[chalker]

I was wondering how you guys pick colors when you're drawing from a picture. Do you scan It first and pick all colors and put them in swatches in photoshop

I wouldn't prefer this way but how ?

do you pick colors by eye and use the sliders to get that color.

do you use the RGB sliders, or CMYK, or HSB sliders as long as you think you got the right color..?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a sort of mixer feature where you could mix colors.. put in some more black to make it darker, like painting.

How'd you guys choose the colors to paint with ?

thnx for the feedback ?

[spooge demon]

One good way is to block in your painting with a gradation at first. You then have a nice palette to start, just pick up numbers from the grad.

I like HSB, as this color model is the easiest to apply to painting, and breaks color up in an understandable way.

Since you are relating all colors and values in an image to all the others, it makes sense to grab what is there and "nudge" it one way or another. As I have said many times, I like to start with an old painting that has been messed up or a photo that may have an interesting color relationship. The subject of this photo has nothing to do with the subject of the painting.

Get into the habit of characterizing every color you see. Describe it by asking yourself three questions 1)what color (hue) is it? (red, yellow, blue green, etc. Brown is not a color!) 2)Is it intense or dull? 3)How light or dark is it? Should sound like HSB...

Answer these three questions and you will be able to recreate the color later. I have seen sketches of Frederick Church with this type of notation.

Thinking in an organized way will help you troubleshoot things down the road. Ask yourself

Silhouette OK?
Drawing OK?
Values OK?
Color OK?
Hue OK?

The drawing is usually off 80 percent of the time, and the value is off 19 % and the other 1%, don't worry too much about. Of course, value and drawing are inseparable in painting. Is aspects of color, get the value right (the �b�) and the other two will take care of themselves.

[Danny]

Hey Chalker,

I almost always pick the colours right off my canvas. If your current tool is a painting tool, you can momentarily activate the colourpicker by pressing the Alt button. This is such a usefull feature as it'll allow for very fast painting.
Anyway, HSB is also my favorite set. Not that I rely too much on the Hue slider tho. But the Saturation and the Blackness sliders work really well hand in hand. I use the RGB sliders mostly for setting up the actual colour tone and then use the S&B sliders to give me the correct value and.. well.. saturation..
You should train yourself in trying to understand the colourmodels. What happens if I add more G, turn down the S, what sliders do I need to adjust to get it darker without mudding the colour too much etc.. This comes with practise. What you could do is to try and drag your colour selector in the mixer over the 2D colour pad and watch the sliders change in their numerical value. See which slider relates to the placement within the colourmodel.
When you talk about how nice it would be to have a mixing feature, you should consider that you already have one in the form of your canvas. If you've got your paint tools set up with a level of opacity you're very easily able to mix your colours. I often do this by blobbing around small patches of paint somewhere on an empty bit of canvas, picking colours left and right and mixing them right on the spot. This also allows you easy comparisment with all the other stuff you've already got painted rather than it being seperated away in yet another annoying floater.
Best advice I can give you is to forget about relying on those damn quantisized colour swatches (especially those from a sin..eeh scan).

Danny

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