Light Orange Icon Coloring

Tutorial

Click on thumbnailed images to enlarge

How to turn this:

to this:

1. We'll start off by opening an image. I used an image of the amazing Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, courtesy of here. Crop it to your liking. I think this coloring tutorial works best with high quality celebrity photoshoot photos with a bright background. To avoid confusion, try using the same image that I'm using.

2. Duplicate your base. Now set the first copy ("Layer 1 copy" or "Background copy") to Screen at 60% opacity. If your picture is already bright, you can lower the opacity. Make sure it's in between 20% to 70%. This basically brightens up your picture, you'll also see why in the next step.

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3. Duplicate your base one more time. Drag it all the way to the top and set it to Soft Light at 60%. This adds some contrast to your image, and the screen we did in the last layer helps tone it out.

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4. Go to Layer >> New Fill Layer >> Solid Color. Choose #ffcc99 and set to Soft Light at 100% opacity.

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This starts the icon off with a cool tan tint.

5. Go to Layer >> New Fill Layer >> Solid Color. Choose #ab3922
and set to Soft Light at 100% opacity.

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Now we've warmed up the tan tint with a darker color.

6. Go to Layer >> New Fill Layer >> Solid Color. Choose #1621ff and set to Exclusion at 20% opacity.

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Added a hint of blue.

7. Go to Layer >> New Fill Layer >> Solid Color. Choose #189140 and set to Soft Light at 60% opacity.

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Green touches added to the icon.

8. Go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Hue/Saturation. The Hue/Saturation window will pop up. Follow my settings:
Hue: 0
Saturation: -13
Lightness: 0

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Tone out the green and blue tints to a minimum. You'll also see why in the next step.

9. Go to Layers >> Adjustment Layers >> Channel Mixer. The Channel Mixer window will pop up. Follow my settings:
Output Channel: Red
Red: +118
Green: -38
Blue: +10

Output Channel: Green
Red: 0
Green: +100
Blue: 0

Output Channel: Blue
Red: 0
Green: -8
Blue: +110

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We then added more green tint. The last step helped neutralized this color.

10. Go to Layers >> Adjustment Layers >> Color Balance. The Color Balance window will pop up. Follow my setting:
Midtones: +37 -18 +9
Shadows: -13 +11 +24
Highlights: +18 -12 +13

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Added some red to the green and blue colors.

11.Go to Layers >> Adjustment Layers >> Curves. The Curves window will pop up.To make a point, press anywhere in the grid, and put the numbers in the little white boxes that appear in the bottom of the grid. Follow my settings:

Channel: RGB
NONE

Channel: Red