I could really use some help...

#1

Yeah, y’know, after these months trying to understand how to blend colours in Photoshop, I’m beginning to get to the point where I’m practically tearing my hair out. I’ve learnt some things over time, but sadly, nothing to do with how to blend colours. I’ve been through just about every tutorial I can find on the internet now, even video ones, and I’m still not getting it.

I’ve been using low opacity, blocking in the colours first, and even the so called dreaded soft edged brush, but still no joy in getting the colours to blend smoothly.

I’d appreciate it, if anyone is able to post a small if somewhat detailed list of instructions of each step done to get say… two colours to smoothly transition into each other or something.

Cheers.

#2

yeah I know it’s frustrating, don’t know if you know this method but I put down the two colours i want to blend next to each other using a hard edged brush with pen pressure on opacity, then you overlap little by little the two colours with the brush and use the eyedropper tool to pick up the overlapped colour then you just keep doing that till you can get it as smooth as you can. Other than that it’s just practice and be confident in your strokes.

Hope that helps

#3

The way I work is simply to paint with the pen pressure controlling opacity. Sometimes I might use the smudge tool a bit to even out areas that need to look particularly smooth (glass, plastic…etc), but most of the time, using opacity controlled by pressure, with a soft brush, is all I need. I use the more organic brushes sometimes too.

Painter is typically a lot easier to control compared to Photoshop when it comes to blending–this is due to its ability to simulate wet-on-wet blending of paint. But this isn’t to say that creating smooth transitions is hard in Photoshop–it isn’t. Remember, drawing/painting requires eye-to hand coordination, much like playing a musical instrument–it takes practice–somtimes years.

#4

Blending;

First off you should think of blending as between two shapes or planes - or a curving plane. Look, just two shapes for now… Can you picture a sphere? Where it blends is where the light is disappating little by little until it becomes shadow. You shouldn’t create lots of little shapes really, you should only blend the lit part with the shadow part. This isn’t as simple when blending with color - as ‘mixing’ colors will dull them and often produce the wrong hue as well. You would do well to pick a lit color, a half tone and a shadow color - but color theory is for another day perhaps.

How I blend;

I most often use the default round brush in photoshop, sometimes I have it squished and turned but that is for other applications. I have this brush set up with 100% Opacity, flow differs depending on the the look or style I want, but sometimes setting it lower can help with smoother blending. I would recommend for now just keep it at 100% as well. I have size set to pressure; this feels a bit more natural and lets your strokes sort of lift off the page as well as helps you fit your brush into those hard to reach areas. Now, all pretty standard so far - under other settings I think you will enjoy having opacity and flow set to pressure as I do. You can now control how much ‘paint’ you put down by varying the amount of pressure you put on each stroke, you can lift up when you want less and push down when you want more.

Lil’ Things;

Again, blend between two shapes - so try and blend with just those two colors (or three if you want more accurate colors). You might also find it helpful to blend with a mixture of those two colors - however watch and make sure you don’t alter the shape for the worse and I don’t usually recommend using more than this blended color to blend.

Using the softbrush, I will often use a softer setting (on default rounds you can use ctrl+[ and ctrl+] to change quickly) to blend, but only very rarely do I use the softest setting.

Uhm, dunno hope that helps.

#5

[i]Psst! Posting images of your problem helps us help you!

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Blending in Photoshop can be a drag at times. The following method is pretty popular–I’m pretty much just summarizing what the others said.

  1. Pick a brush. Any brush. Generally, ones with pretty hard edges are good.

  2. Once you’ve put down your colors to be blended, take a good look at the edge between the two colors. The edge will be at least slightly soft. With the brush tool still active, alt-click somewhere within that soft edge. (Alt-clicking samples colors from the canvas.) You want to pick up a color that’s between the two colors on the painting.

  3. Pressing lightly with your stylus, scrub that color into the gap a little. This will introduce an intermediate color into the border. You may want to manually pick another color to introduce into this blend; that’s up to you.

  4. From here on out, it’s all about alt-clicking and then gently painting. This builds up a nice, organic blend between the colors.

Check out the “Digital Painting” thread in the Photoshop forum of conceptart.org/forums. It’s enormously helpful.

You can also use the Smudge tool, but don’t overuse it. And ALWAYS activate Scattering (on the Brushes palette) if you’re going to use the Smudge tool.

#6

Here’s what I do, it works for me. Duplicate the layer. On the original layer, use the blur tool to soften the edges between the colors. On the top layer, use the smudge tool at about 40 to 50% to blend the colors more fully. Then in layer mode, play with the opacity of the top layer, as well as blend modes to find what looks good to you. It takes some practice with the smudge tool, but it can get some nice results. Never discount the many many uses of layers to accomplish what you want.

#7

That method has some advantages, bonestructure–namely, the ability to adjust the intensity of the blend after the fact–but I’d need to see multiple successful examples of it in action to be totally convinced. :wink:

The Smudge tool really is useful, but you’ve got to know how to use it correctly. Some people are huge proponents of the standard hard round brush for painting, but that brush is worthless when you’re smudging, imo. You have to activate Scattering in order to avoid results that look like yucky smears of digital paint. If you think about it, Scattering causes the tool to spread pixels around in the vicinity of your stroke rather than smudge them along the path of the stroke–and spreading the pixels around is what blending’s all about.

Never forget the ultimate smooth blender: the Smudge tool set to the soft, round brush with some Scattering. Produces results that are smoother than a baby’s bottom, and it’s easier to control than the Blur tool or the same Smudge brush without Scattering. Funny, isn’t it?

Never discount the many many uses of layers to accomplish what you want.

Very true, but never forget the benefits of being economical with layers, either. I tend to be a layer-holic, but I’ve found that painting is generally a happier process if I limit my number of layers to a sensible minimum. Merge them when it’s appropriate–you don’t have to keep every layer you create. Most paintings can be pulled off with perhaps five to ten layers at any given point in time, or even fewer. Don’t forget that painters have worked traditionally without layers at all for centuries. :slight_smile:

#8

"Don’t forget that painters have worked traditionally without layers at all for centuries. "

Not really. Most paintings have several layers. The sketch, the underpainting, the color layer, the detail layer. Each one above the last.

#9

Ah come on, that’s a seperate definition for layers.

#10

That’s as may be, but they’re still layers and they still have to be blended. Just because the media changes doesn’t mean the same basic principles don’t apply.

#11

You’re talking about a process - not an actual physical (or software) layer. You can’t go back and edit your underdrawing nor can you magically scrape off dry paint. Yes you have to ‘blend’ them, but that has very little to do with a ‘digital’ layer.

About all I use layers for these days is on work for clients, in order to keep things editable. Otherwise I use them for experiments and/or things that may not work out - just so I have a ‘back-up’.

Now, don’t get me wrong - layers are great - fantastic. I use layer modes all the time and use layers to keep track of progress for demo’s.

#12

That’s as may be, but they’re still layers and they still have to be blended. Just because the media changes doesn’t mean the same basic principles don’t apply.

But T-Scholes is absolutely right. That really is a different kind of layer. What I mean is that traditionally, painters have worked on a single layer of canvas. They don’t layer plates of transparent glass with more painting on top of the canvas; that’s essentially what we do in Photoshop. Yes, they layer coats of paint on top of each other, but those are all on the real-life equivalent of the “Background” layer. I mean, you can’t look at an oil painting and interactively turn the opacity down on the detail layer, you know? It’s a different definition of “layer.”

I’m not trying to diss layers! I use them every day, and they allow me to enjoy the artistic process more. I’m just saying…they’re not absolutely necessary, and there’s a lot to be said for not going overboard in terms of number of layers.

EDIT: Whoops, looks like you beat me at defending yourself by a minute or two, T-Scholes. Sorry to more or less repeat what you said. :slight_smile:

#13

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