Colouring in CS3

[-Silver-]

I've finally got myself a graphics tablet, which is all well and good. Now i'm just learning to adjust from drawing and painting on paper and canvas, to drawing and painting on my computer. And to be honest, it's going a lot faster than expected. My mouse is set to have a really high sensitivity, meaning that I barely have to move my hand at all to go from one side of the screen to the other, so it was a bit strange at first having to make much larger, swooping movements when moving around the screen with the stylus. Only a few days in though and i'm already used to the stylus and how to draw with it.

I've done some research into a few basic tutorials, learning about layers and the basics of drawing. But it's the painting (colouring) that is tripping me up. Hopefully some of you guys can help me out here.

What i'm used to is a palette or watercolour tray, where I can mix up my colours before applying them to the painting. And I mix a lot. In Photoshop all I can see is either a base set of colour blocks (maybe 20 different colours?) OR a thin horizontal line with every colour of the spectrum contained inside it, blending from one colour to the next, lighter at the top of the line, darker at the bottom. You click the colour in the section of the line that you want to paint with. Hopefully you know what I mean. My problem here is that the line is so small, that it's difficult to get the colour I want. After I do get the right shade, i'll paint with it, and then forget the exact point in the line it came from, making it insanely difficult to find the next shade of that colour for my painting.

Ideally i'd like a pallete option, allowing me to mix colours together (perhaps in a small window), probably from that selection of 20-something blocks I mentioned above. I'm just used to getting the colour i'm after by mixing, rather than selecting it from the world's most diverse, complete, and miniscule rainbow...

If there is a palette option, it'd be awesome if you guys could tell me where to find it. Otherwise, any tips on painting in Photoshop, or a quick summary of how you paint in the application, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

-Silver-

tl;dr - read the coloured section please =)

 

[Venetia]

What you're looking for is Painter X, not Photoshop. Painter X offers a palette mixer, palette builder, and hundreds and hundreds of "brushes" to make your art look more like painting than shading.

When working in photoshop, I'll build a palette all in solid colors and set it off to the side in its own layer (i.e. directly IN the image). Generally, about 5-7 colors does the trick, since, of course, it's blending everything.

Make sure you're working with a large canvas (3000+pix preferably) and that you have experimented with and understand the variances in brush dynamics (such as pressure affecting size/stutter variances), opacity, flow, and airbrush mode.

 

[Mascarpone]

you people and your pallets and brushes. FEH! pen tool all the way baby!

srsly though u may want to consider what venny said about painter seriously. it's the closest thing to actual mediums you'll get on a computer and it's fantastic for combining effects. Water colors and colored pencil tools look really great together.

Also CS3 is like the mew down syndrome baby of the photo shop family imo. The "improvements" over CS2 seem less about function and more about interface aesthetics to me. unless you've already payed in full for CS3, try getting a lower version. Photoshop's more about tricks and crafty ideas than traditional art anyways. I think if u will be happier with painter. Just fair warning though, Corel's user support is fucking awful so if u run into problems with the software ur baiscly on your own.

Also don't ever touch illustrator because there's nothing "illustration" about it. (I love the program to ittsy bitsy pieces but if ur accustomed to brushes illustrator is a head trip.)

 

[-Silver-]

Thanks for the feedback =)

Well a friend of mine installed his copy of CS3 on my computer, so it's not like i've lost anything if I switch to Corel. I'll see if I can find someone who owns Painter IX or X now :P Otherwise, i'm not against paying for something that i'll actually enjoy using, and use a lot.

I spent a few hours yesterday just learning how to blend in photoshop using a separate layer as a palette, just like Venetia suggested. It actually works really well, and I guess if I deliberately make the image slightly longer or taller than what I need, then use that extra space as the palette, I can just crop it off at the end. My blurring looks a little streaky and wavy at the moment, so i'll try experimenting with different blending brushes I guess. Should have it down before long. =)

Thanks again for the comments!

-Silver-

 

[Venetia]

I'd like to recommend that you keep the hardness of the brush high, and avoid the Blend tool. This will make a much more pleasing, paint-looking, less-plastic look.