COLOR TUTORIAL #3

COLOR TUTORIAL #3

Yet another tutorial, this time with orange, yellow, contrasting and Sam and Dean. Beginner to Intermediate level skills. I use Photoshop CS6 for all of my tutorials. 

To be clear, I will show you how to turn this unedited screencap of Sam Winchester:

Into this:

First things first, open up the top screencap and crop as needed. My cap was cropped on the top and bottom edges, and resized it to 500 x 264. Then I duplicated the background layer, set it to screen and duplicate it again. Adjust the opacity of the second duplication as you need to. 

Like most of my tutorials I use gradient layers to increase light and shadows. Right click on the two below to save them. 

The top one needs to be set to soft light, and placed wherever the greatest shadows are in your image. For this cap, the dark in on the left, the light on the right. Duplicate that layer, then add the bottom gradient set to soft light again, opacity should be 75-80%.

Next a black and white adjustment set to soft light, I put the opacity to about 12%. Next color balance. 

(color balance: +22, +5, -33; I didn’t change the shadows or highlights)

Then another color balance. 

(color balance: +38, -9, +37;  I didn’t change the shadows or highlights)

Mask this color balance layer and focus it on the background. My end mask was like this: 

Now we add some color. Make a new blank layer and take a large soft brush in an orange tone (#f5c665) Set it to hard light, 38-40% opacity. Then color on the right side, away from Sam. 

Another color balance layer. This time: midtones -10, 0, +15; highlights +23, +17, +31; shadows +29, 0, +36.

Mask that color balance like the layer above. We only want these tones on the right side. Add another one, this one will be for the entire image. Midtones 0, 0, 0; highlights 0, 0, -3; shadows +3, 0, -3. Next make a selective color adjustment, only focusing on black tones (+20). 

Then another blank layer, and this time just use black to fill in the left hand side. Use a soft brush; like so:

Next two solid color fill layers. The first in this color #ec9d75, 44% opacity. The second in this color #e07761, 60% opacity. These are the masks: 

Another selective color; reds, -10, +8 and blacks 0,0,0, +8. Now add a black & white gradient, soft light blend mode and 44% opacity.This is how he looks so far:

Next I did a lot of coloring to the eyes. Curves, color balance and a layer of black fro the pupil. Then I used a light pink color set to multiply and colored over his lips at a low opacity. Subtle changes in detail can make all the difference in my opinion, but these two steps are optional. 

(color balance: midtones +6, 0, -13; highlights +6, 0,  +20; shadows 0, 0, 0)

Then a vibrance adjustment, +19, +5. Yet another color balance: midtones -8,0,-12; highlights 0,0,+20; shadows 0,0,0.

(selective color: reds +12,-4,-7,0)

Now stamp the image (ctrl+shift+alt+e) and smart sharpen. These are the settings I always use.

Last, I added one more color balance and masked it like so: 

(color balance: midtones -13,0,-24; highlights 0,0,-15; shadows 0,0,0)

Finished result:

Here is a second image, this time of Dean with the same method:

DOWNLOAD THE PSD HERE.

“in order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.”

If you happen to find my skeleton, please don’t step on my skull. Thanks. —Ish

COLOR TUTORIAL GIF #1

Another tutorial this time for gifs. A really easy guide for dark gifs and color porn backgrounds. This isn’t a beginner tutorial; for how to make gifs and details on masking an image refer to the links in the post. 

I’m teaching you how to make the background a different color than the rest of the image on a gif:

First open up the gif you want to use. I am using this one for this tutorial. I made it myself using this method. 

Next some light and color. Make a curves layer output 175, input 77. Levels, 0,1.28, 255, output 0, 206.

Then lots of selective color. I ended with four layers of selective color total. 

(blacks: 0,0,0,-13, cyans: +100,-39,-66,0)

(cyans: +100,-36,-30,0; blues: +49,-19,-100,0; yellows: -16,-27,-100,0)

Add a hue/saturation, with saturation set to +12. Then a color balance, midtones: -27,0,+30. Another selective color on top, set for:

(reds: +21,+64,-31,-52; yellows: -50,-34,0,0; cyans: -6,-58,-58,+4)

Here it is so far:

Now the hard part, which isn’t really hard just incredibly tedious. 

Make another selective layer, make sure it’s all the same selective layer and the coloring is set to ABSOLUTE. Here are the settings:

(yellows: -2,-4,-47,0; cyans: +83,0,0,0; whites: -19,+32,0,0; neutrals: +56,-20,-90,0)

Now we mask it, make sure the selective color layer is selected, then press ctrl+i. Use a black brush, soft round to fill in the parts of the background you want in color. For those of you who don’t know how to use mask, please go here for info. 

Here is my first mask:

Make sure that selective layer is visible for animation frame 1. If that was super confusing to you, the look below.

Make sure the selective layer you just masked is hidden for all the other frames. Next click frame 2 and duplicate the selective layer from below and erase the parts that are on Malia’s hair and face. 

*The secret to it looking natural at the edges of her hair, is to use lower opacity for the brush when you’re erasing the color on Malia. 

Rinse and repeat for all 32 layers. I said it was tedious. 

And you know what? That was it. As always, DOWNLOAD THE PSD here. If you were confused at any point then definitely download the PSD. 

Also here are two gifs with the same editing style. 

Don't bring flowers after I'm dead Save your givings for the living instead