Mel's Tips & Tricks To Graphics, Coloring Tutorials also in Post

So after some requests for tutorials from DeanBean & dreamalittledreamofsam, I’ve finally gotten off my lazy butt to write one. yayy. Lololol.

Anyway .. first I’m going to start off with some general tips and guidelines that I use on a regular basis.

tip number one

• Text Placement
  Try not to place your text at the left or right sides of a graphic. It really distracts from the focal point. Your eye immediately slides to the left/right to look at the text and that takes away from the graphic itself as a whole. Try to place text near/next/below the focal point. If you don’t like the placement try different options of how the text is displayed. It could be in a flag wave sorta motion or could be broken up but readable. Adjust tracking and spacing between letters. Just play around til you find something that you’re satisfied with. But if nothing is really pleasing your creative muse consider a textless graphic. Place a texture or brush of relevance in place of text.

tip number two

• Fonts
  So you've found a new font and want to put it to use on all your new art. Which is great. But after awhile .. switch it up. Use some new fonts and try to see which fit best with the emotion/mood of the graphic. Most of the time you can really tell when a font doesn’t work with a graphic. In example; if you're doing a sig/banner of Dean holding Sam as he dies in All Hell Breaks Loose .. then you're not going to use a girly font right? [ex: the 'pea fonts' -- pea weenie] In that case a grungy or smooth and modern font might work well. Such as 28 Days Later font or Base 02 I find all my fonts on DaFont.com because the fonts are free and there's a huge variety of fonts that you can download to your computer.

tip number three

• Coloring
  Coloring is one of my favorite parts of art. Just finding the right coloring that corresponds with the graphic and the mood of the graphic is key to me. So I usually begin asking what's the mood of the graphic? If it's dark and gloomy, I usually stick with dark blues/grays/and blacks. But if the graphic is cheery and fun, then I use selective coloring with some hue/saturation thrown into the mix to really make the graphic pop. Watch for 'over-coloring' your graphic. That usually happens with dark caps, SN is a prime example when you want to use bright red/yellows/blues. I swear it kills me everytime I want to do art from Season One and the caps are so flippin' dark. The skin gets pixelated and the background distorts and it's just really ugly to have to deal with it. So when I have to make art out of a dark cap/picture then I usually stick to duplicating layers and making them bright with subtle coloring added in by Color Balance.

So that concludes the stand out tips and guidelines that I use when making art. Just use variety and be fearless in your coloring and text. If you have any specific questions feel free to post them here (:

coloring tutorial number 1

• THIS COLORING
  So .. I'm one of those people that don't save two files after finished with a graphic. The .png (or whatever you save files as) AND .psd which is the editable photoshop file that I can go back to to look at my layers and keep editing. So if this coloring isn't exact as to the one that's above in the link, I'm sorry! *hides* I'll try my best though.
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 1
  take your base and duplicate it. Set the duplicated layer to 'screen' at 51% opacity.
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 2
  Make a new 'Color Balance' layer. Use these settings:
  Midtones: +42 0 +18
  Shadows: -2 0 +7
  Highlights: -17 0 -7
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 3
  Make a new 'Selective Coloring' layer. Use these settings:
  REDS
  C: -31
  M: 0
  Y: 0
  B: 0
  
  YELLOWS
  C: -100
  M: 0
  Y: -57
  B: 0
  
  CYANS
  C: -100
  M: 0
  Y: +100
  B: 0
  
  NEUTRALS
  C: +8
  M: -5
  Y: -3
  B: 0
  
  BLACKS
  C: -12
  M: 0
  Y: -6
  B: 0
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 4
  Create a new 'Gradient Map.' Use Black and white as the color options. Make sure it looks like this Set the 'Gradient Map' to soft light at 50% opacity.
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 5
  Create a new 'Color Balance' layer. Use these settings:
  Shadows: -7 -25 -28
  Set the Color Balance layer to soft light at 80% opacity and 80% fill.
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 6
  Duplicate the previously made Color Balance layer.
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 7
  Create a new 'Levels' layer. Use these settings:
  Input Levels: 0 1.00 255
  Output Levels: 0 230
  Set the 'Levels' layer to 50% opacity.
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 8
  Create a new 'Color Balance' layer. Use these settings:
  Midtones: +5 -14 -8
  Shadows: +3 -3 -12
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 9
  Create a new 'Levels' layer. Use these settings:
  23 1.00 255
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 10
  Create a new 'Color Balance' layer. Use these settings:
  Midtones: -21 +5 +12
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 11
  Stamp layer. Crtl+Alt+Shift+E. Convert the stamped layer to black and white by crtl+shift+u. Set that layer to Soft Light at 51%.
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 12
  Create another new 'Levels' layer. Use these settings:
  Input Levels: 4 1.00 255
  
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 13
  Create a new 'Color Fill' layer. Use these settings:
  Use #410606 as the color. Set the layer to lighten at 13% opacity.
  
  -- STEP NUMBER 14
  Stamp layer. Sharpen stamped layer. Fade sharpen by going to Edit->Fade Sharpen. I used 26% opacity on Normal mode.
  
  So you should have .. from -> this to -> to this
  
  And that's it! (: I know it might get a little confusing so here is the .PSD file I'm usually lenient when it comes to .psd's so just credit when you use the coloring if you copy directly from the .psd. Feel free to change up the layers and opacities. (:
  
  
  coloring tutorial number 2
  Since I'm lazy, LOL. I will just be giving out .psd's for the next few tutorials that I will be posting. Remember, credit is key and important to me. Feel free to edit stuff as you like and all that good stuff.
  
  So the next tutorial is from this -> to this ->
  
  the link -> .psd

coloring tutorial number 3
Credit, credit, credit! (:

From this -> to this ->

The link -> .psd
Hope you enjoyed and if you have any questions about anything, feel free to post them here in this thread.

This was great!
Thanks for doing this Mel

It was no problem! (: You're welcome

Awesome post! The tips especially come in handy. I was wondering, do you know of any tips to get a Selective Coloring effect in programs like Paint Shop Pro or GIMP? I've personally experimented with Channel Mixer and Color Balance, but was wondering if there were any tricks you know as well.

Hm .. I don't know of any way to duplicate the selective coloring effect on GIMP or PSP other than the methods you mentioned. I used Paint Shop Pro a very long time ago, so I don't really remember alot of the tools. Sorry! *hides*

This is awesome Mel! Thanks for doing this

*drags you out of hiding* Awww, it's alright I've used PSP for over 8 years and it came with my desktop computer, so I decided to stick with it... and I can't afford Photoshop unfortunately

I'll probably just keep experimenting. I've done a few tuts for icon coloring to get a similar effect... posted them at my LJ but I'll post them here as well.

The tips are still very awesome though, so thanks for posting them!