Different perspectives - coloring tutorial

1: First, open and crop your image to desired size. I used the single picture of Toshiya from the Ryoujoku no Ame photoshoot in original size. As you see, the picture is very dark so my basic idea was to just brighten it up. But I got kind of carried away, so I continued to play around with it.

2: Duplicate your base and set it to Screen 100 %. Of course you will have to play around with this. But I recommend that setting if you’re using a picture similar to mine, or at least with the same light settings. screen layer nr1

3: Duplicate the screen layer two times, all should be with the same settings as the first one. Now we can actually see Toshiya properly! This is optional, but to smoothen out the picture a bit I used Gaussian Blur two times on the copied layer 3 and one time on the copied layer 2. For you who use CS or whatever you can just use surface blur (I think it’s named that way, it was last week I worked with it so I don’t remember), but this is a fast way for Elements users to just give the picture a slightly smoother look. screen layer nr2

4: Make a Brightness/Contrast layer. I used the settings:
Brightness: +20
Contrast: +10
 but of course you can play around with the settings as you like. After all it does wholly depend on your image and how you wish the outcome to be! The point with this however is to brighten the image up further but all the same give it a little depth. An example just to point out how individual this is for each picture is the Shinya picture from the same photoshoot. Just because it wasn’t the same stance and exactly the same settings in light it just looked weird to me with the same settings. So it completely differs from picture to picture, remember that! (and preferences as well of course) brightness/contrast

5: Originally I put this layer in later, but I’m writing it as number five because it appears as the fifth layer. Make a Levels layer and set the settings to your liking. To get the desired effect we’re looking after you’re just going to use RGB and Red however. These are my settings:
RGB: output levels 47 & 255 (meaning that you do not touch the one to your right, only to your left!)
Red: output levels 35 & 255 (same here)
This layer is to brighten the image a little more and give it a strong red shade. It looks unappealing now, but we’ll get rid of it later! levels

6: Make a new Fill layer and fill with a baby blue shade. (I used #96d4f1) and set it to Color Burn at your desired opacity. I used 40 %. Now you may get a shade that’s very out-washed and boring, but it’s necessary right now. fill layer1

7: Make another new Fill layer, this time fill with dark red. (I used #7b1414) And set it to Saturation at your desired opacity. I set it to 20 %. Now we’re almost rid of the boring out-washed color we got in step 6. This mainly brings out the blue in the picture and makes it look a bit more alive. fill layer2

8: Note that this and the following steps are optional. You may be content with how your image turned out after step 7. I was, but I continued to experiment just because. So this and the following layers are if you want a more greenish and in depth coloring to the picture. If you decide to continue, then here we go!

Make another new Fill layer and fill it with a kind of dark beige color (I used #ebde74). Set to your liking, I set it to 50 % though. This gives it an extreme yellow color with hints of red. And it looks kind of boring and too bright again, but we’ll change that soon enough as well. fill layer3

9: Duplicate your base and bring it to top. Set it to Overlay at 50 % or desired opacity. This step is kind of unnecessary but I did it to highlight his hair a bit. So, then erase everywhere except where you want the picture a little highlighted. (My case Toshiya’s hair then) I've also smudged the background on the duplicates 2 & 3 alot, I did this after this layer because you see the outcome better then! duplicate&erase

10: As a last step we have another Fill layer. You could just duplicate your blue Fill layer from step # 6 really and bring it to top, and play around with your opacity. I set this one to 50 %. This final step is to give the image its final blue/green dark color. It suits the image clearly better than the previous yellow color. I chose to leave it like that, but of course now it’s time to put on some pretty textures and text and stuff! fill layer4

And after that, well you’re done!
I haven’t really any other pictures to show used with the exact same technique. Because, well I think all my rant about how each picture’s in need of different settings. I think that has sunk in by now, lol. And a sort of PS. I placed these pic references here after I made the original pic, and played around a little more with opacity and stuff. that's why it's slightly darker in this final outcome than in the reference pic on top of the page.

But anyways, enjoy! :D


icon examples out of this: