Technique: Blending colours using 100% opacity

**koshime** · October 28th, 2005, 07:27 AM

Hi guys,
I've seen a few artist work using 100% opacity on their brushes, and colour pick off the colours to achieve the right blending between - say two colours and use the same process throughout for any painting.

Yet, when it comes to trying it out, that blending between two distinct colours or hues is not achievable. Is this due to the wacom settings or an obvious painting techinque I'm missing.

many thanks

**Datameister** · October 28th, 2005, 11:40 AM

I honestly don't know. It seems to me like it would be impossible to blend with 100% flow and opacity and pressure sensitivity not configured to affect either of the two. Anyone else?

**WARHEAD** · October 29th, 2005, 12:08 PM

Hey Koshime - Are you sure it was 100% opacity ?

The best you can get away with I think is around 75 - 80% without losing too much opacity. Unless of of course I am also missing something......

**koshime** · October 29th, 2005, 12:15 PM

I'm sure its 100% opacity, but what they might have done is change the table to pressure sensitivity and use chalk liek brushes, thus allwoing one to pick up various colour snad leave small enough holes for new colours to "blend" in

**Idiot Apathy** · October 29th, 2005, 04:20 PM

Could be a really soft brush or a brush that has it's own opacity in parts. What about flow though?

**Datameister** · October 29th, 2005, 04:23 PM

In my opinion, it's more effective to use flow than opacity...

**koshime** · October 29th, 2005, 04:43 PM

isnt flow related to pressure sensitiviy? i.e if not on pressure setting, flow controls the amoutn of paint, whereas on pressure sensitivity its all bout the wacom....

**pushav** · October 29th, 2005, 06:46 PM

Try this when you are ready to blend colors set your flow to something like 30-70. Use 1-30 for real soft blend. Flow is like the 2nd opacity fill flow of the brushes in photoshop. I use this method a lot.

Remember keep the opacity at 100 and change only the flow of the brush. This wirks for all brushes. That is how they do it. You can also do it with a wacom at super light pressure but you dont wanna worry about how much pressuer that you put on the tablet.

**m00ftak** · October 30th, 2005, 09:13 PM

I know the brush you're talking about Koshime. I have seen them such as the pastel brush in Painter as well as the watercolor brush in Opencanvas. Both seem to act in the way you describe.

I havent seen any such brush on photoshop. you should let me know if you find the right settings

**dindon** · November 10th, 2005, 03:31 PM

I'm guessing they change the flow.

I honestly don't know how flow works. I know it's supposed to be the "amount of paint" being applied... It looks basically like opacity, but if you make a single stroke that goes over itself, the opacity adds. Except, the flow needs to be at like 1% for the stroke not to be a totally solid black line (or whatever color is selected).

With pen pressure selected for flow, I find the flow has to be set at about 20%, or everything turns out completely solid. (my wacom sensitivity is on the soft side) Am I missing something?

**Datameister** · November 11th, 2005, 11:49 AM

I don't know exactly how to explain how Flow is different from Opacity. But here are some things to keep in mind:

*A Flow value of, I don't know, 36% will be darker than an Opacity value of 36%.

*When you're painting with reduced Opacity and a brush stroke crosses itself, the intersection looks the same as the rest of the stroke. When you're doing it with reduced Flow, the intersection has more color applied.
Reduced Opacity gives a "flatter" look than reduced Flow does.

*If you have Airbrushing turned on, the Flow value affects how quickly the paint is applied.

Opacity is good for some things, though.