Environment painting in photoshop? ( I use real media usually, advice? )

[penzilla]

I am really used to real media. I like having something I can hold in my hand. I started doing an environment of ruins and vines..with colored pens and water color pencil. I got perspective help on it and a criticique and I scanned it in to work on it digitally...I figured it would be good to use layers to clean it up...but jeez photoshop can be so annoying for painting.

Yes I use photoshop to paint characters and people sometimes.. but i always stay away from it when im doing environments because I really hate building up rendering in photoshop. My environments are really detailed.. I have always kind of lowered my opacity and painted gradually because i had a teacher suggest this a while back.. But im not getting used to it. the rendering is wierd and splotchy and your really CANT control it with pen pressure unless you are constantly hitting numbers on the keyboard to change opacity.... Yes, I lower the hardness of my brush btw.


i have gotten used to keyboard shortcuts, but I am freaking frustrated by how tedious it is to change the brush specs. Even with keyboard shortcuts.-- Its like every time you change colors or values you have to painstakingly find a new color .. or swatch and decide the opacity it should be. if its too high it looks ugly. if the brush is too big it looks ugly... it makes rendering a bitch.

I have to get this done by next tuesday for a class.

Yes I start with the darks and gradually ad lights. to my forms.

Advice? (Especially if you have used real media and then gone to photoshop)

[Dile_]

Hmm medium doesn't really matter... its just a matter of getting used to them individually !
There are tons of ways to go from traditional media to digital/photoshop.. If you have lineart you could build it up in two layers... the lineart being a multiply layer and then painting underneath it.. or you can just use the lineart as a guide and paint right over it and build it up from scratch.

If you have used traditional media for a long time you know that using really big brushes is essential... try to start that way to stay as simplified as possible.. that will get you a really long way on its own. If you stay soft edged that will also help because you will naturally detail out what is important in your composition, so its important not to put too much focus on the stuff that shouldn't be in focus just by using hard edges..

Going from midtones and add shade/light to it usually works better for me.. + you get a better feel of what all elements does to the piece before you have painted them out.. kinda helps you with the whole squint-your-eyes part..

Staying zoomed out and having a shortcut to the flip-horizontal/vertical also helps you a lot in seeing the 'whole picture'.. which is really important when painting anything in photoshop on a small screen.

For changing the brush size, I have set my photoshop to do that on A and D ( I was a hardcore gamer, finding those keys on the keyboard is easy haha ) then I have softness setup to s and w.. and the lasso tool setup to my V instead of L or whatever it is originally to be able to use all shortcuts I use with my left hand. If you use any other shortcuts than those just remap them so they are located close to where your left hand ( or right hand possibly ) lies comfortable and can reach all shortcuts without a problem, and also ( A LOT of people doesn't know this lol ) the EYEDROPPER is ALT ... you don't have to hit "i" to use it hehe.

As for the opacity.. you have the whole spectrum of different opacity on your 1-0 keys and *I* suggest that you don't start using too much -low- opacity until you have all the elements in your pieces painted in. And then use lower opacity to benefit from the rendering more.


Good luck! =D