A guide to muted, yet vibrant coloring

[apologizeg]

This is a coloring guide requested by starkwars :)
I wasn't quite sure what to call it, but I've seen some people describe it as muted, yet vibrant. So I went with that. :3


Examples of the coloring:


There are basically two key ingredients to achieve this coloring; gradient maps and curves. And as you can tell, I am addicted. :D

Take your base and brighten it up using you normal technique (I usually use duplicate on Screen).
If you want you can add some contrast and vibrance if the screencap is dull.
Here is an icon with only a screen layer and a vibrance layer:


Now comes the first trick to make things more flat and muted (which I credit to jsfunction whom included it in a tutorial some time ago). Add this gradient (which should be in your default gradients):

Set it in Normal mode around 14-20% opacity, depending on how far you want to go. :P

(this icon has the gradient map on 15%)

And to get this slight pinkish hue, you need to use curves.
Add a bit of contrast using the rgb curve like this:

The further down you make the first dot and the further up you make the second dot, the more contrast you get.
Now go to the red curve:

It's basically the same kind of curve.
This is how my icon looks like now:


Now move along to the green curve:

The shape of this curve is very important. This is where most of the look comes from!


It's a bit too blue, so I go to the blue curve and do this:

My icon now:


Sometimes I have to repeat this process a few times until I get something I'm satisfied with.

I think this icon need more vividness, so I'm adding another curves layer like this:




I want the look more soft again, so I'm adding another gradient map with this gradient:

on 11% opacity.



This process with mixed orders of layers can be repeated many times until you get what suits your screencap best. :)

For this icon in this guide, I adjusted the colors one more time using curves, then sharpened using Paint Daubs and resized to 100x100. Then I added a bit of brightness using brightness/contrast. Often times I add a vibrance layer too if they colors are too dull. :)



So the conclusion is, use gradient maps like the ones in this post, on low opacity and use curves to bring out the colors. :)

Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

Comments

[afastmachine.livejournal.com]

Yay!! I love this! I've been going through your psds and have found so many cool tricks(and a lot of stuff I used to use like five layers to get you can do in one!) but I'm thrilled to see the how/why for it!

I like to call this style aggressively muted just because it sounds cool. Either way, thank you for the tutorial!!

[apologizeg]

Haha, I'm glad they're helpful :)

[starkwars.livejournal.com]

This is great, thank you! :D

[apologizeg]

Hope it answered your questions :)

[starkwars.livejournal.com]

It did! :D

[geckoholic]

This is very interesting, thank you!

[apologizeg]

Glad you think so :)

[gribouille.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this! Great tutorial, extremely helpful. Plus I'm still learning to use curves layers so it's great for that too :D

[apologizeg]

I'm happy to hear that :D

[applepips]

This is what I get for only sticking with b&w gradients and not exploring others! This was such a neat and informative tutorial! :)

[apologizeg]

I couldn't survive without my big bunch of gradients :P
Glad you think so! :)

[setentpet.livejournal.com]

Great tutorial! I really like seeing your process. Thanks for writing it up.

[apologizeg]

I'm happy you think so :)

[dixon.livejournal.com]

This is so helpful! Thanks a lot <33

[ekilinc.livejournal.com]

this is awesome ! thank you

[tinny]

This is very helpful, thank you!

I love jsfunction's flat look, and I never thought to combine it with curves. Very cool!

[violateraindrop]

I was always curious how you achieve that kind of coloring! It's super interesting to see this tutorial since I never use curves for coloring. I have played around with it and love the results :D
Thanks for sharing!