Improving brightness areas for sprite.

[NoName]

Hello all,

I'm wondering if I could get some advice on trying to improve/enhance the brightness areas for a sprite based on a source.

I'm working on the following sprite. I'm trying to create an automated process that will make the glowing fiery/ember areas at the edge and underside of the wings glow.



What I was able to get is the following:



This was done by copying the sprite, removing all non-ember colors from the sprite, and placing the remaining ember colors on top of the base sprite as a new layer (ember layer). Then applying a combination of Outer Glow and Color Overlay blend modes on the ember layer and setting the ember layer's blend more to Lighten. This is what the layer window looks like in PSD:



Now this is decent enough, but I'm wondering if it's possible to achieve an effect where the glow is more contrasted and brighter. I'm not sure how to go about doing that.

Here are some reference pictures to get an idea of what I'm talking about:





If it helps, I've also attached a PSD file.

Any input/guidance is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: not sure why the PSD file's thumbnail keeps showing up. Tried deleting but not working...

 

[thebestcpu]

Here is an alternate Layer Stack Approach to consider
I took your ember Layer and applied a clipped curves adjustment Layer and turned up the Red channel (tune this as you desired for the contrast)
Then on the ember Layer I applied a Layer Style of Outer Glow and played with the spread and the opacity (left the blend as normal yet you can adjust that too)

I found this gave me an extra control on the initial contrast and then added the glow afterwards. You can play with it and see if this gives you more flexibility
Just a quick thought and hope that helps
John Wheeler

 

[NoName]

Thank you thebestcpu.

Was not aware of using a clipped curves adjustment layer. I will certainly give it a go and see what I get.

Thanks for the input!