icon walkthrough

[naushika]

smallbatchicons is hosting a PSD exchange for the next couple days! I'm going to share my process for a couple icons but if there are any icons you want to see my technique on then please ask away. :D I don't save my layered files for most stuff but I can try to recreate things.

BTW I use PSP, not PS, so I don't actually have PSDs (haha) but I will just show each step instead :D

Here is the first one I'm doing:





Base image! The Killing screencaps are darrrrrrrrrkkkkkk. Here is the original full cap, from midnight_road.

>>>

The original cap had a very blue cast to it, so a bit of white balancing was in order. PSP has a super handy "color balance" tool which I use for this, I'm sure PS has something similar. You can click on any part of the image and the tool will try to do it automatically for you, but you can also adjust the sliders. I warmed up the image to get rid of the blue.



I merged a copy of the two layers so far and pasted it on top as a new layer, set to screen 100%.



It wasn't nearly bright enough, so duplicate that layer and set to screen 100% again.



You think we're done? Hell no, another screen 100% layer!



Surely that's it, right? No? ANOTHER SCREEN 100% LAYER? Yes indeed. :D For those keeping track, that's 4 screen layers. But look you can see her face now! Totally worth it. :D



Same layer duplicated, but this time set to soft light, 26%, just to bring a bit of the contrast back.

>>>

Still not enough brightness and contrast for me, so out comes a curves layer. My curves layers all pretty much look like this. Crank the lights and deepen the darks.

>>>

Ok next comes one of my ~secret tricks that's not really secret since I've totally talked about it before, haha. PSP has a great tool called the Time Machine and it does all sorts of effects. I'm in love with this one (the bottom row of boxes show the different effects, and the one I've selected is second from left). Basically it's a really easy way to sepia-tone an image. I like this over the plain old "sepia tone" option elsewhere in the effects menu because this tool keeps a really nice texture to the image, and the colors feel rich rather than just brown.

Anyway so I copy-merged all the layers again then did this sepia-toning effect.



I decided I wanted a purple tone to the icon, so on the same sepia-toned layer, I adjusted the colors and saturation to a nice muted purple.



Keeping the purple layer on normal, I just set the opacity to 36 percent.

>>>

I've got a terrible problem of my icons never being bright enough and I'm eternally brightening them every 5 steps, I'm sorry. XD So here's a levels layer.



NOT ENOUGH PURPLE. I duplicated the purple-tone layer and set it on top, still at normal, to 46% opacity. Ahh better.

>>>

To lighten up the sides of the icon so we really focus on her features, I used some white soft blobs on the sides, set to normal at 46%. White blobs feature pretty heavily in all my icons and sometimes I screen but I have also found that just set to normal on a low opacity gives a nice effect too.

>>>

Another curves layer for MORE brightness and MORE contrast, I am so sorry




Almost perfect, but the last step was to copy merge all the layers and paste as a new layer, whip out the burn brush, and lightly paint over certain parts of the image. I focused on her eyes, nose, and lips, to just make the icon super dramatic. This actress has an amazing face, and The Killing knows it and shows her in close ups all the time. She's one of my favorite faces to do close-up icons of.

Getting side-tracked! Anyway I keep my opacity on the burn brush itself pretty low (it's at 10%) so I can slowly build up the darkness from the burn. The burn tool can get out of control quickly so small amounts in many applications are best!

Usually I abuse textures in my icons but I find for super-close ups like this, simple is better, and bringing out the person's features makes a big impact.

Grand total before and after:

>>>

Let me know if you have any questions! :D And thanks for reading all this, haha. I have another walkthrough I will be putting together but if you have any requests throw them at me!