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HOW TO COMIC ICONS, KATY STYLE
So I was asked to give a few tips on how I make icons from comics, so I'm going to walk through what I usually do here. There will be pictures and lots of Photoshop jargon, so bear with me.
What I ended up doing was creating a PSD. Basically, after everything is done, I saved the image with all of the layers in tact as a .psd file so that if I opened it at another time, I could just use the same colouring technique again by pasting the next icon above the base icon image that was there before, and under all of the colouring layers that I'll talk about later.
Kind of like this. I've tweaked it a lot, which is why Cyclops is 'Layer 87'... since I just paste on top of him. Sorry, Scott.
So because I use PSDs regularly, all of my layers are just on top of one another. I don't use the flatten option until the very end, and I hardly ever use the base icon more than once.
-> 
We're going to take this Cyclops icon I made for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
opticblasts and I'm going to walk you through the layers and the settings I used for it.
ONE; First up is a photo filter.
It's the one in colour. You can also find it under Layer -> New Adjustment Layer. It's set to a solid colour (#ec8a00) at 25% density.
TWO; Set up a selective colour layer.
This one doesn't really affect Scott since there's not much yellow on the image to begin with, but since this is my usual go-to PSD for comics, I'll add it in. I hate yellows. They're hard to work with, in my opinion. Mostly because of weird lighting. Sooooo... I tend to tone them down, and later on it'll be a huge help. I set this layer to:
yellows; 0%/+57%/-38%/0%
Again, on Scott it doesn't make much difference. On characters like Supergirl? HAHAH GOD.
THREE; My favourite. Levels.
Levels are great. Make a new Levels layer, either through the above method or by Layers->New Adjustment Layer, and set the level to 11/1.20/225 (don't touch output levels, just the sliders). Big change, everything should stand out more now.
FOUR; SEXY CURVES.
This is going to brighten Scott's day up even more, and tbh he needs it. Set the curves layer to OUTPUT 84, INPUT 54, or something similar. It'll probably look a little washed out, but we're going to fix that ASAP.
FIVE; ...WITH ANOTHER LEVELS LAYER!!
The settings for this one should be 22/1.00/255. Basically just made the dark parts darker.
SIX; AND ANOTHER SELECTIVE COLOURS LAYER!!
This is the big colouring one. Scott has a lot of red, so it stands out a lot in this—but again, this is my main PSD for comics, so it tends to work okay for most characters with normal lighting.
The settings for it are intense, so bear with me.
reds: -100%/0%/+43%/0%
yellows: -100%/-17%/+47%/+34%
magentas: -100%/+100%/+100%/+100%
blacks: 0%/0%/0%/+2% (using even a little black will make a big difference, so you can adjust this accordingly)
SEVEN; My other favourite. VIBRANCE. Sadly, I think it's only a CS5 thing, but you can get a similar effect by messing around with saturations... I think.
The settings for this are vibrance +40, saturation +4.
Sweet. Cyke's got some colour to him now.
EIGHT; The next one is the most optional layer. It doesn't make a huge difference, and for different icons I end up removing it or using it. But just in case you like it, I'll talk about it.
Go to Layer->New Fill Layer->Solid Colour and select the colour #880000. Change the type of layer it is to EXCLUSION and an opacity of 10%.
The tends to add blues to the whiter areas and reds to the darks. It's pretty muted, so yeah, pretty optional too.
NINE; ANOTHER COLOUR FILL. This time with #e1e1e1 set to MULTIPLY at 60%. I don't like bright, blinding icons. So this tends to darken the brighter areas up a bit.
TEN; Finally, depth. Some people call it The White Blob, but it's more The White Blob Surrounded By Darkness.
That's the one I made for it, and you can take it if you want. Super easy, make a fill layer, pick a darkish grey colour, then select the brush tool. I put it on soft and fuzzy with a size of 81, then dabbed it in a few spots with white. A window talking about rasterising the layer will come up, and hit yes in order to RASTERISE IT!! so that you can draw on it. I then go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur.
And usually give it a setting of 2 or 3. Just to blur it a bit. Finally, set that layer to SOFT LIGHT with an opacity of 70% (I change this often, depending on the icon) and that's it!
BONUS; If you end up getting too bright in one colour, just set a selective colour layer above your base image and tone down said colour using that (usually by lowering the percentage of black) or if it's not bright enough in one colour, you can use the same method! If the entire image isn't bright enough or is too bright, try a new Vibrance layer.
THIS PSD MADE...
...and most of my other comic icons.
I hope this helps, and if any of you need anything, let me know!
What I ended up doing was creating a PSD. Basically, after everything is done, I saved the image with all of the layers in tact as a .psd file so that if I opened it at another time, I could just use the same colouring technique again by pasting the next icon above the base icon image that was there before, and under all of the colouring layers that I'll talk about later.
Kind of like this. I've tweaked it a lot, which is why Cyclops is 'Layer 87'... since I just paste on top of him. Sorry, Scott.
So because I use PSDs regularly, all of my layers are just on top of one another. I don't use the flatten option until the very end, and I hardly ever use the base icon more than once.
-> We're going to take this Cyclops icon I made for
opticblasts and I'm going to walk you through the layers and the settings I used for it.ONE; First up is a photo filter.
It's the one in colour. You can also find it under Layer -> New Adjustment Layer. It's set to a solid colour (#ec8a00) at 25% density.
TWO; Set up a selective colour layer.
This one doesn't really affect Scott since there's not much yellow on the image to begin with, but since this is my usual go-to PSD for comics, I'll add it in. I hate yellows. They're hard to work with, in my opinion. Mostly because of weird lighting. Sooooo... I tend to tone them down, and later on it'll be a huge help. I set this layer to:
yellows; 0%/+57%/-38%/0%
Again, on Scott it doesn't make much difference. On characters like Supergirl? HAHAH GOD.
THREE; My favourite. Levels.
Levels are great. Make a new Levels layer, either through the above method or by Layers->New Adjustment Layer, and set the level to 11/1.20/225 (don't touch output levels, just the sliders). Big change, everything should stand out more now.
FOUR; SEXY CURVES.
This is going to brighten Scott's day up even more, and tbh he needs it. Set the curves layer to OUTPUT 84, INPUT 54, or something similar. It'll probably look a little washed out, but we're going to fix that ASAP.
FIVE; ...WITH ANOTHER LEVELS LAYER!!
The settings for this one should be 22/1.00/255. Basically just made the dark parts darker.
SIX; AND ANOTHER SELECTIVE COLOURS LAYER!!
This is the big colouring one. Scott has a lot of red, so it stands out a lot in this—but again, this is my main PSD for comics, so it tends to work okay for most characters with normal lighting.
The settings for it are intense, so bear with me.
reds: -100%/0%/+43%/0%
yellows: -100%/-17%/+47%/+34%
magentas: -100%/+100%/+100%/+100%
blacks: 0%/0%/0%/+2% (using even a little black will make a big difference, so you can adjust this accordingly)
SEVEN; My other favourite. VIBRANCE. Sadly, I think it's only a CS5 thing, but you can get a similar effect by messing around with saturations... I think.
The settings for this are vibrance +40, saturation +4.
Sweet. Cyke's got some colour to him now.
EIGHT; The next one is the most optional layer. It doesn't make a huge difference, and for different icons I end up removing it or using it. But just in case you like it, I'll talk about it.
Go to Layer->New Fill Layer->Solid Colour and select the colour #880000. Change the type of layer it is to EXCLUSION and an opacity of 10%.
The tends to add blues to the whiter areas and reds to the darks. It's pretty muted, so yeah, pretty optional too.
NINE; ANOTHER COLOUR FILL. This time with #e1e1e1 set to MULTIPLY at 60%. I don't like bright, blinding icons. So this tends to darken the brighter areas up a bit.
TEN; Finally, depth. Some people call it The White Blob, but it's more The White Blob Surrounded By Darkness.
That's the one I made for it, and you can take it if you want. Super easy, make a fill layer, pick a darkish grey colour, then select the brush tool. I put it on soft and fuzzy with a size of 81, then dabbed it in a few spots with white. A window talking about rasterising the layer will come up, and hit yes in order to RASTERISE IT!! so that you can draw on it. I then go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur.
And usually give it a setting of 2 or 3. Just to blur it a bit. Finally, set that layer to SOFT LIGHT with an opacity of 70% (I change this often, depending on the icon) and that's it!
BONUS; If you end up getting too bright in one colour, just set a selective colour layer above your base image and tone down said colour using that (usually by lowering the percentage of black) or if it's not bright enough in one colour, you can use the same method! If the entire image isn't bright enough or is too bright, try a new Vibrance layer.
THIS PSD MADE...
...and most of my other comic icons.
I hope this helps, and if any of you need anything, let me know!