Learning photoshop, appreciate all the help I can get.

[J-Curl]

Hello everybody. Ok so I really want to be able to paint digitally but I know that I'm a long way off from being able to work with color so I figured it might be best to start with greyscale.
Well this is my first time trying to paint something in photoshop so all critiques on structure, form, value, strokes, settings, anything really will be greatly appreciated.
Basically, rip me a new one.

This originally started as just a quick line doodle, but I got invested in it and thought I ought to try and bring it to completion. I really wasn't sure what kind of brush settings are best to use to paint so I just stuck to a hard round with max flow and opacity and no pressure setting on the wacom pen.
This is still in the early stages, but if I want to start rendering, do I just switch to a softer edged brush, lower opacity, use the smudge tool? What are some better techniques for the process?
Thanks guys



Here is the reference. It is a screencap from the show, it's not the exact one that I started with but it's pretty close.

[Frostblade]

You can try smudge tool.
With a speckle (bunch of small dots is prefered) brush shape. (brush spacing should be at least 5% increase this to make it weaker so it's not too intense)
In size dynamic make sure the size doesn't change but drag the angle to max and set on pen pressure. In scattering you can adjust it to use your needs (this depends on how wide you want it to blend) Keep count low or it gets laggy.

Anyways try it out, it blends without giving a super flat look.

[Maroniux]

To be honest, i dont think this screenshot is the best reference for a painting, the lighting is a bit vague and undirectional. Some stronger light will probably do it good. Other than that i think you captured his likeness pretty good.
As for brushes, if you lay in the largest value parts first, you then only need to soften some edges where approriate, this would be easier with stronger lighting. Do leave some hard strokes as that makes the image look more like a 'true' painting. I would remove the snow parts on his shoulders, since you used a different brush there, they are distracting. You could lay them in as value with the normal brush or leave them out entirely.

[ismo]

Personally I like to keep opacity at 100% and play with 10-70% flow. Hard round is all you need basically.

Try set up a still-life with simple objects and paint that 'till you get it. That's probably the best way to learn this trade.

[Logan Turner]

Best way in my opinion is to set the sample size of the eyedropper tool to an 11 by 11 average and select on the edges of where paint meets and just paint with the hard round. BTW if you don't already know holding the alt/option key (on a mac) will using the bush tool will switch you to the eyedropper.

Also good work on using full opacity and flow thats a good technique to have.
I would be very careful using the smudge tool and would suggest not at all and certainly not for large scale blending. I find the best use for the smudge tool is for small edge adjustments.

[J-Curl]

Thanks very much for the tips everyone.
@frostblade
Thanks, based on what I've been reading, I should probably keep smudge use to a minimum for now but I'll definitely keep that in mind for the future.
@maroniux
Yeah, I guess it really isn't the best lol. It was originally only gonna be a test sketch so I didn't give much thought to the quality of the scene. Though, I would imagine that if I can manage to do a portrait with as muddy lighting as this, one with strong directional should be easier right?
@Ismo
I'm kind of liking just the hard round just like you said. For my next update I will try doing as you suggest and keep the brush and just lower flow. Also, as soon as I finish this piece, I'm definitely going to start practicing on still-lifes. I've been checking out the "digital painting in ps #2" thread and it seems to have a lot of great help in there too. Thanks for the advice.
@Logan Turner
Thank you. Full opacity and flow feels nice and seems simple enough to work with so I'll stay at it. Thanks for the suggestion with the eye-dropper, that will come in handy I'm sure, and I think I will keep the smudge use to a minimum for now. No need to try and get all fancy 'till I'm comfortable with the basics right?

[Chris Sanders]

could you draw this with graphite or paint?

[J-Curl]

Graphite yes. I've never really used paints except for acrylics briefly over a year ago. And even then it was with colors -of which I had no concept of how to use accurately- so it didn't turn out well.

Charcoal is what I really love using. I picked it up in life drawing classes a couple years ago and more or less stuck with it (when I wasn't being lazy and not drawing that is)

[Chris Sanders]

fair enough, i believe you as the painting seems ok proportionally, needs some adjusting. i only ask because there's no like to any of your work. and a LOT(to the power of a lot more) of people come on here because they've picked up ps and a new tablet and wonder why they cant paint, when its usually because they couldn't do it in the first place without a computer. but like i said its alright, looks like it was painted on ms paint however. you want to knock in the background and set your brush to Transfer > opacity jitter > pen pressure. ps is literally useless without that feature. inless yo wanna work in a low opacity and build up colour that way, but its a royal pain in the arse.

[J-Curl]

Lol fair enough. I've been lurking here long enough to understand the reasoning behind your suspicions. I don't really have much work of mine online but I do have a largely ignored DA account with stuff from half a decade ago.
http://j-curl.deviantart.com/

I haven't really kept up with drawing because I suffer from a disease known as "slackoffinitus" whose symptoms include procrastination and prolonged laziness, but I do seriously want to improve and am now willing to put in the work.
Anyway, I plan on starting a sketchbook thread here pretty soon in order to help me get and keep a drawing routine going.
And thanks for the brush settings, I'll try it out.

[Chris Sanders]

yeah that condition is very common among creatives, that's usually why we get a lot of abuse from people with regular jobs, you've just really got to want it and push yourself. easier said than done, and your bound to go from time to time when for one reason or another you wana give up or just sick of the thought of painting, but you just gotta keep yourself interested in your study by mixing it up and taking breaks and getting feedback.

good luck with the settings, ps was a real pain for me at first but youve just gotta spam the forums picking up shortcuts and tools and before long it will just be an extension of your creativity; as natural as pen and paper.

[Frostblade]

This was the first tutorial I saw using the smudge tool and the results were not ugly...he is also my favourite illustrator.

Things smudge tool can do

Persoanlly, I think it looks like stippling paint that's been layed down rather than dragging and causing streaks. Of course like all tools, there is a time and place for it.

[DaEvil1]

I think there is some value into doing some stuff with just varying brush size, opacity and color. Though I agree it can be a chore, and can result in some stuff that can really look like an exercise in making wallpaint suitable for hell. However, I feel that it can really help in terms of understanding how to apply the brush strokes in a basic way and understanding how to really manage the transition between the different base tones you are using. Of course that's up to you, but it may be benefitial in terms of understanding what exactly the more advanced tools actually do and how to correctly apply them. I suppose it depends on your understanding of the basics as well as experience with different mediums.

Also you might wanna consider starting with somewhat bigger brushes than you've done in your sketch. It'll require more thought and precision when you're painting, but it will also avoid all that jittering and sketchyness you've got going on (which I suspect is stemming from the way you work with pencils and charcoal.) Right now it looks like there's something interesting hiding underneat all that sketchyness and abrupt change in color which detracts from the piece as a whole. I think you're exaggregating his features as well with your strokes. It's kind of when you draw in pencil and outline every feature with the end result of the character ending up looking old and uncanny. It might also be benefitial to stick with a few base colors/shades, and then try to flesh out the interplay of the tones in the transitions when the foundation is laid.

[Imrooniel]

I would suggest using photoshop standard brush (could be hard round, oil or charcoal one, depends on preference) at 50% opacity and just color-pick. Maybe not most time-efficient, maybe not using ps to it's fullest but it's a good start...

[Logan Turner]

set your brush to Transfer > opacity jitter > pen pressure. ps is literally useless without that feature.

I kinda have to disagree with that, perhaps true for you and others. But personally, said setting have caused me a lot of problems more than once and been the bane of many experiments. Most artists I know of don't paint with that setting either.

That being said some, like yourself, can use that setting and achieve great results!

So I guess what I trying to say is that there are not really any rules for brush settings, just preferences.

cheers!

[Artfix]

I have size for pen pressure on some brushes like doing details, lines, highlights. And I have opacity for pen pressure on the others for doing broad strokes, shapes, planes, areas of shadow, etc. I don't have any which I have nothing using pen pressure.

While were on brush settings, do you guys know how to save a brush with THOSE settings you like? Whenever I adjust the pressure setting, and save my brushes, it doesn't save the pen pressure setting I had. Can this be done or what's the deal? I must be doing it wrong.

I highly recommend finding tutorials, J-Curl. No amount of our words can describe what a few minutes of a video can teach you. A video is worth a million words. There are TONS of beginner tutorials out there. They are very easy to find on youtube and anywhere.

Daarken has some good videos that are pretty basic at http://enliighten.com/

[Frostblade]

Probably save it in tool presets, it even saves color if you want.

[Funkyskull]

You can set your Wacom pen to sample colors, by setting the lowest button to alt (option) via "modifier". (in the options for your tablet) This saves you a lot of time.

Also, If you want to smooth out your painting, you can set the top button to right click, which will produce a window for you to change brush thickness/softness.
Forget about the smudge tool. At least for now.

Set the flow to 70 and use the number keys on your keyboard to change the opacity. This saves a lot of time.

cmd Z is the regret button, Dont get used to it.

You can make your own shortcuts via the actions window. I.e. a "flip canvas horizontal"-button. This saves a lot of time. (Like looking in a mirror to spot mistakes)

You can create a layer to color your painting. One way is to have a layer above set to "Color" to put hue/saturation onto the greyscale image.

If you paint greyscale, turn the image mode to greyscale. This saves computer power.

cmd L is levels adjust.

cmd U is color adjust.

cmd T is free transform.

Shift button works like a ruler. Hold for straight lines.

Play around.

Have a nice.

[J-Curl]

Lots more advice, this is really helpful. I don't know how many times I'm allowed to say thanks before it becomes stale, but here it is anyways. Thanks guys
@Funkyskull:
The shortcuts will be immensely helpful. Awesome.

Edit: Artfix, I forgot to mention, that link you posted is really awesome.

[J-Curl]

First of all, I apologize for not updating this earlier. I don't want people to assume that their advice is going unheeded because I've failed to post updates.

Some things came up, but I'm back on this again. I have refined the main image somewhat which I'll be posting a bit later once I've completed more work on it, but I've run into a technical problem with photoshop (I think)

While trying to block in a background and some elements with a large brush, I've run into a frustrating problem. Anytime I switch to a brush larger than say 160 pixels, instead of getting a smooth line, I get a trail of circles whenever I make a stroke.
I'm almost positive it's not the speed of my computer (I have a moderately high end pc) so I think it must be some sort of setting in photoshop that I either didn't set properly or that is causing this conflict.

Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, and if there are more critiques on the actual painting, feel free.

[Revidescent]

While trying to block in a background and some elements with a large brush, I've run into a frustrating problem. Anytime I switch to a brush larger than say 160 pixels, instead of getting a smooth line, I get a trail of circles whenever I make a stroke.

Spacing is generally set to 25% or so by default. On a larger brush, lowering that will fix the circles problem.

[J-Curl]

Jeez that was a simple solution. Thanks a bunch man.