ext_1645: (Team -- Old Style (anim))
Mish ([identity profile] hsapiens.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] isapiens 2007-08-22 10:59 pm (UTC)

*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.

[livejournal.com profile] 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.

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