synchros | Turtorial 1 - Brighten Up The World

Program: Photoshop CS5 Extended
Difficulty: Medium, this tutorial assumes one knows his/her way around the basic functions of Photoshop.
Steps: 8 with one optional step
Translatable?: Maybe, it uses one selective color layer, but skipping that step only slightly changes the result from my tests.
PSD: No.

This tutorial is made for animated images in mind, specifically anime. So I cannot guarantee how it would look against other mediums. Feel free to play around with any of the settings if you are dissatisfied with the outcome

First, get your base. Here I choose an image of Yusei Fudo from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's that I cut out carefully from this calender. I made no further edits to it. I suggest not doing any edits as well, for it may turn out too bright or the colors come out funky.

Duplicate the base image, and set the layer blending mode to Multiply at 100%. This gives the image a dark appearance, but do not worry, as we will be brightening it.

Duplicate your base again, and set it to Screen at 100% opacity. Now the image is back to being a brighter image while not being too bright.

Create a new saturation layer, set the adjustments to these levels:

Reds: 0 | +70 | 0
Yellows: 0 | +60 | 0
Blues: 0 | +36 | 0

You may need to play around with these settings so that the adjustments don't overpower the icon. If it looks too bright, set the values on a lower setting. Now the image looks much richer in color now.

Create a selective color layer.

Reds: -40 | +52 | +20 | -5
Yellows: -20 | -10 | +60 | +5
Blues: +13 | -31 | +81 | 0
Neutrals: -5 | 0 | 0 | +8

This enriches the colors, such as his face is less pink and his hair is more black

Create a color fill layer using the deep blue color #0f2948, set it to exclusion at 60%. It will darken the image and give a pink background, but again, these occurrences will be fixed.

Create a Channel Mixer layer with these settings

Red: +100 | +49 | -51
Green: -9 | +100 | +24
Blue: -35 | +53 | +100

This will get rid of the pink background, brighten the hues and make his chest insigna appear less pink

Duplicate the base, drag it on top. Set the layer mode on Soft Light at 50% opacity. This gives the image more contrast.

*OPTIONAL* Create a Color Balance Layer. I did this to adjust the red hues so that his face was less pink. However, if you are satisfied with the results already, you may skip this step. I skipped the step for the second icon too.

Highlights - +10 | +9 | -15

And you are done!

Other examples using this coloring

Turtorial 1 - Brighten Up The World

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