should be sleeping, not playing with photoshop...

[rivendellrose]

Anybody have any recommendations / tutorials on how to make B5 screencaps look... how shall I put this... less crap? I mean, all due love to the show, but the cinematography... and the lighting... errrrrrrrr.

I'm woefully out of practice in the more artistic ends of graphics work lately, and just looking at the cap collection I'm working with for a fun little side-project is kind of making my head hurt. :P

Comments

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

I got nothin. Just jumped on to say HI

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Hi! XD ♥

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I HAVE HAD SO MUCH TROUBLE WITH THAT!

Generally I find that almost anything looks better if you create a duplicate layer, then set that to screen, then play with opacity and filters on both layers until they look the way you want. But B5 is just not good source. For me, anyway.

[ruuger]

What lizbee said. The screen layer works pretty well with B5 caps - I usually use a couple of them if the cap is especially dark and then a soft light layer on the top to restore the contrast. But in general it's almost impossible to get bright and colouful icons out of B5 caps :)

(I usually cheat and get rid of the murky backgrounds and just use bright and colouful textures like in this icon)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Screen is definitely something that I'd been forgetting about - thank you! I kept going "you do something under a soft light layer, don't you? Argh, too long since much icon work, can't remember how this goes anymore!!!" XD

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

A duplicated screen layer with the opacity and filters definitely helped, thanks. It's been too damned long since most of my icon-making fun back in college. :P

But B5 is just not good source. For me, anyway.

Not especially, no. Bless it, the cinematography just makes me want to tear my hair out sometimes.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

Use the "levels" tool to not just increase your contrast, but to change where the median gray values are. That can make your highlights more shiny and make the dynamic range look better. Also, most screencaps look better with more saturation.

I would advise not just duplicating layers because it's harder to manipulate the graphics under those layers. You can do most of those things with adjustment layers instead, which you can then mask over portions of your image. The first thing I do in most projects is "levels" and then "hue/saturation/brightness", honestly.

If you're resizing down, do at least one sharpen before you reach your target size in order to maintain details.

Oh, and screw around with the white balance. The white balance tool is love.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I usually use curves rather than levels, so I'll have to work with this for a while to figure out the difference between them and what they do separately and together. So many fun little tools and settings that I never get the chance to play with!

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I use the curves tool, too, but I usually use levels for overall grey values and curves for individual colors, if you see what i mean.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

All right, here's what I do, which I finally saved as an action so I wouldn't have to go through the process every time:

I duplicate the base layer twice, set the middle one to screen and the top on to soft light. Then I sandwich a blue exclusion layer between the two duplicates like it's 2002, but I don't care, it works. Then I do a selective color layer on top, bring the blacks in the blacks up by about 5. Then I do a levels adjustment layer, bring the lights and darks in, and like aris_tgd said, bring up the grays, too.

Then I create a new layer on top, ctrl-shft-alt-E to merge everything into that while still keeping my bottom layer (in case I ever want to go back; I never merge anything completely), and that's my new base.

THEN, I put on a light, warm orange to a kind of sage-y darkish green gradient as a gradient map, with the orange side matching up with the lights. I set that to soft light. I fiddle with the opacity - if it's an especially dark cap, I leave it at 100%. Then I might do another levels adjustment. Then I'll merge everything up into a new layer again, duplicate it, then go to variations. I'll add blue and cyan if I want it a little cooler, but this tends to keep the lightness and everything. I usually set the variations layer to soft light or color, sometimes to multiply, depending, and then adjust opacity.

THEN THEN, I'll do one last levels and/or brightness and contrast adjustment layer. And that's usually it.

(Can you see why I did this all as an action? You can still go in afterwards and adjust opacities/layer settings, and since nothing gets merged away you can go back to the very beginning of the process and tinker.)

(And then I slap a shiny light texture on top.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This really helped a lot - I think the sage and green gradient and the exclusion layer in particular were things I wouldn't have thought of that did the most to make things functional. Still need more playing with the technique to make it really work for me, but it's definitely progress from what I had on my own!

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm not in a hurry, here are the three gradients I use the most.

This is the orange-to-green gradient I use as a gradient mask, set to soft light.

I might use this one instead if the original cap is REALLY dark, but I will generally put it from 40-70% opacity in that case.

An all-purpose gradient I use, again, set to soft light. Flip it, rotate it - where the light blue part is tends to be the highlighted part of an icon, if you have more than one person or you really want a particular part, like someone's face, to pop. I find that it's the easiest way to give even a crappy cap some depth.

ETA: The top two gradients I will use as gradient masks, the bottom just as a straight gradient layer.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Ooo. I shall have to play with these - I suspect that particular green/orange may well improve the color in mine, as I used a totally different set of green/orange. And that shadowy gradient is very nice!

ETA: The top two gradients I will use as gradient masks, the bottom just as a straight gradient layer.

...Okay, stupid n00b question, but I've never run into this before: what's the difference, then, between a gradient layer and a gradient mask? I'm used to using gradients in a number of ways, but gradient mask isn't something I've run across before.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Lol, ignore me. I meant gradient map, not gradient mask. I suspect sometimes I have a mild form of aphasia.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhhh, okay. I feel better. I was sitting here going "damn, really need to dig out that Photoshop book... I seem to be forgetting all kinds of fancy stuff!" Lol.