[EL Chief]

Hello.

I know that many artists start their artworks by laying in values in grayscale, within a range of 1 - 10 (light to dark or vice versa).

Now i'm wondering how to change from grayscale to color, and control the values while doing so(painting in grayscale is easy, because the values are described in percent (1-100) in Photoshop, but how do i know, how dark or light a color is compared to that?).

I know two ways, to go from gray to color: Either create a new layer, set to color. so the values stay underneath (which looks often more than ugly), merge that layer after blocking in the color, and work from that point, or block the color in with transparent brushes and go on from there.
Both ways make me feel, that i have to do a certain part of the work twice.

So i wonder if there are better methods to go from value to color, or if it would be best, to start with color right away, establishing color and value at the same time?

Is there a function in Photoshop that shows how dark or light a certain color is in percent (like in grayscale)?

I really would be happy for your comments, because i lost my way in the big pool of painting techniques

thx

[eyewoo]

In Photoshop, the Color Balance adjustment function (Ctrl B) will change any selected gray areas to any color. Then the Levels adjustment function (Ctrl L) can be used to darken or lighten an area. Used in conjunction with texture painting in Quick Mask, a variety of textures can be achieved.
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[sweetums]

Try a web search for "Photoshop colorization tutorial," or "Photoshop color B&W tutorial," and then try some different techniques like this one to see which works best for what you are trying to do.
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[EL Chief]

@eyewoo and sweetums
thx guys. your methods are more technical solutions, but i'm searching for something integrated into the painting progress. Though it's an interesting technique for an artwork that is already 100% done.

@JIn
thx. this is something that could definetly work.

Now what do you think guys. Is it better to do values first (in grayscale) or to start right away with color and values at the same time?

[Lunatique]

I personally can't do values first and then color. I've tried it and I never liked the way the finished work looks. I think when working in B/W, there is a tendency to overplay the contrast for that visual punch, and when you try to color that, you are getting overblown highlights and lost details in the shadow. I know that ideally a good color piece should reproduce well in B/W too, but many times, the subtle differences in hue is what makes a piece work, and you really have to be working in that mentality while painting. But if you do a whole piece in B/W first, you're not thinking in that mentality, and the piece would take a different direction altogether. Just MHO.

Some people like working that way and is great at it. Steven Stahlberg is a good example.

[cheney]

Eyewoos suggestion may have been more technical, but I believe that is the best solution that will maintain the quality of your grey scale art yet still allow you the greatest possible level of color control. Eyewoo likes to use quickmask as he has mentioned several times, probably because it is much more painter friendly.

I like to actually use multiple channels. Let me attempt to explain to make this seem a bit less complicated. Channels are 101 color grey scales used to interpret opacity of a selection. All black, color 0%, represents no selection. All white, color 100%, represents fully selected. Various grey scale values in between represent their coordinating percentage value of selected opacity. Start by selecting a section of the image you wish to color and copy this into your clipboard. Open a new channel and paste, and you should see it as a selection anyways. If your sketch was black on a white surface then you will need to open a new channel and fill with 100% white color to see your intented selection with the colors properly inverted. Drag this down to the button that looks like "O" to be sure you capture all your channel data. Create a new layer and fill with your intended color. You probably will not get exactly what you want the first time, but now you can tweak your layer or go back to the channel to remove or alter certain areas of your intended selection. This will take a bit of quick practice to get the basics, but I promise it is worth learning to use the channels a great way to quickly adjust your imagry across a value spectrum.
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[LadyHydralisk]

I don't work this way, I simply do a pencil undersketch and lay down the color without a greyscale value map.

However, if you wanted to do this you could try doing this:

Make a grisaille (monochrome)

Colorize it, up the saturation to a level you like.

Use the selection tool to encircle individual parts and change the hue and chroma to the difference you want. Don't touch the brightness levels. (value)

I've thought about doing this before but since it is not related to oil traditional media working I want to avoid it. I don't want to be a photoshop artist.

[balistic]

[eyewoo]

[matter]

what about making a layer full of gray set to color that u can turn on and off if u want to check the values? a large part of the problem for me is chroma: a high saturation masks the effect of darkened value and visually brightens it, IMO, so this wouldn't necessarily help achieve a "successful" image. if u look at impressionist paintings, they generally hav very little value changes in overall composition and let color carry itself.
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Sorry! for any digressive, pompous, or just plain off-topic rants.

[EL Chief]

@Lunatique
thx for your opinion. i understand your arguments, but i think, that one needs really much experience to build up color and value at the same time.
For me, it's a struggle. Sometimes i win, often i loose .

I read Steven Stahlbergs's Tutorial on his page. I made my pics nearly the same way, because it's a really structured way to do it. His style is very clean, and i try to become more painterly, but there are really awesome artworks on his page.

As long as i'm not experienced like the 'big guys', i fear i have to do it with grayscale.


@cheney
thx. i did't meant 'technical' as a bad thing, no offense. And i'm going to learn this technique. if i'm not going to use it with my paintings, i might use it for something else. better to know it, than not to know.

@LadyHydralisk