#icon asks

this is going to be a combo of what i remember doing for this (it took me a few tries to get it where i liked it) and what i would do to color it now. im also positive there have to be better ways of doing this i just click shit until i get it the way i want and try really hard not to whitewash bob morley/bellamy blake 

first of all you need at least 2 copies in order to fix the shirt after all of this (more explained later)

the first thing i do is color balance to get rid of most of the blue tones so on ‘midtones’ i up the red and the yellow a bunch usually until i think it looks okay even though it is still awful we can fix it. basically, it gives you a base color to work with instead of blue. 

then i put a curve on it for icons i don’t use the white and black dripped i usually do a small curve not too much because it will get all pixelated really fast more curves can be added later

then i go to levels and lighten it some more as well as darken the black. again like the curves don't over do it but i usually only do one adjustment of levels. 

then it just turns into clicking things until i can ‘fix’ the coloring. as i said the color balance gave you a base other than blue to work with. 

so usually i go for vibrance you can up this a whole lot but not to the point where its just way to much so maybe don’t go above +60 or +70, in other words, dial it back so it isn't bright red or yellow patches we are going for normal here it is based a lot on the curves and levels you used for how much vibrance is added. adding vibrance basically ups the base colors the color balance gave you.

at this point the picture is still pretty dark and no bright and fun like the icon… yet… so i add some brightness/contrast.. this once again takes away some of the coloring you have done and the skin tones will still not be there that much. that’s where selective color comes in. You could do this before the brightness contrast but i honestly cant tell you how many selective color layers i use. 

for selective color i always only mess with the red and yellow at this point (the shirt color is a whole other ballpark) for skin tones its just messing with it as you go so again never try and fix it all at once build it up so again a few selective layers. red: up the red, up the yellow in red, darken the red (i stay away from the magenta part) yellow: you can up the red in the yellow, up the yellow, and darken the yellow. its not always like this but recently i have been darkening the red and yellow a lot. 

once you have a selective layer you can up the vibrance again it should theoretically be a lot less than the first time. 

its still not ‘icony’ yet… so you can add a photo filter usually a warming filter to add some more color to the whole thing after that i do another layer of selective coloring and even another color balance if you want to try 

at this point the skin should be colored but the image itself is still dark not bright like the icon. 

so now we need to get it to where it can be an icon bright and happy so i usually ad another layer of curves. it can be just a plain layer or you can mess with it so like up the whole thing then create another point and pull that higher yet which should keep some of the coloring you did. Then its on to brightness/contrast upping both some.  

some coloring is probably gone so another layer of selective coloring, then vibrance should get it back (i will even go a little beyond looking okay) because then i add another curves layer to lighten and take down the coloring just a bit. 

i try and layer the layers so for every time i brighten the whole thing i add coloring i lose back with selective coloring and vibrance. 

Shirt/ clothing:

now if you notice all of this has probably completely ruined the coloring of my favorite blue shirt on him so i make duplicate the original another layer and erase his head, arms, and hands (basically all the skin tones) *THIS IS NOT THE LAYER JUST COLORED THIS IS THE LAYER DUPLICATED AT THE BEGINNING* if you want more colors of his shirt blue purple after you erase the skin parts so you have the shirt alone then duplicate that a few times. 

okay so the shirt you can just color normally if you want it blue or purple or whatever color balance, curves, levels, selective colors, vibrance, brightness/contrast the whole shebang. make sure you have it on top of the skin tone one so you can see if it matches the skin tone as in how bright and stuff