Color blending/Photoshop coloring

[Reckless!]

Ok so I've been practicing a lot sketching with my tablet, and things are going good so far. Now, I'm trying to add color with photoshop and I'm not quite sure how to go about blending one area of color into another.

What I've been doing so far is applying many layers of color over the same area at a very low transparency to get a subtle change of color, so I guess my question is are there any other methods that you guys use?? any different brushes or tools that I could use to make the achieve a more desirable effect in terms of making the colors and shading more realistic??

[Miran]

Some people use smudge tool to blend colors but I don't like this.

I usually adjust brush hardness and opacity and keep painting over. Soft brush is useful when you want smooth transitions.

It's also cool if you use hard bsrushes and keep building up layers of color. It looks more painterly but I personally don't feel confident enough when I try to paint this way.