What coloring techniques do you use

[phillycheese167]

I use Photoshop cs6 but i was wondering what all coloring techniques you guys use to color your pieces? I saw a video on one that used a gray scale to get the basic values, and then a layer with the blend mode set to color and literally just dropping the color onto the top of the gray scale, and I've seen that get some spiffy results, and tried it for a while, but I was wondering what other techniques people are using out there, because even though it gets good results, it's still limited in a way. In the piece that's attatched though, I used a more... straightforward approach with just the colors and varying the opacity and got an okay result. Well I guess i'm more wondering how you guys do your blending and such? If that makes sense. Anyway. that's a lot of typing.

tl;dr : How do you guys color your digital pieces? Color, blending, shadows etc.

[VanDiablo]

I just go in draw out a sketch and then drop in colors starting with the back ground.

[Havegum]

I've been trying to work this out myself lately.

Working in greyscale can be easier but I've found colourizing something from greyscale is tedious and I can't get the same colourful expression I'm aiming for most of the time. Working with colour from the beginning is perhaps more challenging but it allows for more control over the expression.

As for choosing what colours to use, I found this piece of insight helpful

[lovingthedark]

I find it's important to at least think about color from the beginning, regardless of when in the process you put it down. It'll affect your value and composition decisions. The link Gumby gave is super useful- I've taken color theory classes and it does a good job of giving the rudiments. It's a hard thing to teach since there's so much data to give that it's hard to simplify.

[VanDiablo]

At 12/22/14 09:40 PM, lovingthedark wrote: I've taken color theory classes and it does a good job of giving the rudiments. It's a hard thing to teach since there's so much data to give that it's hard to simplify.

Color selection was a hard thing to over for me as well. Especially since its digital medium and you can really blend colors like you can when on canvas.

[lovingthedark]

At 12/23/14 07:35 AM, VanDiablo wrote:
Especially since its digital medium and you can really blend colors like you can when on canvas.

I'm assuming you mean 'can't' and I'd like to point your attention to a program called ArtRage, which imitates traditional media really well. You can plop oil paint on a canvas from a digital tube and smear it around and blend it with a digital palette knife, it's terrific. Pretty cheap, too.

[JPversus]

At 12/22/14 05:28 PM, phillycheese167 wrote: I use Photoshop cs6 but i was wondering what all coloring techniques you guys use to color your pieces? I saw a video on one that used a gray scale to get the basic values, and then a layer with the blend mode set to color and literally just dropping the color onto the top of the gray scale, and I've seen that get some spiffy results, and tried it for a while, but I was wondering what other techniques people are using out there, because even though it gets good results, it's still limited in a way. In the piece that's attatched though, I used a more... straightforward approach with just the colors and varying the opacity and got an okay result. Well I guess i'm more wondering how you guys do your blending and such? If that makes sense. Anyway. that's a lot of typing.

tl;dr : How do you guys color your digital pieces? Color, blending, shadows etc.

Colors, depends on the setting or what overall feeling I'm going for.

I just start off with line work.
anatomy -> rough sketch -> clean lines (vector).

Then for coloring.
I duplicate the clean lines layer and rasterize it so I can fill in the colors. Bucket tool to fill all the base colors.
On a new layer, I set it to clip at the layer below (base colors layer). This way I can do all the shadows/shading with no worries about going over any lines. It tends to be rough so to blend the shading with the base colors I use gradients. Specifically I use the foreground to transparent.

[Lintire]

I just wing it, lol.

Wouldn't be overthinking it, brother. Just go with what looks natural to you. Or what looks banging, bamf.

[ZaneZansorrow]

I use adjustment layers and blend modes (like overlay, color, multiply, color burn) to get the colors I'm happy with and then paint over.

[CypressDahlia]

Overlay layers are my best friend.

But of course you should only use overlay for color adjustments. Always paint your colors in afterwards, otherwise it looks unnatural.

[jagondudo]

i use something called a gamut mask. to Limit the color wheel and get more complimentary color schemes. It's been pretty useful so far.

As far as building up I used to go greyscales to get the lighting and shadows down first. But I ended up with a lot of black in the image so opted for just going straight with color. Laying down the main colors first. Then adding the compliments and stuff.

[torithefox]

For painted pieces I generally:
- clean up the sketch a bit
- put base colors below
- color sketch a color that goes nice with the base colors
- add a shading layer above everything and play with color and layer modes
- add a overlay layer above, usually to add texture of some sort. I may or may not hide it until I'm finished
- merge visible and just clean up everything.

Lined stuff:
- base color layer below lines
- 2 shade layers, one is usually a gradient for light shadows and the other a regular fill for stronger ones. can be below or above lineart
- erase the areas where light hits on both layers.
- add 300 overlay layers and overdo everything. Maybe a layer for lights if I remember.

[CypressDahlia]

I guess this is a decent photo of the process I used for my two Brainstorm pieces