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The Lembas Guide to Selective Colour Banners
http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=20793
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Author:  lembas [ April 12th, 2010, 12:33 pm ]
Post subject:  The Lembas Guide to Selective Colour Banners

Whee I thought I'd have a shot at making some tutorials of Request banners I've done, mainly because I actually have the requests psds nicely saved in an organised folder, whereas everything else is left in a mess called WIPS...

This is probably better for people who know how to use photoshop, becuase I'm too lazy to explain everything

Anywho
Heres how to make a selective colour banner like this:
Image

1 - Make a new file in photoshop, I used 600 x 200 but you can do whatever size you feel like making.

Paste your images ionto the canvas on seperate layers, resize them and position them where you want. I used this one and this one of Liv Tyler

Image

2- Now for the blending.

First you need a background colour so get your eyedropper tool and pic a colour from the image background, mine was #0f1a0f. Make a new layer, drag it behind the other layers and fill it with colour.

Now we need to get rid of the edges of the images, take the eraser tool on a relatively large size (20px +) with 0 hardness and erase bits of the background so it blends, it doesn't need to be super neat.

Image

The image on the left was slightly cropped and had a darker background so to blend it better I made a new layer, picked a colour from her shoulder and used the circular gradient tool with #040e08 to make a sort of glow behind her

Image

3- Now we need to prepare the images for selective colour, I start by duplicating all my layers and then merging the duplicates together into one base image (I'll call it base for now :) ), then I still have the original images incase I make any mistakes! Hide all layers appart from the base and sharpen base if needed.

Now duplicate the base image twice so I have 3 copies of it. Change the Blend mode of Copy 1 to Screen 100% and Copy 2 to Overlay 100%

The image should look something like this

Image

I think it looks quite dark, as it is so I decided to add a glow. To do this on a new layer above all the others, I grabbed my gradient tool and made a circular gradient towards the left, using #cdcdcc. Then I set that layer to Linear Light 60% and erased any bits that covered Liv with my eraser tool.

Image

4- Selective colour works best with a bright colour contrast, because my image looked quite black, I added a new layer with #fef668 set at Soft light 100% over the top

Image

I still thought the picture looked quite cold, so I grabbed this texture by RHCP_CSI, pasted it onto a new layer and set it to Soft Light 100%

Image

5- Now for the fun bit. Selective colour!!!

Make a new Selective colour adjustment layer and use these settings:

Reds:

Cyan: -45
Magenta: +11
Yellow: +48
Black: +35

Yellows:

Cyan: -10
Magenta: +39
Yellow: +12
Black: 0

Neutrals:

Cyan: +100
Magenta: +16
Yellow: -100
Black: 0

I usually like primary colour contrasts, so I try and make the red and blue as bright as possible (whilst still looking nice) and the skin slightly yellowy or orange

the banner should now look like this

Image

6- Now to jazz it up a bit, take this light texture, by Crazy Kira, resize it to fit your canvas and set it to Screen 100%. I thought the colours looked a bit dull so I dragged it below the yellow fill layer made in step 4 which intensified the colours

Image

Finally, add text, whatever you like in whatever font you like :)
I used More Enchanted Praerie Dog for the Large text and Men in Black Credits, with spaces inbetween each letter, for the Small text. Both were custom fonts from DA Font. I wrote them both in white #ffffff.
I used my pencil tool to draw a line dividing them & then added a Dedication.

And your finished :)
Image

I hope that was easy enough to follow, any more specific questions just ask me, I'd be happy to help

Author:  Aramel Elyanwe [ April 12th, 2010, 4:31 pm ]
Post subject: 

I love you. :hug:

I wish I had Photoshop so I could try this, but alas, I'm stuck with PSP... :P Probably don't have enough space on the computer to download anything else but I'd love to get a free trial of Photoshop somehow. :happy:

Author:  lembas [ April 12th, 2010, 4:44 pm ]
Post subject: 

Thanks :hug:

Aww no, I don't know if selective colour is translatable in psp because I lost psp before I really had a chance to use photoshop properly D: pretty much everything else you can do in psp though, its just linear light is more dodge/hard light :)

Author:  SilverRose [ April 12th, 2010, 5:33 pm ]
Post subject: 

I would KILL to have selective coloring in Photoshop Elements. 'Nuff said.

Author:  Pandora [ April 12th, 2010, 10:13 pm ]
Post subject: 

A Lembas Tutorial!!! I shall try it as soon as possible! I'll post what I create just to see how it turns out :hug:

Author:  lembas [ April 13th, 2010, 5:10 am ]
Post subject: 

oh noes, Right my next tutorial is gonna have to be s/c free so you all can try it out :)

And I can't wait to see what you come up with pan

Author:  *Ennostiel* [ April 13th, 2010, 8:57 am ]
Post subject: 

I had to add a bit of extra colouring on the left picture to make it match a bit more after the selective colouring but;

Image
Image
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6745 ... lyadri.png

[ :( for some reason AU seems to be killing the quality/especially the text :confused: In PS it's fine, in the direct link it's fine but not here... ? that sucks :frust: ]
Awesome tutorial <3 Can't wait for more :happy:

Author:  lembas [ April 13th, 2010, 10:09 am ]
Post subject: 

:D Wowness Enno that looks awesome!!! I love the text- and hooray for improvising!!! Thats usually how I follow a tut, I take the basics and then make it look better by myself. The Result looks great!!!

Crazy that A-U has eaten the quality in that way though :/ thats kinda weird D: sill A-U

Author:  Nurrantiel Mashiara [ April 13th, 2010, 7:36 pm ]
Post subject: 

I LOVE SELECTIVE COLORING.

Seriously, when I first got Photoshop I went sc happy. I think I've managed to tone it down some now, but it's still sooo great! And nice tutorial. I haven't thought of the circular gradient to make things fit better, shall have to give that a try sometime. =D

Author:  Taurquende [ April 13th, 2010, 9:41 pm ]
Post subject: 

Yay! Thanks for writing a tutorial, Lembas! :D Selective coloring is really nifty. I've always wanted to learn to use it, but I have trouble figuring out where to start and what works best. But here's what I came up with using your tutorial:

Image

I'm really happy with how it turned out! :D

Author:  Will [ April 14th, 2010, 2:55 am ]
Post subject: 

^That's absolutely amazing Taur! :happy:

Thanks for the tutorial Lembas! Whenever I get my PS back on my pc I'll try this. :)

Author:  lembas [ April 14th, 2010, 5:47 pm ]
Post subject: 

Nurr: HIGH FIVE!!! for Selective Colour, I love it to death!! I think nearly all my graphics make use of it too, its just some its more obvious. For the tut banner, selective colour really "Made" it for me, so it was more s/c heavy, whereas on others I just use it to add depth or contrast. and the gradient thing I don't do a lot sometimes I find it really useful, sometimes it just uglifies everything :)

Taur Oh my, your banner looks amazing!!!

I didn't really understand s/c at first and I learnt how to use it through Lj tuts, I find it works better with higher contrast, and then adding a yellow and or blue layer over the top of the base image usually messes with the colour balance enough to get a nice effect :)

Will No problem atall, I'd love to see what you come up with when you do :)

Author:  Taurquende [ April 14th, 2010, 7:28 pm ]
Post subject: 

@ Will... Thanks so much! :happy:

@ Lembas... Thank you! Those are great tips, and I will definitely enjoy experimenting a lot more with selective coloring. :D I love how vibrant and polished it makes the colors look! But I meant to ask, what layer of the Varianna banner did you use the s/c on? I couldn't figure it out, so for my banner I just merged all the layers and used it on that... :erm:

Author:  lembas [ April 15th, 2010, 3:32 pm ]
Post subject: 

Ooops sorry for not making that clear, I actually made a new Adjustment layer (Layer>>Adjustment layers >> Selective colour) and then put that at the top. You can do it the way you did it, but I find adjustment layers easier becuase you can edit them if they aren't right and drag them up and down

Author:  Aramel Elyanwe [ April 15th, 2010, 3:46 pm ]
Post subject: 

Oi gods, if you and Lothy teamed up to write a tut I think AU would explode from epicness :swoon: Just sayin'. Cause both of your styles are so beautiful that if ever it were to happen I would personally faint beneath the laptop and melt into a puddle of Ara juice.

Author:  Lothy [ April 15th, 2010, 3:53 pm ]
Post subject: 

You know that sounds like a good plan, one which I would be happy to put into action XD

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