Icon Recipe #2 -- How I Use Selective Color

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

The bulk of this tutorial has inadvertently become "How I Use Selective Color (Hopefully for Good Rather than Neon-Colored Evil)" and I apologize upfront to GIMP and PSP users. I understand that those programs do not offer the selective color option but I have no idea how to replicate the effect in those programs as I've never used them.

avidrosette asked how I made the icon I'm using on this post. It was rather embarrassingly simple, I hate to admit. No textures. No brushes. Nothing fancy. It seems my fate that people only ask about the simplest of icons with the fewest cool "tricks." This possibly says something about misplaced pride over learning new and complex tricks (*g*) but which I'm determined to take as meaning one cannot overestimate the importance of good source material.

I started with a luscious, hi-res promo photo. It's hard to go wrong when you've gotten your hands on a gorgeous pic. Besides, who can mess up when starting with Kandyse McClure's beauty?

How I went

from: to:



Most of these steps will sound very, very familiar if you've read any other tutorial I've written.

(credits/resource links are at the end of the tutorial)

1. Crop the image to 100x100 @ 100 ppi.



I cropped this picture probably at least a dozen times before settling on this one. I turned several crops into icons for the IBARW post, but this is the most dramatic crop.

2. Prepare the base.



I described in somewhat agonizing detail how I get clarity in icons in a previous post so I won't bore you with those details again. You'll notice precious little difference from Step #1; that's the value of an excellent source pic. :)

3. Duplicate base and set to 100% soft light.



Commonly, I include a screened copy of the base between the base and the soft light duplicate but this was a promo photo so the lighting didn't need to be increased. However, I thought the photo lacked contrast and soft light layers increase contrast.

4. Gradient Map, Soft Light 100% -- between the base and the soft light duplicate layer.

+ =

Again, this is familiar, no? I chose a light, neutral gradient because the preceding step made the image too dark but I liked the colors.

5. Add a light, peachy solid color layer (#ffede4), Multiply 26% -- above the gradient map layer and below the duplicated base set to soft light.

+ =

The image had lost a lot of the warmth in her skin tones and I wanted to subtly warm the photo. I chose a light color to avoid darkening the photo; that's very easy to do with something like multiply. Also? The more saturated the color, the better the selective color layer works.

6. Selective Color, Normal 100%

OK, here's where I admit my ignorance of formal selective color theory. I'm no expert; I just play with it. If you find a salient discussion, I'd love a link. My approach is to start with the big changes and then refine. The order I use is:

- start with the neutrals and balance those so that I find them attractive,
- tweak the other colors to do any of a number of things (warm them, cool them, de-emphasize them, emphasize them, etc.), and
- finally I play with the black and white settings.

I'm assuming that you're familiar with selective color so I'm not going to discuss the basics. However, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask; I'll do my best to answer anything I know. I'm giving you the final numbers I ended up with but, as anyone who has ever tried to use a tutorial's numbers like a recipe has discovered, this particular set will not produce the same results on any picture but this one. I'm going to concentrate, instead, on why I did what did and hope that the ideas are useful.

In this case, I wanted to continue warming the image to represent Dualla's heat and passion. (Also? warm skin tones are more appealing than cool ones.)

Here's how I did the selective color, step by step:

6a. NEUTRALS = -13, 0, +10, +18



I increased the red and yellow to warm it up. Increasing the black in neutrals often increases the contrast, which added a touch of drama. After the neutrals, the reds and yellows have the most dramatic effect so I deal with those next.

6b. REDS = -31, +4, +16, +21



On the red, I increased red, very slightly upped the magenta (a little goes a loooong way), added yellow to keep it from going sunburnt, and darkened the reds to make them more prominent.

6c. YELLOWS = -34, +8, +39, +37



I did essentially the same thing with the yellows that I'd done with the reds: I added red, a bit of magenta, and yellow to warm them up before darkening them to make them more prominent.

6d. Finish off the other colors.
GREENS = +42, -100, 0, 0
CYANS = +73, 0, -100, +40
BLUES = 0, 0, -100, 0
MAGENTAS = 0, +100, 0, 0



Messing with these colors is probably superfluous since there really isn't much green/cyan/blue/magenta in the image; I'm not certain that it makes any discernible difference. However, when I was cropping I noticed the actress's gorgeous, hazel eyes and I wanted to make them pop.

To emphasize the green, I adjusted the greens and cyans. In the greens, I added cyan and removed all magenta. In the cyans, I added a lot of cyan, removed all yellow, and darkened them. I wanted intensity of "pure" color so for the blues and magentas, I removed the opposing colors. All yellow was removed from the blues and all green was removed from the magenta.

To repeat, this step could almost certainly be skipped because the effect is so small. But once I start playing, I tend to tweak each color regardless of need.


6e. Adjust the whites and blacks.
WHITES = +14, 0, -27, 0
BLACKS = 0, 0, 0, +8



Americans prefer our whites to be slightly bluish rather than yellowish; in fact, we tend to perceive a very slightly bluish white to be "whiter" than pure white. This explains those blue bits in American powdered laundry detergent. It's a perception that I normally play to by adjusting the whites a tiny bit, making them cooler by increasing the cyan and decreasing the yellow. I normally do this very sparingly.

In this case, I exaggerated the effect because I liked the contrast between the warmth of her skin and the cool of the highlights. The blacks I barely touched, other than to darken them just a hair. With the whites becoming more prominent, I wanted to keep the piece from looking overlightened.

7. Redden her lips using a new selective color layer, Normal 100%.
REDS = -18, +26, 0, +43



I like the intimacy of the crop but between the actress's neutral lipstick and the crop, we've lost sight of how nicely shaped her lips are. I added a new selective coloring layer, masked off everything but her lips. All I had to adjust here were the reds. I reddened them a bit but most of the magic comes from adding a heavy dose of magenta and darkening them.

Emphasizing lips is highly variable, because every photo is going to be individual and it's easy to make the lips look awful. They not only have to be colored, but they have to look good with the skin tone and it's easy to become garish. Not so different, actually, from the daunting task of picking out a good lipstick in real life.

I tend to darken first, add magenta, and then add red. That seems to better produce "normal" looking lipstick shades -- but every photo is different. Less is usually more.

8. One last selective coloring layer, Normal 100%.
BLACKS = 0, 0, 0, +11



I wanted a tiny bit more contrast in the final product so I darkened the blacks a smidge. That's a trick I like to use because it not only increases contrast but tends to make details appear a tiny bit more in focus.


...And, that's it! The reasoning behind selective coloring got a bit long but the icon itself is really quite simple. elfcat255, I know I still owe you the "How I Use Textures" post and I've been working on it. I find myself kind of saying "what tinamishi and sanami276 said" and pointing. :) I'm a bit intimidated. I've started it and have thought of a couple of tricks I use that aren't mentioned there but I don't have a whole lot that's new to add to their quite excellent posts.


~~**~~
Resource Credits/Links:
a. The original image is a studio promo photo I snagged from a picspam hosted by sage_theory in her LJ in honor of IBARW.

b. by oxoniensis and available in her skin tones gradient set.

Comments

[elfcat255.livejournal.com]

ooooo....cool!...hmmm..I may can duplicate that in GIMP...let me fool around with it some...heh and you are so right, sometimes it's the simplest things you do to an icon that draw folks atention to it..*whistles innocently*...hence my reluctance to make tutorials and don't worry, the posts you pointed me towards have helped..*nods*...Toodles!*runs back to work*

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

That would be really cool if you could. I have no idea what the equivalences are but I know it has to be doable.

I'm willing to make tutorials if people ask. Even if they never ask about the icons I'm patting myself on the back for because I'm just so darned clever. ;) I don't volunteer to make them because I tend to do simple things like this and there's a huge amount of "oh, that again" in the prepping of an image. While I do have a talent for stating the obvious, I try to avoid being pedantic about the obvious. So someone has to tell me that the process isn't obvious because, well, I was there when it was made and so I have no perspective as to what is obvious and what is not.

[wive.livejournal.com]

Oh this is great!
I always do your "clarity in icons" on my every icon and they get so much clearer thanks to you!

Looking forward to try this one.

HUGS!!

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

*hugs back* I'm glad you find that helpful. :) I learned a lot from icon_ascension and I assume she learned it from elsewhere...it's part of the fannish collective consciousness.

I know that language barriers are a problem. If anything I wrote up there isn't clear (I keep forgetting to use Photoshop Standard Language when naming things), don't hesitate to tell me. This tutorial relies less on technique and more on understanding the principles because selective color is too variable (9 options with 4 variables each, that's 36 settings to use in each layer). It doesn't translate well as anything other than concept from pic to pic. I'm happy to try to make it understandable if something is too garbled to make sense of easily.

[wive.livejournal.com]

Jupp, very helpfull although the colors was a mess for the icon I chose. LOL
But I learned a few tricks. And the language was great.
Will show you when the contest is over... ;0)

*smooches*

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry it didn't work for your icon but I'm not surprised. The real drawback of writing a selective color "tutorial" is that the information presented is how it is applied to a particular photo to get a particular effect. Unless you have a lot of photos from the same photo shoot, though, the effects will never be the same twice. I developed my method of dealing with selective color by finding about 15 or so selective color tutorials that I liked (make neon green!, make neon red!, work with a low contrast/low color photo!, make really intense, cool colors!, etc.) and taking turns with them on a single photo to see how they worked.

You know, maybe I should try to track down some of those tutorials and make a list of them? I failed to bookmark most of them and I only added those that were truly original to my tutorial index but maybe that would be a good way to help people learn selective coloring.

[paddies.livejournal.com]

Great tutorial (and beautiful icon)! :x:x:x

I pretty much work the same way you do, but I use the "curves" palette instead of the "selective colors" one...:-)

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

Gio!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *HUGS YOU* I'm so happy to hear from you, hon. I was starting to worry we'd lost you entirely to the world of Stephanie Plum. I do hope that your continuing absence is due to enjoying the fan fic and not because of anything else. I also dare to hope that the world of Brian and Justin will lure you back to us, eventually. Or, you know, Hiro, Mohinder, Ando, Claire, and the Petrellis. I'm easy. *g*

I would really love to look over your shoulder when you are using curves because I can't imagine being able to use them so well. I am quite envious of your ability to use them to that purpose.

I suspect that selective color is supposed to be a bit more complex than my understanding of it but I haven't found any good explanations and so I have made up my own system.

[paddies.livejournal.com]

*HUGS BACK TIGHTLY*

Eh, I'm still enjoying the Plum!fic world...but sadly I pretty much read everything I could find around... There are always "work in progress", but they make me nervous...there's noting I detest more than a story left unfinished... *sigh*

But yes, I guess when the new TV season will start again, I'll be back into the "swing" of things! :-)

I would really love to look over your shoulder when you are using curves because I can't imagine being able to use them so well. I am quite envious of your ability to use them to that purpose

It's really not that difficult...I think it's just a matter of habit. :-) And to me it's always about what looks good to me, instead of following "rules" or "canon"...making up your own system is definitely the way to go... ;-)

*kisses madly*

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

I've learned the hard way to avoid WIPs. Not only because they might not be finished but because I can't keep the story lines in my head.

I don't think anything is difficult when you know how to do it. It's the knowing that's the difficult part. I can use curves to adjust lighting, adjust contrast, get rid of color cast perhaps...but not to do the fine points of coloring. I've read several tutorials by brasaremean that use curves but so far I haven't really understood how to apply the knowledge there.

[avidrosette.livejournal.com]

This is incredibly helpful - thank you so much for writing it! You're right, that actress is lovely, and, in your icon, you've also made her glamorous, luscious. You've taken a businesslike promo shot and made a stunning portrait. That you didn't overwork the image with a single unnecessary element surely needs no apology. :-) The lesson of knowing when to stop - when maximum impact is achieved without additional tricks - is probably as important to teach as any technical one.

Your explanation of the "why"s of selective color was extremely useful. A lot of "eye" work here; actually harder in some ways than purely technical work. It was also fascinating to learn that you had selected individual sections of the face for their own, separate coloring work. Nifty to know you can do that with such seamless results.

It was interesting to see how you had initially lightened and warmed the entire image with fill layers before building it up with more vivid color and contrast than the original had had - like preparing the underlayer of a canvas. ::makes more notes::

It seems my fate that people only ask about the simplest of icons with the fewest cool "tricks."

I wonder if people are just shy about asking? I know I felt greedy asking for another tutorial, even after you had generously offered. *g* Maybe a solution would be just to write tutorials for icons that interested or challenged you, sort of like awmpdotnet does? I'm sure people would pore over them eagerly, even if they wouldn't have asked for them on their own.

Thanks again for the wonderful tutorial! ::hugs::

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

*blush* You're very kind. Promo photos are often difficult for me to work with. They are of better quality than screen caps, to be sure, but they're normally so stiff and "portrait-like" as to be uninteresting. Or, more precisely, too often they are beyond my imagination to make interesting. ;) Kandyse, luckily, is pretty enough to carry even a "boring" photo.

It's a LOT of eye-work, to be certain. Fortunately, selective color is a somewhat forgiving medium. In truth, I doubt the difference between setting a slider to +20 will really be all that noticeable to setting it to +10 if you're talking any of the colors other than the neutrals. Mostly, it's a job of getting it in the neighborhood. But it has taken me a long time of playing around to figure out how to make it work in a way that I like. What I love about selective color is that it is possible to seamlessly adjust bits and pieces.

I suppose that people could be shy about asking. I've tried to be open and to express how honored I am that anyone wants to know how I made something, but I'd bet people do worry about that. I know I am reticent to ask and it stems from shyness and not wishing to impose. I'm always tickled to be asked because it means someone really likes what I did and wants to know how to do it. Please don't feel greedy. :)

I start nearly every icon in one of two ways: base/screen copy/soft light copy or I use a method similar to the one awmp outlined here: Brightening of dark caps (very easy) (http://community.livejournal.com/awmpdotnet/15357.html). Everything else I do is adjusting coloring and contrast.

awmp has an amazing insight and first hand knowledge of Photoshop that I do not. Everything I know is available somewhere else because what I know comes from the very generous tutorial writers of LJ. It seems...disingenuous?...to repackage their tutorials and call it my own. I suppose that if people are too shy to ask, it's equally true that I'm too shy to presume that I know things that others do not. And, strange as it sounds, it feels like bragging if I write a tutorial any time I feel particularly clever in having made an icon. You're right, of course, but it will take a real change in my thinking to prompt me to spontaneously write up tutorials.

[memento1.livejournal.com]

This was WONDERFUL. The first tutorial where I felt like I really started to "get" Selective Color. Most tutorials just put up their numbers and don't explain WHY. It has been frustrating me for a very long time, so I was thrilled to find one that broke down why every slider was moved and the principles behind the coloring. Thank you thank you thank you!

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so pleased that this was useful. Selective Coloring is individual to the picture and so most of those recipes are good for little more than the single photo. I hoped this would be different since once I looked at the icon, I realized it was little more than a few selective coloring layers.

I'm no expert -- I've seen others create far more stunning works -- but if I wasn't clear on anything please don't hesitate to ask. I'll do my best to help in any way possible if I know the answer.