I actually prefer Blogger to LJ, so...this tut can also be found here. Best viewed in Firefox...


Today, we'll be going from this to this in 12 simple steps!

We'll start off with the base


Duplicate it and set the layer to screen. It was too bright, so I lowered the opacity to 35%


Duplicate the base again and set it to soft light


Next, make a new layer, fill it with a nice sky blue or so...I used 8AC7F2. Set it to burn opacity 100%


Another new fill layer...this time I used F0A682. Set it to color burn. Now, it looked too orangy too me, so I lowered the opacity to 70%


New layer...I used B4ECCB and set it to color burn


New layer...I used CDAE90 and set it to color burn. Okay, it makes her skin look brownish, so I lowered the opacity to 30%. Well, now she looks much better, don't you agree?


I wasn't really satisfied with what I had, so I added a new selective color layer. It's Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Color. From the drop down menu we can see that there's reds, yellows, greens, cyans and so on. I didn't change anything, except for the greens and cyans. These were my settings:




Yeah, I know...doesn't really make much of a difference right now, but it does help bring out the bit of green in the grass. You can skip the selective color part if you want to. Now, merge all the layers. Sharpen it once. It was too sharp, so I lowered the opacity to 70% and got this:


We're almost done here...but I like adding something extra to my icons, spice it up a little, see? So, I pasted this layer on top of it


Set it to screen and you'll get this:


I added a simple brush to it...(I forgot who made it) and voila!


That wasn't too hard now, was it?