[Frost]

I'm just wondering how others choose their initial colors and values when they first start a picture, and if anyone had any tricks regarding this -- or do some of you just pick it perfectly dead on from the onset?

Even when you paint from a source such as a picture, how do you start it off with the right tones? How good of an eye for hue/saturation/value does one need to have?

I just estimate a base color at first, and build the surrounding colors relative to that one I just painted -- but that doesn't mean that it ends up being correct in the end. I would like to get away from doing RGB manipulations by picture's end, which I often find myself doing, degrading the image and creating color banding, etc. Anyone have any tips or tricks regarding this?

frost.

[Affected]

'perfect'? I don't know about that, but I just pick the colours I use straight from the picker, no trick involved...

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Affected

We do not have freedom. We have rules and oppression and where the oppression is less visible we believe to have found freedom.

http://affected.xs.mw

[Danny]

Hey Frosty,

interesting thread.. My method is quite similar to yours, the way you describe it atleast. I find that I keep modifying my colours throughout most part of the whole painting process. From start to end. The main reason for this is that I'm always searching for better colours, or rather better combinations. As I keep adding more and more stuff, the balance in the image changes and might therefore require the need for modification. For this reason I often create and save alphas (selections) within the image so that I can make instant selections for certain elements within the image allowing proper isolated modifications. I know you prefer to stick to the Spooge��� method of painting, this might be a bit more tricky because of it's 'loose' nature. For this very reason Spooge fills his canvas as fast as possible, so he can look upon the image as a whole and compare values. (Care to elaborate some more on this Spooge?)
Colour modification indeed causes hideous colour banding, for this reason I leave small details for the very end (there are exceptions, such as hair) once I'm 100% satisfied with the colours and the shades. I learned this the hard way. I guess this would be my advice...

Danny


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[sfr]

This is definitely an interesting topic. I wish I could paint on the computer like some people (you know who I'm talking about ) and get tones that go neatly together right from the start, but that rarely happens.
So I paint a very blocky color sketch first just to get the values more or less in place, then bring it into Photoshop to see if I could do something to improve the overall consistency of the colors. Usually I do find that something, and it's always sort of nice to see the sketch improve considerably with such simple color manipulation (though everytime I do that, I hear a nagging voice in my head saying "you shall be punished for this when you pick up a real paintbrush again and are reminded that adjustment layers don't exist in the real world" )
Anyway, after I've tweaked the sketch, I only rarely do any "artificial" manipulations on the colors anymore, just painting... (to avoid the color banding you mentioned, among other problems)

This is one area where I think the old days of pixelling actually had an advantage - you could easily modify your palette to affect colors in areas you had already painted. Of course creating those palettes was sort of a pain though, but once you had taken the effort to try and do it right, it was easier to keep the colors more rigorously in line.

Saffron / Sunflower

[Joachim]

Personally I just use the RGB sliders. . but uf courze I change colors all the time through out the process of a painting. Often I brush over parts of the picture with some immensely transparent brushes, if there are areas or things I want to have more warm or cold, or what ever. I really try to stay away from changing colors digitally (by masks, etc..), becacause I often feel that it gets a better result if I can paint in the colors myself (kind of like when drawing/painting on paper), it kind of gives more body and texture to it, I think.
I got really surprised when I saw that so many people used swatches to pick colors from. I thought that it would be more difficult than actually finding the right colors manually, since there's never something in real life that has one perfect color gradient, without color influences.

Hmmm, I'm just rabbling out words here, sorry.. . ignore this message

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Joachim
web: http://home.sol.no/~jbarrum/

[This message has been edited by Joachim (edited March 25, 2000).]

[Frost]

Hmm, thanks a lot for the input guys! This was very interesting to me. Seems like I'm not the only one doing color calibration during the painting phase... =)

Dan, your idea about saving alphas/selections for use later is something I haven't really thought of... I just manually repainted a selection every time I needed one on a sepperate layer... =) this might actually save me some time!! Thanks! =)

Saffron; Wow, you actually paint on canvas before bringing it on computer? (or did I get that wrong?) That seems like a lot of work to me! {;-D Although I'm sure you get some cool underlaying textures happening in there. Neat!

Joachim, you're right about painting over with transparent brushes trick -- mixing base hues and giving it some other color angle at some points gives off fantastic effects and depth... something I should do more of. I personally never used the RGB sliders... I think there are lots of options and features I don't use in photoshop, this being one.

Hmm, I guess I should probably practice (or actually, concentrate a lot) more using Spooge's methods, and get the key shapes, colors and intensities from the start. I feel cheap every time I have to make a color adjustment, thinking that it's wrong and that I should be able to have it right the first time. I'm so self-critical. =)

Overall, I really wish photoshop would support 16bit/channel editing... =) (Your were right Loki, sorry ;-)

Thanks!
frost.

[sfr]

You got me wrong Frost, I just meant I do the sketch in Painter and bring it into Photoshop for color manipulation, that's all Could be nice to try that scanning idea though, too bad I still don't have a scanner...

About color swatches that Joachim mentioned, does anyone really use those in either Photoshop or Painter..? They seem like a huge pain, even crappy old DP2e (Frost, weren't you a PC-only pixeller too? ) had much more sensible palette management.

Saffron / Sunflower

[Frost]

Hey Safrron.

Well, thanks for clearing that up for me. =)

Yes, I use to be a pc-only pixeler -- and I basically learned off a PC ... well, on my cousin's C64 actually, but that was back in 86(?). I was just too happy when my brother got a 386 with an MCGA card supporting 256 colors back in the late 80's early 90's. =)

Swatches... why would anyone want to have pre-set or preselected colors when working in true-color? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? =) I left palettes and swatches in the dust with my pixeling (which I no longer do except when work requires color-reduced textures). ALT-click and pressure sensitivity is all I need. =)

I'd be interested in hearing how others go about their stuff too...

Cheers.
frost.