[fae]

sorry if it's been asked:

i'm just curious as to who here paints on one layer, and who utilizes layers?
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[B0b]

when layers were introduced to PS it was a god send.. no more saving a copy after ever major change

[Jin]

Hi,

The majority of artists I run into who use Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, and even those who use Jasc's PaintShop Pro use Layers.


Jinny Brown
Painter Classes at TutorAlley Forums
Tutorials and Painter Info at PixelAlley

[fae]

thx - i hear a lot about people using 'em... and i have used them alot, but sometimes i look at wonderfully painted pics that look as if they were completely done on one layer, then other times it seems there have been layers used by the same artist... so i just wanted to hear what diff. people had to say.
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[Socar MYLES]

Sometimes I use 'em; sometimes I don't. They are really good for getting wash effects--if you make a new layer, you can paint on it then erase into it without disturbing the painting underneath. There are other uses for layers as well, like adding text or painting characters and landscapes on different layers so you can use them on their own as well as together. You can make special effects layers, as well. If you're painting something you are not likely to be rearranging in any major way, or taking parts out of, it doesn't make much difference whether you use layers or not. Unless the artist makes a mistake, like using layer effects and merging them wrong, you can't usually tell very easily whether they used any layers or no.
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[math]

i only use seperate layers for things which would be too hard to erase (hair, details generally etc.)
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[jfrancis]

What about layers specifically intended for use with blend modes other than "normal"?

Highlight layers intended to be screened on?

Shading layers, intended to be multiplied in?

3D artists use layers in that way when creating 3D surface shaders, and they often bring that sensibility with them to painting.

Say you are reflecting a scene into a motorcycle helmet visor. How would you approach that? Direct painting of correct colors and values onto the glass area? A separate reflection layer screened on at some percentage? What would your appraoch be?

Say you are bouncing skin colored light from the rib cage back onto the underside of a breast. Would you directly paint it? Did you know that if you paint the same skin color into a separate layer that is set for multiply, that you'll get a pretty accurate darkened, saturated bounce color? (which you could then further warm or cool to suit, if you wish) Does working in that way help or hurt you as a painter? Is the process and the skill set important to you, or is the image at the end of the day the main thing?

Say you've worked out a cloth pattern, and you wish to drape it over a figure. You could separate the draped pattern into one layer, and a draped white sheet into another layer. You could light the white sheet in warm and cool shades (to take the monochromatic curse off this technique) and multiply it by the distorted but unshaded pattern layer.

This kind of thing is standard operating procedure in 3D CG.

Does it hold any appeal for 2D painters? Or is it cheating?

I'm pretty sure Stahlberg's fairy murder image was made in a manner similar to what I'm describing (he goes into some detail about it elsewhere on this web site) You can really feel the 3d optics/physics-based layering approach in the way the fairy leg's thigh sheen interacts with the thigh dirt in that painting.

[Mikko K]

jfrancis>

Good questions. I personally think that while multiply and screen type layers are useful in some occasions, using too much layers can take your attention away from the image.

I mean, if the procedure gets too complicated you may end up adjusting those layers rather than directly painting things you imagine. So I mostly use normal layers to have extended undo available if needed. Sometimes using some strange blending mode can lead to happy accidents so they shouldn't be discarded right away. Anything is allowed, the result is all that matters IMO.

[Socar MYLES]

It's not cheating at all. You should approach the painting in whatever way is going to work best for you, and get you where you're going with the least pain.
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Dignity isn't important. It's everything.

www.gorblimey.com - art

[Mari]

I suck and don't have much experience with digital painting, but I prefer using layers. They're VERY handy.

In Painter 6 or lower though, layers aren't really handy, so I don't really use them there. Paint can only be used on the Canvas or main layer there.

[ten]

happy accidents are reason enough to use them. i have 3-5 layers going most of the time and flatten every 15-30 minutes depending. it forces you to commit to the canvas and keep moving forward. and relieves the stress of constantly trying to decide which layers to keep and which to merge. for me this process resembles painting in traditional media where you are 'stuck' with what you have done every time the surface dries or you mix into the wet another color etc.

[DJorgensen]

In the past, I used to have many layers, but I find it too annoying to really keep straight.

Currently I work like ten. I'll paint a bit and then merge once I am satisified.
I do however keep a copy from before the merge in a seperate layer-folder, just in case I need to bring it back, but I rarely do it. Instead I try to work with what I have got.

This method comes as a result of traditional media, which I enjoy very much. Yet digital is incredibly efficient in that it is very versitile and has no real set-up or clean-up.
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[cheney]

I use multiple layers to define aspects per shading, textures, lighting/reflection per object and background. I typically use upwards of 500 or more layers per image. This is the cost of time for the pursuit of detail quality even at a low zoom rate dispite high resolution compositions for print. Layers do not require a substantial memory increase requirement, but textures and large resolutions do.

I will benchmark this when I get home and build a large ramdrive to better calculate Photoshop's scratchdisk features when compared over different hardware tasking methods.
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[ten]

i think if you were running two or three copies of PS at the same time it would really speed things up. maybe a dual monitor setup..and a bottle of jack.

[cheney]

Then your calculations are horribly inaccurate.
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[ten]

so what exactly requires the use of 500 layers? i'm curious about this process. i've never heard of anything that labor intensive. it seems like anything that could be done in 500 layers could be done in 10.

[neff]

I always use layers for my not-speedpaintings to get a sharp contrast between the foreground and the background. if you paint everything on one layer, you cant clear the contures later without repaint the background etc.
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[cheney]

I have been asked so very many times. That is why I wrote this:
http://www.createdbycheney.com/testb/tutorials/psd.html

The following website was entirely created using only 3 PSD files. The primary file contains 2500-3000 layers but is still only 65mb.
http://www.createdbycheney.com/testa/index.html
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[Malachi Maloney]

jfrancis~ The only "problem" I see with that approach, would be that as a 2D painter, it would weaken your knowledge of color theory and perhaps even lessen your ability to properly blend color on your own. With that said, I've got to agree with Socar;

[jr]

sometimes when i paint in photoshop i use one million layers.




.... anyhoot. the thing about layers if someone hasn't mentioned before is that it offers the artist more flexiblity with his layout. dramatic changes can be made very quickly.
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[faB]

Sorry to wake up this thread but something hasnt been mentioned in regard to layers : what about the practical aspect of separating various shapes from foreground to background, optionally using the 'lock transparent pixels', allowing you to paint easily into the border of shapes and background without loosing your edges ?

Do you guys use selections instead ?

I like to make layers for this instead of switching between selections, seems more practical. Swaving selections and switching between alpha channels and layers is a pain..
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[jfrancis]

Here's some more on the "lock transparency" thing.

http://forums.sijun.com/viewtopic.php?t=37515

... I use it every so often.

[jfrancis]

I sometimes even add a new brush stroke on a new layer and play a bit with hue & saturation before commiting the brush stroke to the lower layer by "merging down."

Once I'm happy with that first modified stroke or two, I usually don't do it again for quite a while, but just continue painting normally.