A few notes, before we start:
» This icon was originally posted here, for the Chapter One Main Quest: Adventure at theiconquest.
» Program: Photoshop CS5, but almost all of the techniques should be transferable. However, the topaz filter was used and accounts for a lot of the way the icon turns out.
» Difficulty: Easy.



Here's the original photo of Yeeun that we'll be working from, courtesy of the DCWG daum cafe. This was taken at the Wonder Girls' Wonder World Tour in Seoul, July 7 2012.

All sorts of gloriousness is clearly happening in this picture, from Yeeun's hair to her fiercely silhouetted pose to the gorgeous stage lighting. So clearly it needed to be iconned.




01. But out of all the glorious things I could have iconned out of this picture, I chose to focus on her hair and the side profile of her face. Fairly simple crop.


» »

02. Now let's draw attention to the shadowy lightness of her hair. If that makes sense. All those strands? Let's just really accentuate them by abusing the topaz filter, ha ha. I like to use Topaz Clean, on the CrispStyle preset. Usually I fiddle around with the strength/accent settings so that the topaz effect doesn't come out too strong (in this case, I'd just discovered topaz, so I was a bit overexcited whenever I tried to use it haha. In retrospect I do think I could have lessened the effect a bit :x)

Besides fiddling with the various sliders in the topaz filter, creating a layer mask is a tried-and-true method of trying to make sure the topaz effect doesn't overwhelm the entire icon. In this case, since I was focusing on her hair, I just quickly masked out the topaz effects on all other parts of the icon with my mouse.


»

03. Alright, first real step: new auto curves layer, then two new points in RGB: 56, 33 and 173, 148. The first new point lightens the shadows, especially in the stage background behind her. The second new point brightens the bright strands of hair, and the background as well.


»

04. New colour fill layer, #bedbf9 (very light baby blue). Set it to soft light 100% to brighten everything right up, as well as to cool the impact of the heavy red and yellow tones.




05. Quick colour balance layer, on midtones: +10, -19, +13. This solidifies the magenta/blue direction we're going in.


»

06. This texture by lumsx, set to screen 100%.


»

07. This texture by midnight_road, set to screen 100% for some more light.


»

08. Copy merge everything (CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-E), gaussian blur (FILTER > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR > 2.0), and set to soft light 100%. This makes everything just a whole bunch richer, and gets rid of some of the grittiness that came from the texture in step 06.


»

09. Yeah, okay, let's add some more light. This texture (maker ??? sorry sorry sorry :<), set to screen 100%.


»

10. Let's smooth out the almost-gradient going on in the background by copy merging everything again, and this time let's motion blur in the vague direction her hair is heading (15 degrees or so?), and maybe 10 pixels or so to blur it just a little but not too much. Set to soft light 100%.


» »

11. It's a little too blurry for me to look at now, so let's sharpen everything: FILTER > ARTISTIC > PAINT DAUBS > 1, 1.

Okay, now that's a bit too sharp in places, so a quick layer mask to smooth out the parts that were getting pixellated.


»

12. The gradient is way too drastic right now, so let's reverse that by adding a white-to-black gradient fill layer at 90 degrees, set to soft light 100%.


» »

13. The downside of adding a white soft light layer is that things get all yurky and gritty. So. Copy merge everything again, gaussian blur at 2.0 pixels, then desaturate it (CTRL-SHIFT-U) and set it to soft light 100%.


»

14. Everything's too washed out now, so let's add a new bright baby blue colour fill layer (#6cdfe9) and set it to colour burn 100%.


»

15. The transition between blue and magenta seems a bit too drastic right now, so let's add one final blue colour fill layer (#3580fd) and set it to soft light 100%. Tada!

A few notes, before we start:
» This icon was originally posted here, for the Chapter One Main Quest: Adventure at theiconquest.
» Program: Photoshop CS5. Vibrance is used, but that can be easily substituted with a hue/saturation layer.
» Difficulty: Easy.



Ugh. Ugh Sohee why are you so. Ugh. So perfect.

This was taken at the same concert as the previous Yeeun photo.




01. The first thing I did was crop it down, then smudge away the billboard watermark so I could get a nice, dramatic, evenly distributed center crop.


»

02. Alright, first, let's lighten everything up with an auto curves layer. Two new points in RGB: 94, 49 (to lighten all the shadows) and 196, 134 (to brighten everything else too).




03. New vibrance layer (+100) shows the hints of blue in the background.


» »

04. So, okay, yeah, let's build on those blues. Take this texture by midnight_road and set it to soft light 100%. I had to take the smudge tool and smudge some of the parts that were overpowering, especially the hexagonal shapes and the red in the bottom right corner.


» »

05. This texture, again by midnight_road, gaussian blurred at 15.0 pixels, then set to soft light 100%. This adds a bit more colour and also lightens part of the radial shape on the right hand side.


»

06. One of my favourite ever lighting textures, by happy_harper13, set to soft light 100%. Look at that. Look at how easily it evened out the radial shape on the left.


»

07. Alright, well, it's gritty and yucky, so let's go to my fix-all for that: copy merge everything, gaussian blur at 2.0 pixels, and then set it to soft light 100%.


»

08. This texture, by sinking_theship, set to screen 100% so the blacks aren't black anymore and everything is more or less smoothly blue, yay \o/


»

09. Copy merge everything and gaussian blur it at 2.0 pixels, then set it to soft light 100% again.


» »

10. Finally, sharpen (FILTER > ARTISTIC > PAINT DAUBS > 1, 1), then layer mask out the parts that got too sharp.

I was really uncomfortable with how quickly I finished this icon, since normally I add in 2398552 more steps, but people told me to leave it alone, so... I did. So. Tada!!!!

A few notes, before we start:
» This icon was originally posted here, for round 3 at nikita_20in20.
» Program: Photoshop CS5. Vibrance is used, but you can easily substitute that with a subtle hue/saturation layer.
» Difficulty: ? This tutorial is going to consist of a lot of random textures slapped on for no particular discernible reason. My process was basically "let's throw everything on and see what sticks"......... I would just like to disclaim up here that I don't believe this is an effective iconning method for anyone ever ˚⌇˚



Here's the original screencap from Nikita 2x08, from disparue, I think.





» » »

01. I was feeling particularly lazy while cropping this icon, so it was just a quick center crop trying to get as much of only her in it. Usually I don't sharpen (FILTER > ARTISTIC > PAINT DAUBS > 1, 1) at the beginning, but for some reason that's what I opened with here. Then a quick layer mask over part of her hair that got a little bit too sharpened.




02. A vibrance +100 layer to bring out some of the hidden colours.


»

03. New auto curves layer for the contrast, then two new points in RGB: 75, 56 and 181, 160 to brighten everything up.




04. Another vibrance +100 layer.


»

05. This texture, by ellaangelus, set to soft light 100%.


»

06. This texture, by mosaically, set to screen 100%.


»

07. This texture, by paytheboy, set to screen 100% for some more grittiness.


»

08. Another auto curves layer to add contrast back in.


»

09. A blue colour fill layer (#253d7f), set to soft light 100% to bring out her clothing.


»

10. This texture by paytheboy, set to soft light 100% to brighten up her face.


»

11. This texture, by spud66cat, set to colour burn 25%.


»

12. Go back down to the base, duplicate it, drag it up to the top, and gaussian blur it at 2.0 pixels before setting it to soft light 100% to soften some of the grittiness that came from setting all those light textures to soft light.


»

13. New orange colour fill layer (#ca9e49), set to soft light 50% to make her look less green-y.


»

14. This texture, by mm3butterfly, set to soft light 35% to lighten things up.




15. Quick colour balance to tone down the greeny-yellowness and make a little more reddish: midtones +12, +1, +20.


» »

16. This texture, also by mm3butterfly, flipped vertically (EDIT > TRANSFORM > FLIP VERTICALLY) and set to soft light 50%.




17. New vibrance layer, +100.




18. New selective colouring layer:
YELLOWS 0, 0, +18, 0
CYANS -100, 0, -100, -100
BLUES -100, -33, -100, +100


» » »

19. This texture, yet again! by mm3butterfly, flipped horizontally, then smudged so its effect would be softer after being set to screen 90%.


»

20. New grey-to-black gradient map (#d9e6dd), set to soft light 100%.


» » » »

21. This texture by ellaangelus, desaturated, then IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST -25, +100 before being stretched horizontally (CTRL-T) and smudged and messed around with before being set to screen 100%.


»

22. Let's reintroduce some contrast with another auto curves layer and two more new RGB points: 59, 72 and 166, 168 to darken things a little more.


»

23. This texture by ellaangelus set to soft light 50%.




24. New selective colouring layer:
YELLOWS 0, -11, +100, 0


» »

25. New vibrance +100 layer, layer masked over the bottom left since we're not interested in making that part stand out.




26. New selective colouring layer:
CYANS +100, 0, -50, 0


»

27. New teal layer (#3a7c74) set to soft light 30%.




28. New colour balance layer, midtones: +15, 0, 0.


»

29. Copy merge everything, desaturate it, gaussian blur at 2.0 pixels, then set it to overlay 100%.




30. Finally, sharpen it (FILTER > SHARPEN > UNSHARP MASK). tada १|˚–˚|५