:
LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> HUE/SATURATION
HUE: O, SATURATION: +25, LIGHTNESS: O
Most of the time I will not go all the way to 25, but like I said above, SPN caps need a little more effort when it comes to coloring.
Result:
And that completes the coloring. Pretty simple, right? :)
FINISHING OUT THE ICON
To complete the icon I usually go with the same steps:
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> GRADIENT FILL (make sure foreground color is set to white)
-- I clicked inside the gradient box and selected the second gradient (foreground to transparent)
-- I left the Style setting alone this time, but sometimes I will choose radial or reflected.
-- I set the radius to 137.04 and clicked ok.
Obviously this step washes out the icon, that's why I lower the opacity of the layer as follows:
OPACITY: 25%
FILL: 75%
Result:
I didn't like how I lost some color and contrast in there, so I did the following (make sure your topmost layer is selected) :
-- SELECT ALL --> EDIT --> COPY-MERGED
-- EDIT --> PASTE
-- I set this layer's blend mode to Softlight and lowered the opacity of the layer to my liking, which in this case was 75%. I add this step because I think it makes the icon looker softer and crisper, all at the same time.
Result:
But, I still lost some contrast and color in there, so I add two more steps:
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
Brightness: 0
Contrast: +7
-- LAYER --> NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER --> HUE/SATURATION
HUE: 0, SATURATION: +7, LIGHTNESS: 0
And the final result:
At this point, I'm happy with the way the icon looks. It's a little brighter than I like, but I'll leave it because the color is perfect. At this point, I will flatten and save. Of course, additional effects like textures or text are a nice touch, but I felt that that was unecessary with this icon.
And that's it!
I've included my layers palette and a .PSD file of the tut below. Feel free to ask any questions or tell me to shut the hell up or something, I love all comments and feedback. And don't forget to check out my other TUTORIALS as well! :D
Layers Palette: LINK
.PSD