[Tinypansie]

Hi hi all, new here so let me just say hi hi (again ^_^) to you all.

Ok here's my question(s): I've seen people who are able to color in photoshop but get it to look like they painted the picture. I've been trying to figure out how they do it, but there doesnt seem to be much information as to how. All i hear is custom brush this and custom brush that...
So does anyone have any techniques as to how to go about doing that, or a website that offers some help. Im not nessecarilly looking for a tutorial, but at least somewhere to start because i don't know.
I use photoshop 5.5 and have a wacom tablet (one of the graphite ones) if that helps.
Im not looking for some magic skill that will make me the best digital painter ever, i've got no problem, and am acctually eager to learn it myself, i just need someone to point me in the right direction, so i know im learning the right things.

[Sedone]

Mikael Noguchi has a good tutorial on his site. Look under "tutorials" . Don Seegmiller also has some painting tutorials, but they're for Painter. The principles are the same for Photoshop, though.

There's a thread started by Pro in the gallery section here that shows his steps. There's also one by Francis called Victoria's Secret model that shows some steps. So they're out there, you just have to keep your eyes open.

As for brush settings, your best bet is to experiment. For a kind of impasto or acrylic look, keep your brush edges hard and opacity high (70-100%). I just use the standard PS brushes most of the time, but load up the natural brushes and play with those if you want. If you want to do glazes of color like in oil painting, just lower you opacity to around 30% and slowly build up your tones. That's usually how I blend my edges (the smudge tool in PS sucks). Most people tend to work on one or two layers at the most when approaching this way.

The best way to learn is to just do some paintings. Do hundreds and hundreds of 'em.