Supernatural Tutorial

Requested by chrissybug16.

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- made in PS CS2
- uses selective coloring
- I won't give you specific numbers in this tutorial or upload the psd file



Preparing the base

.01 I cropped my base from this screencap (from homeofthenutty.com).

The first thing I always do is sharpen the base.
I usually use the unsharpen mask. I use different settings for each icon, so I’m just going to give you a range of numbers.

Amount: 25% – 50%
Radius: 0,4 pixels – 0,8 pixels
Threshold: 0

I tend to use the normal sharpen tool instead when I’m working with very blurry images.




.02 This base is very too dark. And the coloring for this icon will make it even darker, so I needed to brighten up the base quite a bit.
I duplicated the base twice and set both layers to screen at 100%.

I duplicated my base once more, dragged that layer to the top and set it to soft light at 60%. The cap lost a lot of contrast with all the screen layers. This is an easy way to get some of it back.

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Basic coloring

The coloring for this icon is a bit tricky, because - looking at the base - there are not really a lot of colors in the picture. So this images pretty much needs everything. Which is good in a way. You don't have to try and get rid of colors you don't want to have in your icon. You just need to boost the one you do want. I like to use color balance and selective color layers to do that.

.03 I started with the selective coloring adjustment layer.

Red and Yellow channel
- add all the red and yellow you can get (cyans to -100%, yellows to +100%)
- add some blacks (this will make you colors a bit stronger ans darker, more natural, about +50%)

Gray and Black channel (only some minor adjustments)
- add some blacks (for contrast, about +5% - +10%)
- add some reds and yellows (just a bit and see if it works for your image)

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.04 A curves adjustment layer.
The image still is too dark so I used a curves layer to brighten it up a bit more. It helps me to get started on my coloring first because it helps me to get an idea about where I'll go with it and how bright I need the image to be.
The settings really depend on you icon. I made two points for this one:

1st point
Input: ~167
Output: ~187
2nd point
Input: ~88
Output: ~108

The numbers are not exact. Just look at your icon and how it changes as you make your adjustments.

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.05 I then used a color balance adjustment layer.
I really like using color balance layers because the can be really effective. What I did here was just raising the reds and yellows in both channels, the midtones and shadows, to about 10 (sometimes a bit more or less).

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Fine-tuning

.06 Dean's skin looks a bit pixelated now. In order to get rid of that I merged all my layers down. Then I used the blur tool and just softened his skin a little.

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.07 To bring out the shadows a bit more I duplicated the image and set that layer to soft light at 25%.

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.08 I wasn't satisfied with the coloring of the icon so I added another selective coloring layer.

Red Channel
- added some more red (about -25%)
- added more yellow (about +60%)
- added just a bit black ( about +5%)

Yellow channel
- added some red (about -20%)
- added some yellow (about +20%)
- took out some black (about -15%)

White channel
- added lots of yellow (about +70%)
- took out some black (about -15%)

Gray channel
- fiddled a bit with the reds and yellows
- took out some black (about -5% - -10%)

Black channel
- fiddles a bit with the reds and yellows
- added some blacks (about +5%)

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.09 I used a hue/saturation layer to boost all the colors just a little bit more. I raised the saturation to about +5%

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.10 The icon looked a bit too blurry to me, so I merged all layers again and duplicated the new base. I sharpened the top layer with the normal sharpening tool and lowered the layer's opacity to about 55%.

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.11 Then I added my text and I'm done!

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Please let me know if I messed something up!