Difference in Opacity

[Rhythmus]

Opacity is a big grey area for me, as far as digital painting goes. Personally, I always start at 50% opacity, but I think that's me being overly cautious. It seems to me that blending would be easier on a lower opacity, but I don't know which is best.
What do you think?

[Felicia]

I change the opacity for brushes all the time (most used hot key next to color picker and brush size). I also change the opacity for the layer when it is an effect (color shift, lighting, etc). Sketching I sometimes start at 30% but sometimes it is 100%. Blending is much easier when you change the opacity of the brush. For blending I go between 5% and 40% depending on how smooth I want it to be.
Don't be afraid to experiment. There isn't a set rule about blending or opacity.

[Farvus]

I learned to paint with 100% opacity and now I'd never do it any other way. Mainly beacause when picking from a palette I want exactly this or that value and with 50% it looks different on a painting. After some time I see that something is wrong. Everything looks very desaturated and dim.

[kingshaj]

i disagree with farvus.....im cosntantly changing the opacity. for darn near every stroke (wich is, i admit, a pain)

the idea being that in traditional painting, im loading a brush differently all the time...more or less terps/paint ratio

i think of the opacity as terps

[Rhythmus]

when you're working with 100% opacity, what is the best way to blend colors? is it just about gradually changing the color ever so slightly, till they merge?

[Farvus]

kingshaj - Hehe. It's just how I paint. I can already get wide range of strokes from tablet pressure. There are some exceptions. Sometimes I need for example subtle haze in my environment so I set the opacity to about 10 or 20%. Once in a while I use 60% opacity but never at the beginning.

Rhythmus - There are few methods.
First one is putting two colours next to each other so they slightly overlap and create new one. I Alt click with colour picker to choose this new colour and paint between them.
Other method is the one you mentioned. For this I often use Photoshop's RGB sliders. When painting shadow I for example move slightly B (Blue) slider to the right to make the colour cooler and then slightly decrease the brightness.

[Rhythmus]

Excellent tips there, Farvus. Thank you very much.

[Magic Man]

I never alter the opacity, too much of a hassle and interrupts my workflow too much. I use pressure to denote opacity, and when I hit the right opacity, I color pick that spot and use it to bend between different hues or tones.

So rather than me doing calisthenics with my fingers, I have my finger on alt unless I need to change brush size. Keep it as simple as possible, or else you'll be spending more time pressing keys than actually painting.

- m

[Magic Man]

kingshaj - Hehe. It's just how I paint. I can already get wide range of strokes from tablet pressure. There are some exceptions. Sometimes I need for example subtle haze in my environment so I set the opacity to about 10 or 20%. Once in a while I use 60% opacity but never at the beginning.

Rhythmus - There are few methods.
First one is putting two colours next to each other so they slightly overlap and create new one. I Alt click with colour picker to choose this new colour and paint between them.
Other method is the one you mentioned. For this I often use Photoshop's RGB sliders. When painting shadow I for example move slightly B (Blue) slider to the right to make the colour cooler and then slightly decrease the brightness.

I use this exact same method.

[Rhythmus]

I'm trying it out on a small WIP I'm working on right now. I'm not used to it, but I like it a lot better, probably due to what Farvus said about the values and how at a lower opacity you don't get the value you might have wanted.

[seba_boi]

Are you using Painter?... I never change the default opacity of the brushes in Painter... It screws me up big time on most occasions...

[Rhythmus]

I'm using Photoshop, though I plan to start using Painter soon.

[Rhythmus]

First one is putting two colours next to each other so they slightly overlap and create new one. I Alt click with colour picker to choose this new colour and paint between them.

Wait, if you're at 100% opacity, and you overlap colors, wouldn't one color completely block out the other, thus resulting in no intermediate color?

[Farvus]

That would happen if I use my mouse which has two levels of pressure - no click with 0% and click with 100% opacity . My wacom has 512 levels of pressure so I can get 512 different opacities from complete transparent to completely opaqe.
You can turn it on here.

[Rhythmus]

Alright, now I understand. Thanks, Farvus!

[kingshaj]

food for thought