smoothing color fades in photoshop

[theprofessor]

hi guys, relatively new here been lurking and trying out some of the tips/tricks some of you have been posting. heres a question to all who may be able to help:

im using photoshop cs2, have used 4,5,6&7, but im trying to use photoshop to color/paint some of my drawings(im a tattoo artist, have been for 18 yrs.)
i cannot figure out how to smooth out my color fades, it always looks choppy when i use the smudge tool, or when i use the airbrush tool, adjusting the opaqueness as i go.

is there any way to..."render" the colors so the program smooths it out for you?

i have been told that you can, but you have to write code to do it, and im not that good on a computer.

or maybe a second route, is there any way to get a scanner to pick up all the colors from a colored pencil drawing(i use extensive layering and blending, including acetone) but the scanner only seems to pick up the first 4 layers.

any help would be greatly appreciated. i respect quite a few of you on here, and i respect your opinions(the reason i dont want to post any of my unfinished work....yet.....)

the professor

[Snarfevs]

Can you please post an example swatch of the choppiness you speak of? It need not be part of your work.

[Datameister]

Check out the "digital painting in PS" thread in this forum. It's all about effective blending in Photoshop. The basic technique (which can be modified as desired) is this: layer the basic colors pretty boldly, then go in with a lower-opacity or lower-flow brush and begin sampling colors. (You can alt-click an area to pick up its color; then you just keep overlaying the adjacent colors and sampling again until you achieve a smooth blend.

Could you post some quick examples?

[theprofessor]

i did find that thread that datameister mentioned, naturally 10 minutes after i posted...lol
im working on these techniques now. i did post one of my originals in my profile to show how the scanner wont pick up, but i dont have photobucket yet, but tomorrow is another day.

[femmebiz]

I also think you should post some of your work so we can see it.
Let us be your critique...;)

[xaik-]

Something I found that helps blending colors without desaturating is to use the color picker tool.

While laying down color, chose a lower opacity and paint one color over the other color. Hold down -alt- and choose the tone which seems like the best combination between the two colors.

http://x11.putfile.com/11/31322020455.jpg

I've found that the "blending" tools will desaturate colors too easily and ruin the edges you might want to keep.