Coloring In Photoshop-UPDATE 7/6/11 Tips for Coloring Professionally

Coloring In Photoshop

Table of Contents
-Cel Shading
-Soft/Painterly Shading
-Tips and Tricks
-Hair-http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg156910#msg156910
-Rain-http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg159322#msg159322
-Basic Color Choices for Cel Shading- http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg159873#msg159873
-Removing White Backgrounds/Coloring Lines http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg161862#msg161862
-Quick and Easy Texturing http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg162743#msg162743
-Skies http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg169030#msg169030
-Doing Flats the Painless Way http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg169309#msg169309
-Cuts, the American Comic Coloring Style http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg182778#msg182778
-Angie's Big Overall Guide on How to Make You a Better Colorist http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg195330#msg195330
-Tips For Coloring Professionally http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.msg204844#msg204844

I'm going to cover 2 different ways to color as well as some quick tips that I use to make life easier. Don't have a tablet? That's okay, I will be covering ways to color with or without a tablet.  This tutorial requires a basic understanding of Photoshop and knowledge of how layers work. If you do not understand layers, please read my Introduction to Photoshop tutorial.

First we need some lineart.

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/3695/deelineartky5.jpg
this image was drawn by http://entervoid.com/member/3814 and is being used with his permission. Typically you want to be working at an even higher resolution but for this tutorial, it's okay. There are some stray pencil lines, but that's okay, if you read the cleaning up tutorial you know what to do with those.

CEL SHADING



First we need to make a bunch of layers. Make sure that your lineart is the very top layer and is set on Multiply. It really helps to name your layers so you can keep track of things. Now, if you have a tablet, get to filling in each object. It really helps to zoom in to 200% so you know that you are staying in the lines. If you're using a tablet, it really helps to fill in the background with a solid color so you can make sure you're doing everything okay. If you do not have a tablet, use the polygonal lasso tool that I have highlighted to the left, and proceed to fill in your selection with the paint bucket tool. I actually prefer this method over using just a tablet since I spent about 7 years of my life coloring with a mouse, so to me it's much easier. Get each layer filled in? Awesome, let's move forward.



First things first, lock the transparency of the layer you're going to be working on. This prevents you from going outside the lines and will make it much easier to get smoother shading. Next, if you are using a tablet, simply choose a hard edged round brush and go at it. If you are not using a tablet



simply use the polygonal lasso tool to select where you want to be shaded. It takes practice but is well worth the results. You can get much better results by using the pen tool but the pen tool pretty much needs its own tutorial and I'm not very good at it so polygonal lasso tool+paint bucket it is. Do this on each layer, remembering to lock the transparency and you should end up with something like



Some things to remember on shading, for the darker shade, it should be less saturated so the whole thing doesn't end up looking all blown out and crazy colorful.

Now create a new layer on top of the lineart layer and with a solid round brush, add in some eye shine. If you would like to give your coloring a little extra shine, create another layer right below the lineart layer and set it on Screen or Hard Light, whatever looks best to you. And go along where there's shading with a light color and a soft brush to create some secondary/reflective light.

You should have something like this


Remember this isn't really how light works but it looks nice.

PAINTERLY STYLE

If you would like to do a more painterly style instead, this time start with the colors you want to be the darkest and if you're using a tablet, get out the Airbrush Pen Opacity Flow brush. It's a brush that Photoshop has by default and only works if you have a tablet. If you don't have a tablet, you can get a similiar effect by choosing a hard edge brush and lowering the opacity. There unfortunately is no easy way to do it without a tablet, you're just going to have to bear it by using the mouse.



Work in reverse and gradually add more light. You can do this the same way you did the cel shading by adding dark to light, but this is how I personally do it. It's really up to what you're more comfortable with. You should end up with something like



It's pretty much the same thing, for little details like making a fur texture, just make your brush smaller. I typically use this method of coloring for all my backgrounds.

TIPS AND TRICKS
-If you would like to add a texture to your piece, find a high resolution texture on http://deviantart.com or any other site that offers free textures, and paste it into a new layer on top of the colors. Set the layer on Soft Light or Overlight. It helps to make the image black and white (CTRL+SHIFT+U) first.
-NEVER EVER TOUCH PHOTOSHOP FILTERS. Just forget things like blur, lense flare, etc. exist. It is possible to use them successfully but if you're using a tutorial for Photoshop, obviously you're not ready to use them. The best use of Photoshop filters are ones you can't see.
-If you're having a hard time figuring out how to do the color for shading, look at cartoon/anime screencaps and grab colors off of them.
-The [ and ] keys are your friend, they change the size of the brush that you are working with.
-Burn and Dodge aren't the end all be all in coloring. Don't touch them.
« Last Edit: Jul 06, 2011, 04:23 PM by angieness »
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #1 on: Feb 26, 2008, 08:13 PM »
I really like how you're doing these. 

That's not quite the way I do my cell-shading, but now that I know what "lock transparency" means, I'll have to try it. 

Hey, is that Riley? 
No man or beast or kitty-cat or doggy is going to drag me down.

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #2 on: Feb 26, 2008, 08:35 PM »
Well there's several ways cel shading can be done. It can be done with the brush or the polygonal lasso tool like you see in the tutorial. If you're familiar with the pen tool, it can also be done that way, but for me it was always the biggest pain in the ass. But if you're not using a tablet, the pen tool for easy curves can be pretty valuable. And yep, that's Dee's character Riley in the tutorial.

And if anyone has any requests for various coloring techniques and styles in Photoshop, please let me know and I'll see if I can make a tutorial for it to add onto this topic. (I do have my limits of course haha there's a few styles I'm still not super familiar with like realistic painting in Photoshop)
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #3 on: Feb 27, 2008, 03:40 AM »
I want to see how you pull off coloring Angie's 'strandy' looking hair in all your battles without pulling your OWN hair out. XD I crave to see the secrets revealed!

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #4 on: Feb 27, 2008, 12:06 PM »
haha in which style? Cel shaded or the more painterly style I went with in the Suit battle?
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #5 on: Feb 28, 2008, 08:44 PM »
Okay here you go Kozi

Hair in Photoshop

Not going to go through and explain layers or anything this time around since everything you need to know should be in the first post.

If you would like some lineart

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6884/13220128lm7.jpg

a profile of Angie from my battle vs Scarlett, I cut out all the background stuff and drew the back of her head digitally just to make your lives easier. I went with a profile shot since it's a bit easier to do and I can better show how to get the texture of the back of her hair. Feel free to use your own lineart for this, I'm just providing this in the event you don't have something lying around.


Like you did in the first part of the original tutorial, put your lineart on top with a layer below it labeled "hair". Proceed to fill it in with a flat color and lock the transparency on the layer. Got it? Awesome. I'm not providing an image example on this part since this is essentially what you should have been doing in the first tutorial.


Now for this I've done a quick sketch of how Angie's hair works. I actually never do this type of thing when I color hair, but if you're just starting out it helps, just do another quick layer and lay out how the hair should act. For simple hair styles I doubt this would be necessary, but styles like this can be a little more complicated. And if you're using my lineart, there's some color swatches to the right you can just steal for the shading.


I made this a lot more detailed than I normally do. I did the shading by following my red lines, it's really up to you how detailed or simple you are. It takes practice, but try to always make sure your edges where the shadow begins are thin or pointy.


If you would like to give your hair a little more texture, take a thin round brush, and quickly make tiny strokes along the hair while still remembering the structure of the hair. I personally only add 2-3 strands, it's really up to you


Now you don't have to add another shade if you don't like, it's really up to you. I personally only stick to 2 tones, but if you really want to give it more detail, go for it, just do the same thing you did on the first tone.


We're almost done, simply take the Airbrush Opacity Flow Brush (it's a default Photoshop brush that only works with tablets) and add some shine to the hair. Again, remember the structure of the hair for the best results.


And we're done! Add any personal touches you like, I always add some secondary lighting (as explained in the original  Photoshop tutorial up there) and go around the darkest parts in the shading with a soft brush.

Doing hair in a more painterly style is essentially the same process, you just manually draw in more strands of hair using the Airbrush Opacity Flow Brush.
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #6 on: Feb 29, 2008, 03:30 PM »
Oooh, this is lovely! :D I'm loving the chunkiness to it. :D Great tutorial.

Thank you Angie *grovel grovel*

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #7 on: Apr 16, 2008, 08:27 PM »
Rain in Photoshop

This is probably the easiest way you can do rain short of simply downloading a rain brush off of deviantart (which is what I did for my battle versus Suit). In this tutorial not only will you learn how to rain, you will also be learning how to make your own brushes! This way of doing rain is the same technique I used in my latest battle versus Scarlett.

First we're going to make us a rain drop brush.

First make a new document, create a new layer, and fill it in with black. Then make a white dot on the left of the image. The image can be as large as you like, make it big enough to where it will be able to be easily applied to your image without too much distortion.



Now we're going to do the forbidden, use a Photoshop filter. Go to Filter, Stylize, Wind and have it set to Wind and coming from the Left. You should get something like this.



Now press CTRL+F to use this filter a few more times, it's really up to you how many times you want to do it, I did it 3 times



Now press CTRL+I to invert the image



Now press CTRL+T and flip it 90 degrees.



Now simply hit CTRL+A to select the entire image, and go up to Edit, Define Brush, and name it whatever you like that you'll remember.

The following steps might not work properly with a mouse as they require pen pressure. If you do not have a tablet, simply add the rain in yourself, this step just saves time.

Now open up your Brushes window (if you don't know where this is at, go to Window, Brushes) Select Shape Dynamics from the side menu and change your settings to this.



Now turn on Smoothing, and then go to the Scattering menu and make sure your settings are like so



And finally go to the Other Dynamics menu and simply turn Opacity Jitter to 100% with Pen Pressure off. You can save all this by clicking on the little arrow under the X and selecting New Brush.

Now simply create a new layer on the image you want to add rain to and have at it. This technique isn't perfect so you may have to manually erase a little extra rain here and there because it tends to create unnecessary extra drops if you're not careful. It also helps to add a little motion blur and lower the opacity. Experiment and see what works best for you!



Things like water hitting and dripping off objects can be done by simply drawing lightly in your desired color on the rain layer or a new layer. To get the impression that someone is moving through rain, adding a little motion blur to the rain droplets helps give the illusion that the rain is moving with the character. Here's a very closeup shot of one of Angie's hands from the Scarlett fight that shows how I do little additional droplets on my own.





Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop-4/16/08 How to Do Rain Added
« Reply #8 on: Apr 22, 2008, 03:15 PM »
Amazing rain tutorial. There's tons of rain tuts on the interwebs, but not very much that can portray rain efficiently. This one's great if you ask me.

Re: Coloring In Photoshop
« Reply #9 on: Apr 29, 2008, 04:02 PM »
Basic Color Choices for Cel Shading

Okay, I'm not going to be teaching coloring theory on this particular section, just very very basic rules of thumb for color choices for Photoshop. Now I may eventually do color theory but since for me it was a year long college class, it may be difficult to condense the information. This is not the end all be all and this won't be very effective if you're looking to make something realistic, this is mostly useful for the cel shading style. I'm doing this because I've gotten questions about how to make stuff look a bit less flat color wise. Also keep in mind that you don't have to stick to this, you can do some really awesome things by being more experimental with your palette, but again, I'm just covering some quick basics.

Before we get into the tutorial, here are some important things to keep in mind

-Pick a color scheme, feel for the picture, or certain time of day when you color an image. I have a far easier time making color decisions when I have a specific tone/time of day set in mind.

-Try to avoid having a billion different colors in the image. I generally try to avoid using more than 3 base colors for backgrounds, because once I go past that it becomes more difficult to manage and can easily make the image extremely busy.

-Saturation-How intense the color is. From full blown bright red to gray.

-Hue-the property of light by which the color of an object is classified as red, blue, green, or yellow in reference to the spectrum. (from dictionary.com)

-It's fine to reference other images for colors. In the beginning you may find that you're color sampling a lot of works, but it's best not to depend on it. Once you get a feel for what to do, try to branch out instead of constantly stealing colors from other images.

Good Examples of Basic Comic Coloring:
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/181/example1mg1.jpg

For me, the Bone comic covers are a great example for doing basic comic coloring. The backgrounds don't overpower the foregrounds and the colors are pleasant to look at. There isn't any random bright red or green to suddenly pull the viewer's eyes to the background.

Bad Examples of Basic Comic Coloring:
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7933/example2mu4.jpg

Not only are they insanely saturated and difficult to look at, my eye has no idea where to go on these. Yes, they're Archie and not meant to be masterpieces, but they should have some standards.


This is our basic color chart we're going to be using for this. Again, this is very basic shading, you'll get the best results from experimenting and really messing with the colors. This is for basic cel shading so we're not too concerned with realism. This is also significantly more saturated than you'll be using in most coloring situations, I just chose this blue as an easy example. Try to start out with a less saturated color.


1.This is a palette a lot of beginners are guilty of. Hell, I made the mistake for years until someone pointed it out. The colors are 100% saturated. While you can get away with it, it tends to flatten out the image and make your colors difficult to look at as they're so bright.


2.If you're wanting to do a straight up flat lighting situation, this is normally the way to go. As your shading gets darker, you're making the color less saturated. Now it's probably not necessary to go all the way to black or anything, but this way prevents your image from becoming too bright. You have to be very careful to not go totally gray or gray too fast, or it's going to look like you added gray to your coloring, which is a big no no.


3.Now here we're doing the opposite. This is good for a more intense lighting situation where a bright light is over the character/object. Start with a less saturated color and as the shading gets darker, choose more saturated colors.


4.On this one we're shaking up the colors a bit by starting with our blue and going to purple for darker shades. This is very useful for when we're in a low light situation like in a cave, in a dark room, etc.

Hopefully this is helpful to you guys. Remember to experiment on your own and see what works best!
Kittens wearins mittens

awesome angieness! if I may, I'd like to add a link to a tutorial I did on using color masks to color in photoshop.

http://dannyburbol.deviantart.com/art/How2-Shade-with-Masks-72792696

It's a lot like you're doing in your first post, but I use color layers (so you can instantly change your color scheme).... also, check out the end with the dark blue and light yellow layers for getting the character to really pop.

BTW, thanks for sharing, I wish more people took the time to share techniques like this.

Thanks,
~Danny

Thanks for the link! Yeah, I've taken a class on Photoshop and I wish I had really paid more attention when we covered masks. I just never felt the need to use them but they can be helpful
Kittens wearins mittens

Very helpful tutorials, Angie (and Danny) - thank you

Removing the White Background from a Black and White Image/Coloring Lines

Every once in a while you'll see images where people color the actual lines of their image. A lot of the time people do this by drawing the art in digitally, but for people like me who have no talent with a tablet, there is a way to do it with scanned art. This tutorial will show you how to accomplish something like this.



There are surely several ways to do this, but I've found this is the simplest way to do it. It's not perfect and can be a little rough on really thin lines, but it gets the job done. First open up your image. Make sure the layers window is open, and click on the Channels tag.



Now simply hold down on the CTRL button and click on the RGB Channel. It will select the white around your lineart. Now hit DELETE on your keyboard or CTRL+X to cut it and voila, all the white should be gone.



And all you have to do now is hit CTRL+U and adjust the lightness/hue/saturation of the lineart for the desired color.



And there you go, colored lineart! Just make sure that you have the lineart layer set on NORMAL at all times and simply color the image like you would normally.

Some helpful tips

-It helps to duplicate the layer after deleting the white once and merging them back down into one image (don't flatten the image), this should thicken your lines a little in the event any of them got too thin in the delete process.

-This method isn't 100% perfect, you may need to touch up a small area or two and get rid of any white edges around the lineart.
« Last Edit: Jun 09, 2008, 09:04 PM by angieness »
Kittens wearins mittens

I would like to show another way that seems easier to me.


Clicking the load channel as selection button in the channels tab.

delete

then go to the layers tab and press the lock layer button.


Deselect, and then you can color all over the line art and it will only color the line art.
« Last Edit: Jun 12, 2008, 11:30 AM by dawgmastas »

Oooo I didn't know about that way of doing it, thanks for the tip Dawg
Kittens wearins mittens


After nearly killing my computer trying to color at 600 dpi, I found this...

"If you're trying to save memory while coloring, you can do what I've heard many professional colorists do: Scan the art actual size (10x15 or so) at 300dpi. Save that file, then reduce a copy down 50% so the computer will go faster while coloring. When you're finished, enlarge it back up to 300dpi, and paste the original line art back into the K channel. Then when the file is imported into QuarkXPress and reduced down to 67% for the printed size, the resolution will effectively climb to around 450dpi, for super- clean printed results!"--Quoted from http://www.balloontales.com/tips/output/index.html

Now I don't use QuarkXPress... But that first part is a great idea!
I'm a walking talking example of "If you don't use it, you lose it."

Easy Texturing
« Reply #17 on: Jun 30, 2008, 01:25 PM »
Quick and Easy Texturing

Texturing can add a lot to a piece, and it's fairly easy to do, the nice thing about it is it can make the coloring process significantly faster because textures tend to fill in the gaps and make it to where you don't have to spend 5 hours blending colors or trying to get a crazy painterly look. I personally use it because of this, on average it already takes me 6-8 hours to color a page so getting a shortcut is welcome. This tutorial is mostly going to focus on just simply adding a flat texture to something. I will also go into how to add somewhat believable dents/cracks in objects. Successfully texturing takes practice and I'm still not great at it, one thing a lot of people have told me is to not let the texture overpower the art, which is difficult to do. When you first start adding texture to objects, it's difficult to not go crazy because it can look super awesome when applied, but things can get very muddy if you go too crazy. The best thing to do is experiment and see what works for you, don't take this tutorial as "how to get my stuff to look like Angie's", because I'm not going to show exactly how I do it, this is very similiar but I personally take a few more steps.

Finding a Texture

Well, the ideal thing would be to make your own texture. If you want that old aged paper feel, simply get your own paper and crinkle it up, burn it, spill coffee on it, etc. Or if you're lazy or don't have access to totally awesome things to make textures of, you can find them online. Just make sure that the textures you are using give you permission to use them. I go to various websites if I need something specific, but for this tutorial we'll hit deviantart. Just go to the main page, click on categories, resources, textures, and pick whatever you like. If I'm going to use deviantart, I search by what's popular because it can be a pain to search 80 bajillion pages for something good. The only problem here is you might end up having textures that everyone and their mom also uses because obviously, it's a popular texture. For this tutorial I'm going to be using

http://light-stock.deviantart.com/art/TEXTURE-XLI-90232632

The artist asks that you let them know if you use it so be courteous and follow their wishes. It may look massive and pixelated but this will be ideal if you're adding this to a 300 DPI image. Simply open up a colored image.



Now I normally color the background after I've put the texture up so as you can see, I haven't exactly put all the time in the world into painting that wall back there.



Now all you have to do is copy your texture, go onto the layer you want, press CTRL+V, and it'll make the texture where you want it to be. Make sure you make the texture black and white by hitting CTRL+SHIFT+U.Set the layer the texture is on on Soft Light or Overlay (whichever you think looks better) and voila. I recommend messing with the opacity of the layer so you can tone down the texture, but that's up to you. Right here I only have the opacity set at about 74% or so. I personally add more than one texture so it's more difficult to tell exactly what textures I use and it tends to look a little less lazy. Now we can stop here because it looks fine as is, or we can add a little more.

Adding Cracks/Scratches Into Surfaces

I like to add a little more to my walls and various surfaces so my backgrounds have more to them. Why not add some cracks into that wall? This is what I do on most of my walls as well as things like Angie's father's shoulderpads right there. All you have to do is take a dark color and draw in the cracks, it needs to be darker than the surface you're drawing on obviously. You'll end up with something like this



Now add a highlight. You can put it on a new layer if you're scared, or do it on the same layer. I personally go with whatever the secondary lighting is to make it stand out more, but if you want something more realistic, simply use a color that's slightly lighter than the surface you're coloring on. We all know my lighting probably isn't realistic, but it works and looks nice so that's what I do. (I know I'm being a terrible example)



This kind of thing can be used for cracks, dents in armor, etc. And normally looks pretty nice and adds a little more depth to the surfaces. Obviously this crack in the wall wouldn't make sense since they're standing in a hospital and I doubt the hospital is that ghetto, but it's there for example sake.

Tips

-Please NEVER EVER EVER add texture to plain black and white lineart!!!! It can be done, but 90% of the time it looks terrible. Don't do it unless you are just the best thing ever. There's very little I hate more than seeing lineart placed on top of random wrinkled paper texture C. Every time I see something like



part of me dies inside, kittens cry, babies get thrown off buildings, puppies get hit by cars, etc etc etc. Don't do it, I beg of you! I really don't know why people do it but it just doesn't look good most of the time. (I did acknowledge a few people on this earth can pull it off, so I don't need examples where it was pulled off successfully. It can look good if done right, it just requires more than placing a texture behind your lineart)

-Don't let your texture overpower your work. This is a critique I've gotten in the past so I'm speaking from experience. Never be afraid to lower the opacity of your textures and use multiple textures to keep objects from blending into one another.

-You will almost always want to make your texture black and white. Just hit CTRL+SHIFT+U. Most of the time it's going to make your colors go to hell if you don't do this. There are occasions where you don't need to, but for the most part, it's a good idea to make the texture black and white.


Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop-06/30/08 Quick and Easy Texturing Added
« Reply #18 on: Oct 05, 2008, 09:40 PM »
when I do rain, I steal a space backgound from google images with plenty of stars, the I blur/contrast so its all black and white. Then I select, then erase the black, and then do a motion blur on it and play with that. You can also do a radial blur to get the rain effect I used here.

http://michaelharris.deviantart.com/art/Jodie-Potter-62477810
your sig is too big! -the management

Quick and Dirty Sky Tutorial
« Reply #19 on: Dec 14, 2008, 10:51 PM »
Since Fowlie requested this, here's a tutorial for fairly easy pretty skies in Photoshop. Since it's super late this isn't my best tutorial but you should get the general idea I hope. Keep in mind the way I do skies isn't always necessarily the most realistic way, I recommend looking at actual references to do your skies. Also don't be afraid to vary the colors up some more to give them more life. In order to do this tutorial you'll need to have read my first coloring tutorial for the brush I use.

For this tutorial I'm using the the same color template as the Frank battle so we're going with something dark and dreary



As you can see there I've provided a template right there. As usual I'm working with a texture, you are free to add one if you like but that's entirely up to you.



First I start gradually adding in a second color



I then lay out the next color gradually and start adding in where the clouds will be.



And as for the actual clouds and more variety in the colors, I use the forbidden color dodge tool. I discovered this when trying to figure out how Airlight colors. I pretty much just gradually add some highlights to the clouds, draw in some new clouds, and brighten up the lightest part of the sky some. Now on this image I went much further than I normally go since this would probably be just a little distracting in a comic but you get the general idea.

The best advice I can give is obviously try to use references and to practice. You'll notice on my Foo fight the skies gradually got better looking because I just figured out how to do them there so keep at it and experiment to find out what works best for you. Again, this will not give you the most realistic sky but you can pretty easily get some nice results.
« Last Edit: Dec 14, 2008, 10:54 PM by angieness »
Kittens wearins mittens

Flats!
« Reply #20 on: Dec 19, 2008, 01:42 PM »
Doing Flats the Painless Way

One thing that has always been a thorn in my side in all my years of coloring, was doing flats. I would spend an enormous amount of time zoomed in way close to fill in the flat colors, and all this time there was a much easier method to doing them. Corny recently passed this trick onto me and I was kicking myself for having never thought of doing flats this way as it cuts time doing flats in half if not more.

First obviously open your image you're going to work with, since I'm in the middle of coloring a BB page at the moment I'm going to use that.


-For this we're going to use the once forbidden magic wand tool. So go ahead and select that bad boy.


-While on your lineart layer, select the area you're going to color and you'll get the little dancing ants in the desired area


-Go up to Select, Modify, Expand


-Choose anywhere from 2-4 pixels, it's up to you and how large your image is. 2 pixels is fine for a 300 dpi image.


-Now go down to whatever layer you want the color to be on, and using the paint bucket tool just fill it in and voila! Obviously there will still be times where it's not totally perfect and you may have to do some touching up like for the white on Angie's face. But for the most part this has made coloring significantly faster for me and hopefully for you too.
Kittens wearins mittens

Re: Coloring In Photoshop-12/19/08 Flats the Painless Way
« Reply #21 on: Dec 19, 2008, 01:50 PM »
Yea-yeeaaah.
Best technique ever.

Re: Coloring In Photoshop-12/19/08 Flats the Painless Way
« Reply #22 on: Dec 19, 2008, 07:32 PM »
uh WOW. Thank you.

Re: Coloring In Photoshop-12/19/08 Flats the Painless Way
« Reply #23 on: Dec 19, 2008, 09:51 PM »
Expand!! Ugh, that's genius!

Thanks for the tip!!

Re: Coloring In Photoshop-12/19/08 Flats the Painless Way
« Reply #24 on: Dec 20, 2008, 12:19 AM »
I'm pretty clever for knowing that nifty little trick already, WOO!

 

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