bel_perdente | |tutorial: ringer (Reply)

A Ringer coloring/texture use tutorial as requested by

Made in Photoshop CS5.
Translatable.

OVERVIEW
This image, while high quality, is quite a difficult image to work with. For starters, the image is grainy. Also, the colors are really muted, which doesn't give much leeway for adding more color and/or improving color. But aside from all that, there's still a lot that can be done with it and in my opinion any image is workable, you just need to use your imagination to get the job done. :D

RESIZING
This image in its original size was HUGE, so of course I had to resize it before I could get to work on it. I resized to 400x266, just to make a more managable and workable canvas. I decided that I wanted the final product to be a duplicate use of the image, so I didn't crop at this point. Usually, when I'm going to go with a blend or a duplicate use of the image I'll color when the image is larger and then go from there.

COLORING/COMPOSITION/TEXTURES
I went with a pretty basic color since I knew that I wasn't going to get much out of it considering the image is so muted and brown looking. I decided to capitalize on the overall brownish/reddish tone with my coloring, which is why the image turned out more red than I usually go with.

Duplicated base + Screen + Screen

Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Color Balance
SHAD: 0, 0, 0
MID: +45, 0, -45
HIGH: 0, 0, 0

Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Levels
Input Levels: 45, 1.00, 255

I copy-merged everything and added a slight gaussian blur, setting the copy to Soft Light. Then copy-merged again and sharpened. The coloring is now complete for this base.

I know it looks a little intense right now. I assumed once the image was at icon-size that the intensity of the colors would be toned down a bit, so I continued on. I copied this base and pasted it into a new 100x100. I used Free-Transform to shrink the image down and move it to the right side of the 100x100 square. I pasted the colored base once again, flipped it horizontally and then set the layer to Lighten. The Lighten blend mode works well with brightly colored well-lit images and is a great tool for blending in a pinch or when you are too lazy to remove a background or whatever. ;D Once again, I used Free-Transform to shrink the image down and position it on the left side of the 100x100. Notice that I cropped the duplicate a little differently than the original copy. It's fun to mix it up like that especially if you are using the same image twice.

Here's what I have so far.

At this point, I merged my layers using merge-visible. Why merge-visible, you ask? This type of merging doesn't completely flatten the image and allows you the flexibility of moving it around should you decide to add more things, for instance, a texture, which is where I'm heading next. I wanted to use a texture that sort of framed both the images. this texture by

innocent_lexys was perfect to use for this icon. Not only do the colors complement each other, but it's also a very feminine delicate looking texture, which I thought fit well for the subject matter. I rotated the texture counter-clockwise so the frame was vertical rather than horizontal because it will fit my image better. I then copied and pasted it onto my base, setting the texture to Lighten. After some fiddling around with the duplicate images and the texture using free-transform and my move tool, I finally managed to come up with a composition I liked.

I'm pretty sure this looks different than the original icon, but my brain is pretty fuzzy on how I managed this, so I'm winging it here, LOL.

FINISHING TOUCHES
So, at this point, I'm finished with the icon in terms of composition, but I wanted to 'set' everything a little more because it seemed to lose a little contrast after I sized it down to icon-size. As a note, I always finish my icons with this step. I don't feel like the icon is completely finished until I do this, LOL.

Copy-merge -> Gaussian Blur -> Soft Light -> Copy-Merge again -> Sharpen.

And the final icon.