[nevanlinna]

hello dudes.
just want to hear what you think guys.
I read a old tutorial for anime/manga painting, and it said that best way to shade you pictures is to use gradient tool. I s here people who does it, and is it really the best way?
tahnkssdafs

[Catfish]

Hmmm...well I know Merekat used gradients for her background stuff. But for foreground details...way too fiddly. Personally, I stick with blocking colours in then smudging them around.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: Catfish ]

[nevanlinna]

Yeah. I got my gradient idea from polykarbon.com...

[eyewoo]

The gradient tool works well for many situations... here's another way. It uses the lasso tool with levels adjustment to shade an existing color.


Start with a flat shape

==========================================

Enter quick mask and use the lasso tool to draw an area on the shape that you want to shade. Then give it a huge feather and fill the feathered and lasso'd area. After you've filled it, if it doesn't look feathered enough or it looks too feathered, then redo the lasso line and try again until you get what looks like a good gradiant fade.

==========================================

Exit quick mask and the feathered area will be selected and surrounded by the "antline."

==========================================


Now use the levels adjustment tool to darken the selected area.

==========================================

That's pretty simple...

==========================================

You could of course go ahead and select and feather a smaller area in the light part and use the adjustment tool to lighten it.

...and, of course, if you're comfortable with it, you don't need to even use the quick mask... just lasso, feather and darken or lighten if you have a real good sense of what feathering level to use.

In fact, perhaps a better way to proceed is to use the lasso tool to outline the shade area and feather it and then use the quick mask mode to simple check that the feather amount is correct. If it isn't, then you can use your history to get back to the lasso drawing just prior to your feathering so that you can set a different feather setting without having to redraw the lasso path.

Whichever way works best for you...

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: eyewoo ]

[nevanlinna]

jou maan*
that rocks...!
thanks alot!

[eyewoo]

Yea... I think I'll flesh this one out a bit and add it to my site's tutorial section...

[convoyrider]

That's a great mini tutorial eyewoo. But what is the levels adjustment tool? Where can i find it.

[eyewoo]

make a selection and then go to menu option image/adjust/levels ...or just press control "L"

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: eyewoo ]

[sfr]

Hmm, that's a neat use of lasso and selections, but wouldn't it be easier to just use an airbrush set to multiply?

Seems to me that you would get more control that way - you can vary the airbrush size (whereas the selection feathering is uniform), and you can vary the colour you paint with (whereas the levels adjustment essentially multiplies with local colour).

But maybe I'm just not thinking of the same kind of situation where you would do this

Saffron

[eyewoo]

sfr... Which ever way works for you... I prefer using the lasso tool over the airbrush becuse in some situations the result is much smoother with little effort... There are other situations where the airbrush works better...

...And... pay attention now ...you can use the lasso tool method with quick mask and use the airbrush tool along with it in quick mask to make some very complex shadings... keep in mind that in quick mask mode you can use the airbrush to either add to or erase where the resulting selected area will be...

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: eyewoo ]