Hello Everyone :D

Recently I've had a few questions about the coloring I use in my banners, headers...etc. And thought I'd share with you all just one of them. It's simple and effective and brightens up the colors nicely. This is used in GIMP so I'm not sure if its transferable in other programs. But give it a try.
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Now in this Tut I'm using a screencap from the movie Twilight, but it can be used in roughly any cap or photo you like.

THis is what's going to happen......From THIS to THIS

STEP 1: Firstly I opened GIMP up and opened the "Open a new Image" and placed my size of the banner as 550x250 (Set yours to whatever you like). Resolution x & y set at 100. This will make your banner clearer and crisp. Screencap here! Once that is set all you do it click "ok"

STEP 2: Next, we fill the background black (#000000) til all the white is completely gone. Then we add our picture. Go to File>Open as Layer. Add the picture and re-size it. Right click the Cap. Layer>Scale Layer. I re-sized my to 600x338 and moved it to where I wanted it.

STEP 3: Next, we want to sharpen it up and get a more clearer before we color. Travel up to Filters>Enhance>Sharpen and Sharpen it to 30. Now its Sharpen we want to make it a bit brighter. So travel again up to Colors>Levels> and set it to these Settings. LEVELS SETTINGS

STEP 4: Once done we want to get ride of any unwanted pixels and redness from the photo. This will help in coloring. We need to travel back up to Colors. Colors>Auto>White Balance. You'll notice some change but only slight. Duplicate your Image and set its mode to "Overlay" and move the Opacity to 25.6

STEP 5: Next starts the coloring, the fun part. Create a new blank layer and fill the layer with the color (#ec809e) and set that layers mode to "Soft light" Opacity to 61.0

STEP 6: Next, make a new blank layer and add this color (#9f8755) and set that mode to "Hard light" Opacity 83.3

STEP 7: Next you want to Duplicate the Overlayed Screencap in step 4 ONCE and bring that duplicated layer up to the top, above the colored layers.

STEP 8: Add another blank new layer and put in this color (#395698) Set mode to "Difference" and the Opacity at 32.2

STEP 9: Lastly add another blank new layer. We're going to add a thin line border to bring out the banner. Travel up to Select and click "all". Now it should look like little ants are crawling around the border of the Image. (TIP: Before you use the next step make sure your paint color is white. Dark photos go for a white border and for light photos go for a black border) Anyways, back to it! Travel again and click Edit>Stroke selection. It will open a box like THIS Set the setting as and click away to OK. Whatever you chosen you’ll have a thin white border or a black one. For me, I choose white!

STEP 10: Now this step is optional. For TEXT, only if you want to, not all banners need to have text, but I though I’d show a little tips and add some for you all. Click on a big “A” for text and choose your text. I went for the Twilight themed text. Click anywhere on the image, it should bring up a little box for you all to write in. For this banner I wrote “New School, New Home” And set it where Bella is at the Truck as it’s direct at her. I set the Text mode to “overlay” at Opacity 100.

STEP 11: And you’re done! Well done everyone! If everything worked out I‘d love for all of you to show me how yours turned out.


This is the ending Product :D

Hey shazza_109 :wave

I love love love this tutorial ;)

Here's my outcome :D



Thanks... its an amazing tut ;)

Dal

OMG! It's beautiful! Ah, I love it! Glad you like the Tut *BEAMING*

Aww :blush Why thank you :wub:

This was a neat tutorial, Shannon. Thanks for sharing! :D I never really used white balance before, but I might start giving it a go more often.

This is the result that I got from following your instructions exactly:



And then I didn't like that final color so much, so I just went and did some curves to it and redid that last color fill layer again.



Still a good tutorial, really enjoyed it! :D

:wub: Aww Glad you all like it and are having fun with it *Beams* Seth, your both banners look awesome too :D Love the whole three Winchesters together, Poor Adam.

I love this tutorial :D The result is beautiful.
I'll give it a try soon. Thanks for posting!

Welcome, can't wait to see your result! :D :D

Cool tutorial - I use PS but I might try see how this translates :)

BTW - I was wondering how you made the sig with the writing? Did you do a tutorial that you could post a link to, or would you be able to make a tutorial showing how you did it - its just a really nice effect and I would love to learn how to do it :)

This is what I got:

I like it :D

Thank you DeanBean :D

I am planning on making a Tutorial for script writing, like used in my Sig. It's fairly easy in GIMP, but i'm not sure if it would be transferable is PS. But hey anything is possible. :D

Ooo :blink:
..Shannon this looks like a great littel tut...I'll have to give it a shot when i get the time...I'll be sure to post my results...thankyou for sharing ;)

Aww thank you, Saiyuki. All the lovely comments are awesome from everyone about it. Feel quiet proud :P Can't wait too see your results! :D

Thanks :D

I'll keep and eye out for it and try it out and let you know if it works :)

I followed your instructions to the letter ;)

I went from this:

...to this:

Lovely and simply tutorial...I feel it works better with darker images, mine seems a little too yellow ...:P

...still purtty though ;)

I think the picture needs to be a good mixture of both light and dark because from what I've been playing with you don't want it to be too dark of a picture otherwise it comes out really red. However, that could be just me or something. I'm going to look over this tut again and see if I messed up somewhere because my result seems to be the odd ball. <_<

I love how yours turned out! :D The brightness and yellow tints bring out the color of his hair and also a glow look on his cheeks. If you ever find a it's too yellow just bring down the last color layer till you find it less yellow. Sometimes it tends to go way yellow when there is heaps of white around the picture, its stains it and goes hazardous :P But I like how yours turned out. :wub: :thumbsup

amazing tut,this is my bad attempt :(

Nonsense! Awesome coloring, ilaria. Love the haze gold tint on Jensen's face and cheeks. It's soft and warm, especially with the shine on Jensen's eye that's in the light. Lovely banner, Huni :D :wub:

thank you hun,awesome tutorial :wub:

awesome, love this one tutorial! :D just done with Kristen&Robert kiss at MTV Award

here's my result.


:thumbsup

LOVE IT! Well done. :clap :wub:

Hey Shaz, I have tried and failed once again. Lol


Sad, I know I think I'm doing way better then I used to and I thank it to your tutorials :hug: I didn't know how to get the border thing done so I did it my own way. Thanks again :D

Aww Jordy! That looks awesome. The picture goes really well with the coloring and I love how it turned out. Keep it up, Babe :D :wub: :hug: :hug:

awesome tut!
question: did you just choose those colors to fill because those were the colors you wanted to bring out? :unsure:

heres me finished project, I also played with curves after:

Wonderful Banner, Honey :D

To your question, I've used those fill colors for awhile now. I use it a lot in making Avatars, though the colors come out more in banners. I like the bright gold type colors it brings out.

this is what i got. lovely tut. i just played a little with the curves when i was finished so it may look a touch off :)

It looks awesome, Callie! :D :wub:

Hey Shannon! I followed the instructions and came out with this.

I think it ended up a bit to orange/yellow/brown but I was too lazy to change it. xD
Thanks for the tutorial, it helped a lot! :thumbsup

Good job, Val. :D

Hey, I know I am late. But I had to try this someday.

Here is my result. lol

This is what I got when following your tut exactly.



But I didn't like that, so I played with the curves a bit too and increased the opacity of the last color fill layer.



And for fun, I added textures. But I am not sure how I like this one.



This was a fun tutorial, thanks for sharing. ;)

fandrea

After many failed attempts :bang

I finally came out with this:



Great tut, thanks Pistachio! :wub:

NICE! I like the glow. Well done Babe :D :hug:

I just did a quickie using your tut, and here's the result:



I changed the brown colour background to one a little more greeny because the the image came out really yellow with the former. The tut showed me some stuff I didn't know about before, so THANK YOU!!

Ooooo nice out come! Yeah, sometimes the yellow comes out strong just depends on the picture. :D

Heyy !

I know it was ages ago you put this up but I just started making banners a few weeks ago so I thought I would give it a try :P

This was my end result:



xxxx

Here is mine :)