First off I use PSP, I don't know how to use PS, it tends to confuse me.. so yeah this is a PSP tutorial. It's translatable though.
Okay so the first thing I do is resize the image.
then I go to Adjust>>Color>>Fade Correction I like the fade correction setting, because it usually adds depth to the photo without changing the original coloring (although it can be used to change the color completely too, it just depends one what setting you use). Then I duplicate the image and set it to screen at about 46% opacity.
She's too yellow, so I make a color balance layer and adjust the midtones.
That's much better, I think her skin looks a lot more natural.
The coloring is pretty, but it's a bit dull I need to add some more color and depth. So I created another color balance layer. This time only adjusting the highlight and shadows.
Now the colors are a lot cooler in tone.
finally I copy merge everything and duplicate the image and set it to soft light 100%.
That's all for the coloring part, it helps mostly with really orange caps/pics.
So the next part of the tutorial is the actual icon making process... I guess lol. IDK. I'm not very good at explaining so, anyway here we go.
first I take the image that I just colored and resize it.
then I smugde the picture frames out of the icon with the smugde brush.
Now because I don't want that ugly white space at the top, I get the selection tool and just select the part above here head all the way across and then stretch it to the top of the icon. Then take the softening tool and just go over all the background to smooth it out so it matches pretty evenly.
Then I created a new raster layer and got the paint brush with the color set to white and with the hardness set to 50% and I painted a bit over her face and next to her head. Then I went to adjust>>blur>>gaussian blur with the radius set to 8.
Then I merged the layers, copied my base and set it to soft light 100%.
The icon was way to blurry for my taste so I went to the adjustment settings and sharpened it once.
Now I wanted to fiddle more with the coloring so I created another color balance layer, I adjusted only the midtones.
color levels: -21 0 +45
I wanted the icons colors to really pop so I created a new saturation layer and upped the saturation to 10.
I wanted the background to really pop so I made two more saturation layers, I upped the blues to 49 and the cyans to 6.
>>
Next I created a Brightness/Contrast layer and set the brightness to 5. I didn't adjust the contrast, although I usually do I didn't think it needed to be adjusted this time.
I tend to change my mind a lot about coloring, and I decided to create one more color balance layer and changed the midtones only.
color levels: -20 0 -37
Finally I created one more raster layer and and took the paint brush with the same exact settings as before and painted a bit more over her face then adjust>>blur>>gaussian blur radius set to 8. I had made this icon last night, but since I forgot everything that I did, I had to just do it again, and it didn't come out exactly the same, but this whole thing is a guide and I really don't think that anyone should be able to recreate an icon that easily anyway lol.
My original icon: the one I made today:
I hope you guys liked the tutorial, I think the next one will be a light texture tutorial, but I'm not sure yet.