PhotoshopTips

Photoshop Tips -- Last Updated Dec 1999

Please keep in mind that there are tons of different ways to use Photoshop. (in fact alot of ways are probably much better than mine!) So play around and see what works best for you. This is simply how I use it and might give you a good place to start.

--First I draw the character in pencil (lightly and then darker as I decide which lines I like the best.)

--After getting a fairly good rough sketch, I start to refine it with darker pencil lines, and eventually, I ink the peice with a regular old ballpoint pen. If you can afford real technical pens or something to that effect, more power to you, but I've found your average "uniball" pen to be my favorite (and they're pretty economical!).

--Having a hard time inking? All it takes is a trip to your
local comic book store or childrens book store for some excellent examples of inking. Find a comic or childrens tale that you like the inking on and try to duplicate it. In time, you'll discover what you like best and develope your own style, if you haven't already.

--After you ink the drawing, erase all the pencil lines as best you can. The more of the pencil you get off, the better your image will scan.

--Now scan your drawing into the computer with your scanning program set on "LINE ART" or something similar. This means that it has no greyscale, the best way to scan inked art. It will get rid of the majority of your stray pencil smudges and will make it MUCH easier to color later in Photoshop. Usually scanning the image in at about 150 to 200 dpi is plenty for your average photoshop project.

--Remember that images for the web only require (or can use) 72 dpi. The reason I scan images in larger than that is that I like to work a bit detailed and then shrink the image down to 72 dpi when I'm completely finished. --Your image is now a "bmp" image (file format). Bring this image into Photoshop and go up to "IMAGE", then "MODE" and then "GREYSCALE". After the program has converted the image to greyscale, go up and convert the image again to "RGB COLOR" (under image, mode).

--If your computer is taking a REALLY long time to preform these actions then next time you scan you should scan at a lower dpi. Likewise, if your computer can handle it, its always fun to scan at a higher dpi. Just be advised that if you scan it too high and your computer is slowing down alot, you may crash your computer while you are working and loose your image.

--Now you can start coloring the image. I usually like to start out knowing approximately what everything in the image is going to be colored. So I set the paintbucket so that it is NOT anti-aliased and has "0" tolerance. This makes sure that it doesnt make the coloring blended or fuzzy yet. By doing this I can go back and change the color of a section as many times as I want without messing up or thinning those nice black inking lines I did earlier. You can leave the image like this if you want! It looks alot like a frame of animation at this point, and that's a nice style.

-- Another thing to take under consideration is COLORING inking lines. As you can see I "filed" in the tattoo on Malaika's leg with a red-brownish color. Original this was just a black ink line. I think it looks much better as redishbrown though :). You can also do this to the actual outlines of the character as well though (like filing in the outline around their skin with a darker "shadow" version of their base skin color) This kind of coloring of inking lines is a great addition to a flat, more animation cel type coloring style. You can also use colored lines to blur the outline between things when you are shading. Things in real life of course dont have big black outlines, so coloring the lines is a way to get more realism in your work if that is what you are going for. However, I see no problem with black ink lines, they are a definite stylistic approach, and personally, I love nice big well-drawn black inked lines. They accentuate the character. The choice is yours. To color in an ink line, simply break the line up with a bit of color (ie isolate that part of the line from the rest of the inked lines) and then fill it.

--Once I've got the basic "base" colors down for the image I can begin to do the highlights and shadows. Try and pick a lightsource for your image. This means that if your light is in the rightside of the image... your character will have highlights on the rightside and shadows on the left side.

--Try and think of your character or object three-demensionally when you color. If a lock of hair falls over the characters face, it will probably leave a shadow on the face... keep this kind of thing in mind.

--A good way to color highlights and shadows without messing up your inking lines is to use the magicwand tool. This tool lets you select areas without selecting part of the black outlines. Make sure your magicwand is NOT set to antialias. This will let you do alot of editing and playing with colors before settling, and doesnt leave a nasty-mistake line around your area.

--If you are using windows (and mac I think...?) you can hold the shift button and select more than one area at a time. This is especially helpfull for things like hair that have alot of tiny areas, but one main shadow and highlight. (you can use "alt" to deselect any area you don't want in that set) -- Another way to select colors is to use the "Select" "Color Range". Make sure the color you want to select is the one you currently are using. Go up to "Select", and go to "Color Range". A window will come up and you can set the fuzziness of the color selection. For this method of color selection, I suggest that you set the fuzziness to "0" this means it wont antialias at all. Then hit "ok" and it will select EVERYTHING that is your current color on the image! Awesome huh? This means you can select alot of small areas of the same color in one fail swoop instead of having to select them one by one with the "magic wand" tool. An example would be Malaika's hair in this image, all her hair is the same color, but its broken up into a ton of little strands by my inking line. I want to color the hair all at once, so I need to select all the strands. Select/Color Range is the best way to do this.

--Something else about "selection sets". If you press "ALT" (I think? or maybe it's control...) and the "H" key on your keyboard after you have selected something, the blinking line around the selection will dissappear. The areas are still selected, you just don't have those annoying little blinking dots. This may make it easier for you to focus on your coloring, I know it does for me. Just remember that you have it selected (since you cant see it, you may get confused as to why you cant draw outside the selected set.)

--Another trick you might want to try is putting your character on one "layer" and your background on another layer. If you draw your character on one sheet of paper, scan it, and then draw your background on another sheet of paper and scan that separately, you can "copy" the character and "paste" it ontop of the background on a new layer. This way you can get behind and up close to the character in the background without messing up the actuall character.

-- Now for the final coloring step, there are several ways you can approach it. Some people prefer flat animation cel like colors. To achieve this effect, you'll want to draw a simple line for the areas where you want the shadows to be, and then fill in the shadows with that same color. That's pretty self explanatory. I would suggest using the "pencil" tool for this kind of shading, since it will give you a NON antialiased line, which is what you are looking for.

-- most people however enjoy "shading" their work to get a more three-dimensional effect. There are many tools that can help you do this. Once you have an area of color selected, and you are ready to "shade" that area, you'll want to add shadows and highlighs (once again, according to the light source).

--The "burn" tool is one way to get shadows on an object (but be carefull for discolorations). Sometimes Burn is perfect to use, but other times it simply makes the drawing look too metalic. Please use it with care. Note that on the "options" pallette, you can set the "burn" (or just about any tool for that matter) to different settings. For the Burn tool you have the option of setting it to "burn" either highlights, midtones or shadows. Based on which one of these you choose, the Burn tool will effect your image in different ways. Experiment with it so that you know how each one of the choices works for various situations. The "dodge" tool works in a very similar way, except it tends to highlight or brighten your image. Once again, when overused "dodge" can make an image too shiny, so be carefull.

-- The other main tools at your disposal are the "paintbrush" and the "airbrush" tool. In general I prefer the "airbrush" as it is more transparent, and layers over itself, it has more of the feeling of an actual coloring tool that you would use in real life. However the "paintbrush" has its uses as well. I suggest that you experiment with both of them and understand how they work so that you can make the best choice based on the look you want. With the airbrush tool, I highly suggest that you set it on a low opacity (in the options pallette) in most cases. Often times I have my airbrush set to 20% or less. Sometimes as low as 3%. This way you can gradually build up your image, its almost like sculpting. You can build up your shadows and render them in a more carefull and more delicate way than if your airbrush (or paintbrush) was set to a higher opacity. I also suggest that you experiment with different size brushes. Smaller ones obviously are great for detailing, while larger ones are great for overall shadows. Another interesting thing about the "airbrush" is the different settings in the options pallete for it. Just like the Burn and Dodge tools, the airbrush has lots of different settings that effect how it effects the image. The main three settings I use for the airbrush are "normal" (duh), "multiply", and "screen". Multiply basically makes things darker (sortof), and screen makes things lighter (sortof). They do this lightening and darkening though in a different way than the dodge and burn tools do, so I highly suggest that you experiment with these settings (and use lots of different colors to see how they work!) There are tons of other settings for the airbrush there, check them all out! each does something slightly different.

-- I often use a combination of tools to shade things. I may take an relatively large airbrush set at a medium-ish opacity with a dark color, perhaps set either to normal or multiply, and then sketch in large general areas of shadow around my whole image. Then I typically go in and start to detail things to some degree. I may deepen my shadows with the burn tool... or I may darken them with a second color of airbrushing...and I may then either lighten the highlights with an airbrush, or the burn tool, or perhaps do them manually with a lighter airbrush color. Basically what I'm saying is, play around with the tools, change their settings around and see what happens. Once know your way around Photoshop, you'll begin to know what does what and then you will be able to get the looks you want without too much heart-ache.
GOOD LUCK!

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