Colour

Color wheels, is there a "right" one?

jimsvanberg — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:49:28 GMT

I am confused about color wheels. If I want to choose a complementary color for say yellow, I have learned that I can look at a color wheel and take the color on the opposite side of the wheel.
My concern is that if I look at different color wheels, the color that is on the opposite side to yellow is different. How can I know what color that really complements yellow, and what color wheel is the right one?

For example see:
http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/color_cast/color_wheel.jpg
compared to:
http://jilldenton.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/color-wheel.jpg

Back to fundementals of colour and greyscale

chuck_norris — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:48:40 GMT

Ok, why do artists add greytone to there pictures before going to colour. And how is the tansition from greyscale to colour conducted? I have always gone straight to colour, but it seems that I may may be missing out on a lot from not going to greyscale first.

Skin Tones

far-scry — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:59:16 GMT

Hey Guys,

I'm having real trouble getting to grips with selecting skin tones for my paintings. Everything I do seems to turn out either way too pale or way to orange with shadows looking desperately muddy.

I've read some good tuts in the mag (Martha's especially) and there is a great article on colour generally by a guy called Niklas Jansson (here http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm) which talks a lot about saturation etc etc.

I'm just not getting it at the moment!

If anyone has any tips on how to select skin tones and skin tone shadows that would be cool.

Colour exercises

Zinc — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:56:22 GMT

Hi all.

I'm looking for a little help using colours. While I've read up on colour theory and know what I should be doing technically, I really struggle to make that knowledge work in practice and any attempts at colour result in muddy tones and bland colour choices.

Therefore I was wondering if anybody knew any colour exercises I could try to help get my head around the basic use of colours and how they interact with each other in a painting?

Help with Basics

Yanayaya — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:55:40 GMT

Hello Everyone,

I have a wacom tablet that I use to color my images. The problem is that I am not sure exactly how to get started. My usual method of coloring was to lay down the skin mid tone first, then apply the dark and the light. I use the standard soft brushes in PH. My images never look right. I pick my mid colour and usually just move the tone a bit lighter a bit at a time while I work on the image however this is not really the way to do it and it is affecting my work.

What brushes should I use and what is the best way to apply the correct tones to my images? is it opacity of the brush or??

Halp!!

Images flat and washed out

Evil Robot — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:56:17 GMT

All my images seem to end up washed out looking and just not lit right. Need some help with lighting and color. I've attatched an image I just did for one of weekly chananges. I think it is good as far as I was able to draw what I wanted I just can never get the colors to work the pieces never quite come together. Any help or resources would be great.

Creating a palette from an existing image

Harlequin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:46:59 GMT

Is it possible in photoshop or painter to create a palette automatically from an existing image? At the moment I just keep the image open next to the one im working on and colour pick from it.

Painting in Cartoon-sytles.

strifestreak — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:17:18 GMT

So, after taking about two years of figure classes, I've finally managed to learn about the human body and shading appropriately, except now I have a problem;

How do I paint my sketches in photoshop so that they don't look realistic?

I don't want my cartoon sketches to look like anime and manga styled, but I don't want them to look realistic.

In other words, what aspects make a drawing look realistic?

realistic lighting tutorials...

ajha100 — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:53:52 GMT

I've had no formal art training, and although I've been drawing a long time, it's just been black and white sketches. Trying to get into digital art has opened up a new world for me, but I've gotten confused and frustrated by the sheer number of available tools. Can anyone point me to a good book that contains exercises which will help me learn proper lighting? Or maybe even online tutorials? I've looked at the ImagineFX workshops, etc., but even there, the few existing lighting "tutorials" are far too advanced, or offer information but no guidance for a beginner.

Thanks!

any help on how to start using colours in art

Theooh — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:59:34 GMT

Hello, Everyone

I am new to the art scene, I have started with some sketches and tutorials on art, and have progressed to a stage where I am capable of drawing the human form and animals, however colors are new to me and I need a firm understanding of it before I can apply it. could anyone give me an Idea on where I should go or what to do. I have drawn my puppy using color pencils and it is according to most people photographic in nature, they might just be saying that to be nice, however I would like to know more about colors and especially airbrushing, I find airbrushing on computers awesome and the stuff some of the artist do is very inspiring and I wish to mimic them, may be I am aiming to high. sorry if my words are all over the place, I really don't know the technical terms to things but any help would be appreciated.

Kind Regards

Theodore.

Books/homepages on color theory?

jimsvanberg — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:20:56 GMT

Hi there!

I suck at colors, when painting, picking the color scheme is were I have the most trouble. I would like to read more than the basic stuff that ImagineFX has in thier workshops. Do you have any tips on book or homepages with this subject?

And what more, I would like to know your method for picking a colorschem for you paintings :)

For me there is something missing

teenyweeny2 — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:11:32 GMT

First I have to say I'm new to all of this. I have been playing an online game called WOW and wanted to enter some fan art. I can draw well enough and wanted to bring the level of the image up a few notches, so I started to look for some online tutorials. Then I can across this site. Wow. This is how I would like my art to look, so I started to read the workshop pieces. While they were impressive they seemed to lack so much information on how to achieve the viewed results. I could see in the screen shots layers with all kinds of effects but no explination.I have aquired photoshop and have tried to achieve something close to the art displayed here and have come up short, badly. Skin never seems as bright or soomth as images I viewed. I have set my original image on its own layer and have painted skin layers and it looks ok, until I turn my drawing off. I also have to say that I feel like I'm over whelmed by amount of information and yet lack of concise information for achieving my aims.Are there any tutorials that can walk me all the way through until I get a feel for what I'm doing?Many Thanks

Globs of harmonious paint

Isolde — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:09:52 GMT

I don't get it. How do people achieve that effect?

examples:

http://zhuzhu.deviantart.com/art/Binding-77496835
http://zhuzhu.deviantart.com/art/White-78566731
http://cellar-fcp.deviantart.com/art/odin-sphere-61757963

The brush strokes stand out and scream "LOOK AT ME" but then they flow together and form the entirety of a painting. It just boggles my mind! I try to achieve that look but always end up using blenders and getting this smooth/slick effect. I use both Painter, Photoshop as well as OpenCanvas, so I really would like to know more about this method/style :(

colorblind

chombata — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:05:50 GMT

I have an intereting problem. I am colorblind (red/green) This makes painting quite challenging for me. Is there any sort of guide that can tell me the hex ranges for certain colors? That way I can at least know if Im in the general area?

Help me!!!

The Jabberwocky — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:11:33 GMT

I am having difficulties selecting different tonal values of the same colour from the photoshop colour box thing (sorry I don't know the technical term :)). I am having this problem particularly with skin tones, I can usually pick a nice mid tone but when it comes to the rest I can't seem to find the right dark or light tone. I'm very used to painting with watercolours and adding things like a little blue to a skin tone to darken it up but photoshops new territory and I'm finding it difficult.

Thanx for reading this eager newbies cry for help and any advice on my dilemna would be much appreciated.

Keeping your colours fluid

Mushy — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:47:51 GMT

Whenever I start a painting on Photoshop I have a common problem where I try and include as many 'natural' looking colours as possible but spending all my time looking for the correct colour tends to ruin my 'flow.'

Can anybody help me out, possibly by suggesting a way to speed up my colour picking process?

Thank you

~Chris

Great Color Resource

chaunce322 — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:23:59 GMT

I found this resource online through the Mac widgets, and I think it's a great resource for digital artists. It's a digital color wheel that lets you pick various color schemes and gives you the resultant color palette. Here is the link:

http://www.colorjack.com/sphere/?LoadJack=fu:0,blind:0,mode:0,model:1,maly:1,currMe:0.29524x0.22381,cpu:0.735,cpv:0.265,abu:0.9,abv:0.07358,aeu:0.4719,aev:0.52705

Sean

Color?

ZoneX — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:35:01 GMT

Color, Its The Most common Thing in my artwork that is bad. I need some tips on how to color better. I never seem To get it right.

My most common thing that a colour wrong is skin and hair.

Any tips on it?

Thanks in advance.

Greyscale to Colour

Vauxhaulastra — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:52:20 GMT

Heya.

If i've drawing something in photoshop in greyscale, lesse, for example this: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53428827/

How do I go about adding colour like the Julie Dillon says on page 61 of this month's mag?

I want to learn more about color theory

jimsvanberg — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:08:04 GMT

Hi everybody!

I am interested in learning more on color theory and I'm wondering if anybody know any good sites on the subject or books that would be helpful?

Skin tone

Airbrush — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:58:36 GMT

Hi everybody.

Hi have a small problem, when i try to brush people, i tend to get the skin tones and palett wrong.

Any tip`s or help?

Thanks in advance.

Rust? how do I do it?

freiheit — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:39:29 GMT

ok so I'm designing a monster and I'm making a color drawing of him to since the sketch version was aproved. He has a silver ring piercing but I think it's to clean and shinny it sticks out in the design but in a bad way lol, how could I make it look like old metal? any tips on the color palet I should use or quick ways to make my ring look old? Like textures that work well for this with certain layer mode etc

(I'm working it on photoshop right now but I also have painter at my disposition)

CMYK vs RGB

fabledgoat — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:20:38 GMT

Ok, so this topic was actually started under the "canvas size" thread but I thought it would actually do well on it's own. The age old debate as to whether you should be working in CMYK or RGB mode.

I guess there's a few different ways this could be looked at. Different perspectives whether your a Graphic Designer, an Illustrator, or a hobbiest. So here's a Graphic Design perspective.

Back when I was in school (graduated a 3 year course and have been working for 3 years now) we were taught that all output should be CMYK. Obviously I think pretty much everyone will agree with me on this one.

There are two exceptions. One is if you are creating stuff for web use and this is because all monitors are RGB and view everything in RGB. Programs such as photoshop simulate CMYK on the RGB screen so that you get a closer rendition to what might be printed should you send your work to a printer. Your screen is still RGB though. The second is if you are printing to your personal inkjet printer. Even though these printers have colour and black cartridges, they print in an RGB format. If you have one of the new fangled inkjets that have more than just two cartridges, but have individual ones for each ink then you might get away with printing in CMYK. I haven't used one of these new printers so I'm not sure how well they work. As far as sending your work to a printer though, all work should be in CMYK as a final output.

So what should you work in? There in lies the real debate.

If your work is just for personal use and you have no intention of printing it at a printers, or if it's for web bases output then RGB would be best for you because as I mentioned, most personal inkjet printers print are in an RGB world, adding black when needed, and your monitor is RGB.

If your going to print?

CMYK
Pros: What you create is what you get. Though your print out may never look exactly like what's on the screen, there should be little colour shift when going to print.

Cons: Your limited in what you can and cannot do with extra features such as effects, filters, etc. 90-95% of all filters and effects don't work in CMYK. If your an illustrator who does everything from scratch with only the use of brushes, this probably isn't that big of a con.

RGB
Pros: You have access to a wider gamute of colour as well as access to all of the effects, filters and bonus's that photoshop and other programs have to offer which allows you more freedom in what you do and what you create.

Cons: When everything is said and done you then need to convert your image to CMYK for printing purposes. When converting from RGB to CMYK there is a definite colour shift as a good degree of the RGB colour gamute can't be printed in CMYK. After converting your image you then need to use levels, brightness/contrast, colour balance, and/or the curves tools to correct the colour shift as best you can. Most of the time you will be able to achieve a satisfying image in CMYK when doing this, but it won't be exactly what you had on your screen in RGB. This can definitely be a major pain in the rump!

So yah, there's a few pros and cons. This is simply information based on my lessons in college as well as related work experience as a Graphic Designer. I myself work in RGB when modifying images and then change to CMYK before inserting the images into design applications. I'm sure there's alot of illustrators and designers out there who may agree or disagree with my short analysis here so feel free to post your comments. I'm interested to see what others are thinking on the topic.

Saving images for the web and maintaining your original look

rollie — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 04:14:25 GMT

I was wondering if someone might be able to give me some advice on saving images for the web. When ever I save my painting -either png or jpeg the image values seem to raise slightly. ie. my blacks turn to grey etc and I loose some saturation. I know that with these two compression types there will be some drop in quality, but can anyone give me any advice on how they keep their image quality up or is this something that's countered in photoshop?

thanks in advance

Colour MIX....(ACRYLIC)

chison — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:31:30 GMT

OK..I know this is very a newbies things to some of you on tradition art .
but then this forum is fulls of digital person(include me!^^)
so i thing a good to intoduce some tradition to it... (then ,may the expert rule it.)
i founds it very fun to mix colorsXD without to finish one ani-tradition image.

colour mix....the aims is to use three primary color(Red,Yellow,Blue) to create a secondary clour (blue+red=purple) (red+yellow=orange) (blue+yellow=green)

with different porportion with three P.Colour...you than can get more of the colors from the color circle range... but then ,there are also some contast colour,tint,complemntary,mood which i am still not very be sure off

here are some EG that done by me

http://www.gsnbox.com/310107/3.PNG
http://www.gsnbox.com/310107/4.PNG
http://www.gsnbox.com/310107/7.PNG
http://www.gsnbox.com/310107/8.PNG
http://www.gsnbox.com/310107/Scan0009.JPG
http://www.gsnbox.com/310107/Scan00501.PNG

^Y^"^-^X^+^V^_^you know what types of person i am if you can understand the colour mix stroke

and the 3 bottels of 250ml acrylic cost me 21 british pound**(omg,)...because watercolor packs are in a unreasonally small tubes with loads of differents colours,soo i picks the acrylic,acrylic are reasonable fast drys and p
acrylic are Plastic like...

i Recommend some of you take some short offical lessons to it?but than...this is pretty much a simples things if you knows what you are doing.

...the end