Photoshop Noob Here

[Lunatique]

I don't see any image.

[soxamaca]

Interesting, it shows up on my computer. Maybe it has something to do with your browser but who knows.

Hopefully you can see it from here:
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8260/monkey2m.jpg

Also in case you were wondering if I checked for tutorials; I did, but most of them were for manipulating photos and not specifically for coloring/shading drawings. I bookmarked one of your tutorials (Scythe Wolf I think it was called, which is really helpful), but I think the picture I'm trying to color uses a different set of techniques.

EDIT: Here's another drawing I just "finished." I don't know how to continue with this one either for the same reasons.

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/328/drawingl.jpg


Bonus points if you can guess who it is!

[Lunatique]

So basically you mean you don't know how to model forms with shading. Just use larger brushes to block in the general values first, then progressively use smaller and smaller brushes as you start to fine tune the more detailed modeling of details. Just any normal round brush will do, hard or soft edged. Set the pen pressure to none for brush size, and set the set the opacity to be controlled by pen pressure. That's it. go to town.

[soxamaca]

Thanks for the reply, Lunatique. I've messed around with those settings now but I still can't get the shading to look "correct" for lack of a better word. In some ways drawing/painting in Photoshop seems like cheating compared to traditional art - it's easy to undo mistakes and experiment with different things without ruining the whole picture - but in other ways it seems much harder. I guess this style of shading comes with a lot of practice.

I'll try to shade it again later and repost it.

[smackcakes]

There are probably as many different ways to do things as there are things to do. If you are really struggling with where to start then I think your idea about working in just greyscale is probably a good one, because that will help you to focus on getting your tone right, without colour confusing the issue. Or you could start out working in monochrome (just on colour and black) which is similar, and a good foundation for a full colour painting.

It's best to start off with your darkest colour and build up the highlights gently with a low opacity brush. Many artists suggest avoiding 100% black, which is I think is probably good advice, but it's really whatever works for you.

The way I like to work is to start out with a silhouette of the area I am going to paint. I then lock the transparency for that layer (so it works kind of like a mask, holding all the edges sharp) then I paint light onto the layer with a light colour and a low opacity brush. The lower your brush opacity the more control you have. The tradeoff being the lower the opacity the longer it will take to build up light areas.

The number keys on your keyboard are useful here. Pressing 1 will drop your brush to 10% opacity. Pressing 4 will jump you to 40%, 0 = 100% etc... I frequently work with my brush set to only 2% or 5% opacity. Though I might bump it up to 40% or even 100% if I'm confident about the lines I'm making, and don't see any reason to waste time.

I've got some examples from my own work, to try and help you out. This is a little section from a Spawn painting I'm working on. I start with just a black silhouette of the cape, and lock the transparency.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m134/SmackCakes/spawn1.jpg

I then get a low opacity brush (in this case red) and start building up the highlights).

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m134/SmackCakes/spawn2.jpg

Very easy, with a little patience a child could probably do it. The best part is that any bits you don't paint just end up looking in shadow rather than unfinished.

Below is an example from another painting. I start out just blocking in a silhouette of the girl's arm, lock the layer transparency and start colouring it in.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m134/SmackCakes/spawn3.jpg

I used I similar method for pretty much every part of the painting. When it came to painting her arm I picked the colours from the parts I had already finished. If you are using the brush tool and you hold the alt key down, Photoshop switches you to the colour picker, release alt and you are back to the brush (nice an quick). Once I'd got the basic tones down, I then started adding texture (I.E. the veins and dirt and stuff) this makes things look a lot sharper and more finished. I don't remember where I got the colours from originally, I think I just made them up and then messed around until they looked right. You could do the same or pick them from a reference such as a photo (as many people do).

As for Photoshop being cheating, I would have to disagree. People who work professionally have stuff to finish, deadlines to meet, and they don't have time for silly rules that don't exist. All people really care about is how good your pictures are, No one is interested in the person who does crappy paintings but adheres strictly to a bunch of imaginary rules.

At the end of the day there really aren't any shortcuts or easy options. Some of the worst pictures I've ever seen were done in Photoshop. Stuff worth looking at always looks that way because someone practiced hard and put an awful lot of hard work into it. Regardless of whether they used Photoshop or not (though if they did they probably spent their time more efficiently).

[soxamaca]

That's an awesomely-detailed response. Combined yours and Lunatique's answers are exactly what I was looking for. This method is enormously more effective than what I had come up with, which was basically to make 3-4 different layers of dark to light color and erase the layers with a textured eraser until they somewhat blended - as you could imagine, it took forever and just plain looked bad. This technique looks much better and takes almost no time by comparison haha.

Thanks a lot for your time, I'm sure I'll refer back to your post in the future (cool artwork btw). I'll continue to experiment with this and keep this thread updated with progress (at least I hope lol).

I might even look into some art classes at school now that I have this tablet. It kind of "renewed" art and drawing for me.

[Lunatique]

This is what I meant by blocking in the general shapes and values first, to suggest the overall lighting. After that, you start to add the details:

(This is by Ruan Jia, a friend of mine. This is his website: http://ruanjia.com. He was practicing his Craig Mullins influence with this image. You should also check out Craig's work: www.goodbrush.com (http://www.goodbrush.com).)

http://ruanjia.com/img/2008107161235.jpg

See how all the lighting information was first established before any details were added?

[soxamaca]

I've been messing around with this stuff for a few hours with some success, using purely black and white, but, when I moved on to something colored, I pretty much wasn't able to do it at all. I found a video that might help me explain my problems.

Before I get into this; is there a beginner's book you guys know of that specifically details how to "paint" in Photoshop? I know some of you are either close-to-professional or actually professional artists so answering my questions is probably a little boring for you, but if there's a good beginner PS painting book that can teach me, it would save you guys a lot of effort :).

One of the biggest problems I’m having is choosing the proper color for things (which is understandable because I’d say 90% of the art I’ve done in my life has been black and white and the other 10% were cartoons, like Dragon Ball, which had colors that were easy to copy); real-life coloring, like in that monkey picture I drew, or the drawing in the video below, are giving me loads of problems.

So here's the video (it's a painting that came up when I searched "Photoshop painting" in youtube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N8MwcTwD80&feature=related

@smack:

From 0:37-2:12,

Is this the technique you were talking about when you said you use a silhouette to begin highlighting? When you chose the color red in your example, did you add the highlights in black and white first and then apply color later like this guy did, or did you just directly use red? Did he make his sketch visible below the silhouette layer by changing the silhouette's opacity? Is this guy just using (or would it be possible to use) a light gray or white brush with low opacity to fill in the highlighting details?

From 2:12-2:27

What technique did he use to change from black and white shading to color?

From 2:27-2:33

What just happened?

From 2:54-2:58

Also, what was he doing there?

That’s all for specific things in the video.

In general, how do you guys choose colors in PS? Do you mouse-over that bar on the color tab to decide, or is there a different/easier way to do it?

@Lunatique:

In your friend’s example, how exactly did he block in those colors? Did he just choose a really dark brown color and mess with its opacity to get all the other shades of brown, or did he individually select all the other shades?

I’m sorry if I seem needy, I’m just really interested in being able to paint like you guys and almost 100% of my Google searches have been useless. Photoshop is a fascinating program and I think it would be awesome to know how to use it so well.

Thanks again for the help so far, I’ve definitely improved (even if only a little bit).

[Lunatique]

soxamaca - Typically, you fill in a shape with a flat color (for example, brown). Then you choose the color that is the opposite of the gradation (for example, you want black as the polar opposite of gradation on that shape). Then, you simply use the black (controlled by the opacity of your brush) to paint in the gradation. If you want very smooth gradation, choose a very soft brush (like the round brushes with very soft edges), and use a very large brush--almost as large as the shape itself, and then just gently brush in at the end where the opposite gradation is supposed to be.

You can keep the area painted to be just the flat shape you've already painted by selecting it (ctrl click the tiny icon for that shape in the layer manager window--but the shape has to be the only pixels existing on that layer, or else anything else on that layer will also be selected). Ctrl D to deselect.

I don't think a book on Photoshop is what you need. I think you should just pick up good instructional books on painting, regardless if it's analog or digital. The principle of painting is the same no matter what medium, and there are far more good books on analog painting than there is on digital.

You also really should go through the sticky threads at the top of this forum. They are like years of free art school education, and many contain exactly the information you need.

You can also check out the workshop I'll be teaching sometime in the near future right here at CG Soceity. I'm still working on the course material and should be done in a few months. The course will be called "Becoming A Better Artist: Critical knowledge and Techniques For Today's Artists".

[jfrancis]

As with pretty much everything in life, from writing screenplay to poly modeling a 3d object, building a house, to painting, it's simple to complex.

As Lunatique mentioned above, rough in the color and progressively refine it. But even the underlying drawings have to go through the same approach - simple forms to more complex forms.

Right now the drawings look overly oriented toward the contours. When you look at an object you should think of it in terms of simple forms. When you paint the object, you have to account for all the forms - all the sides - all the planes.

If you don't do it in your drawing (and not everyone does) you have to at least do it in your mind. You have to have a 'conception of form,' as R B Hale puts it. Then you'll have a good sense of where to block in those initial planes of color - what their angle is to the light.

[smackcakes]

The technique I described, the technique used in the picture Lunatique posted by Ruan Jia, and the technique used in your video are all essentially very similar. Starting with a dark base and building up the highlights.

I'm not 100% sure about everything going on in your video. In fact I don't think that's even Photoshop (hard to see). It looks similar anyway so I could still speculate about what is happening if that's helpful...

Did he make his sketch visible below the silhouette layer by changing the silhouette's opacity?

Yes it looks like he did, but there are lots of ways you could do this. You could put your sketch over the top and drop the opacity on the sketch layer for the same effect. You could also set the sketch layer to 'multiply' (at the top of the layers palette) so only the black lines show up. Or you could invert your sketch (ctrl+i) and set the layer merge to 'screen' so it shows up clearer against the dark background.

Is this guy just using (or would it be possible to use) a light gray or white brush with low opacity to fill in the highlighting details?

It would be possible to just use a light brush at low opacity. That's how I would do it. It looks as though he also uses the smudge tool to blend and smooth the tones.

What technique did he use to change from black and white shading to color?

I'm guessing that he used something like a brush with the mode set to 'multiply' to begin with. You could also use a normal brush on a layer set to 'multiply'. A few other merge modes like 'overlay' and 'color' will allow you to colour black and white images in a similar way.

Unfortunately none of the merge modes will give you very natural or realistic colours, because different surfaces respond differently to light. Some surfaces like skin have very desaturated shadows, shiny stuff like metal tends to behave the opposite way. This is why I prefer to work straight to colour (which is what I did with the cape). It looks as though the guy in your video switches back to normal brushes quickly too.

From 2:27-2:33

What just happened?

Like I said 'multiply' doesn't give you very natural colours, and skin isn't all one colour anyway. It looks as though he makes a little palette on the right with better colours and then works those colours in. Again possibly using a brush or layer with the mode set to 'color'. Then I think he goes back to painting and smudging normally once they are down... I think that's what happened anyway.

From 2:54-2:58

Also, what was he doing there?

Not sure haha, it looks as though he's just adding some texture to the skin.

One of the biggest problems I’m having is choosing the proper color for things... real-life coloring, like in that monkey picture I drew, or the drawing in the video below, are giving me loads of problems.

The biggest obstacle every artist has to overcome is that the brain just loves dealing with information in a simplified iconic way. This is always very apparent when you look at the drawings of young children. They will tend to draw people as stick figures with circular heads and perfect triangular noses. Of course people don't look anything like that. As we get older we realise (hopefully) that heads and noses are deeply complex structures. Limbs have volume and need to be foreshortened and put in perspective. And almost nothing in real life has black lines around it...

Like with everything else in drawing/painting colour is very deceptive. Stuff that you definitely thought was blue, turns out to be turquoise in 'this light'. Stuff you thought was grey turns out to look blue. And that Coka-Cola can that you know is bright red, probably isn't all that bright at all (a red light would be significantly brighter).

Generally speaking, very few objects in reality are as bright or colourful as you give them credit for. Right now why don't you have a look around your room for stuff that you know is white... Then ask yourself how white it really is? Try looking at the colour through a gap in your fingers. I'll bet you any money you'll see grey. Of course you don't usually perceive this because your brain auto white balances everything for you.

Now try getting a white piece of paper and put something coloured on top of it. If you look closely you'll probably see a subtle reflection of the colour on the paper, where light hits the coloured object and bounces back onto the paper making that appear coloured too. This happens with most surfaces but it's easily missed.

Really the only way to get to grips with this stuff is through observation. Look closely at what colour things really are. Find references. Try opening some photos up in Photoshop and colour sample areas, shadows, highlights etc... You might be surprised by how different they are from what you thought you were looking at. You might also find it useful to read up on colour theory. Maybe even look at the some of the science pages on wiki regarding light and waves... Knowing a little about phenomenon such as diffraction is dead handy when you're painting shadows :P

But really there is no substitute for observation.

[soxamaca]

Thanks for the replies everyone, especially smackcakes and Luntique. My experience with all this so far has been pretty humbling - I'll try to apply what you guys have said and just practice/experiment with PS. When I was looking through the stickied stuff in this forum I found a post pretty similar to mine, and apparently even some pretty good artists (a lot better than me it looks like) struggled with transferring between traditional and digital art. I'm sure I'll be looking around here and posting occasionally (and hopefully be a part of that lesson, Lunatique - by the way, what format is it in? Text, live video, recorded video, and does it cost money? etc.)

When I feel like I have something that doesn't look like a six year old colored it, I'll let you guys know haha.

[Lunatique]

Lunatique - by the way, what format is it in? Text, live video, recorded video, and does it cost money? etc.)


It'll contain images, text, and videos. The interaction will be forum-based. It'll cost the same as all other CG Workshops do here at CG Society ($499) and will last 8~9 weeks. My course is unusually dense, packed to the bursting brim with all the most critical things I've ever learned to date as an artist, so I may end up spreading the course out to be even longer. I'll have to figure it out once I finish all the material.

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