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DIGITAL PAINTING TIPS / LESSON:

Was done in Photoshop CS6, Other painting programs may have different hot keys and tools but overall concept is the same

  Plan a color palette! Colors really set the mood of your painting, Spend around 10-15 mins making a color palette for yourself or blocking in base colors as a foundation for your painting. This is required for the next step! Even if you end up changing the colors (using hue/color balance/ levels) around later, you need something to work with at first.

Download to my color palette is in the YouTube video description. Notice how I didn't just use solid colors in my palette, but a range of colors that work out. This allows me to pick from a range of colors while painting. Dont forget to make a grey scale palette too !

  The Alt Key is your best friend ! When you're on the Paint tool press the Alt key to switch quickly to the eye dropper tool. While holding alt quickly pick a color from your canvas and leave the alt key to go back to the paint brush.

Set your brush opacity to somewhere around 50-75 for good blending and keep using alt key to pick up median colors and blend better. To use this technique efficiently you must develop a practice, picking colors constantly and quickly.

Work with few layers! Yes my first painting had around 30 layers back when I first started digital painting. But Learn to have only a few layers! Have one for your background, mid-ground and for a foreground (or along those lines).

Having too many layers will greatly increase your painting time. You'll find yourself constantly searching through layers, and it will disrupt your creative flow. If you make new layers merge them with your main layers once you're done.

Occasionally use Alt+Ctrl+Shift+E ! This will create a new flat layer of your painting. You can use this flat layer to play around with Levels (Ctrl+L) , Try different Color Balances (Ctrl+B), Try different values of saturation or maybe hues (Ctrl+U). This will help you visualize what you your final painting could look like, and will help you better decide your overall mood.

Lastly if you work with a toned down opacity brush for most of your painting you're likly going to have a bit of a lower sharpness. But that's totally fine! Use the Smart Sharpen tool (Filter -> Sharpen -> Smart Sharpen) to boost out the sharpness of your image. Smart sharpen also gives some edge and depth to your brush strokes making it look more like paint. Play around with it!

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Well I have a lot to learn myself, but Im happy to put out what I know

If you're in the mood for it, please subscribe to my YouTube channel . Peace and Good Luck !

2014 © Aaron Metallion.

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