5
Making use of Photoshop’s Auto Color tool
I’ve always been a huge fan of Photoshop’s Auto features (Auto Tones, Auto Contrasts and Auto Colors). My primary aim when using
these tools is to quickly push the values, colours and contrasts within the artwork towards a more realistic, and often photographic look. It’s like
asking Photoshop for advice! The software will suggest a rebalanced version of your values, which may or may not work depending on the
subject, general composition, colour predominance, as well as Photoshop CC’s algorithm. Of course, you have to use your own judgement
every time you decide to give this a try. After all, you – and only you – are making all the final decisions, not the software. In this case I manage
to generate a better contrast balance as well as an improved and more grounded colour setting, which I decide to keep. I’m now feeling
confident that the most important task now is to render and polish the image.
4
Start painting
Now that the rendering
phase is complete, I turn my
attention to refining the yellow
grass. I’ll do this in two steps.
First, I’ll define the general patch
of grass and its boundaries, using
a subtle vertical grass brush. Once
the whole surface is covered, I’ll
add long patches of horizontal
grass with a slightly darker value.
There are numerous ways to
make a custom grass brush. Just
remember that trial and error is
the key to improving your
brushes. In this case, I decide to
keep Initial Direction on the
brush active, to emphasise the
consistent look of the grass. I also
add some Color Dynamics to the
brush to give the grass a more
natural appearance.
Photoshop’s brush management
system enables you to easily create
a certain brush for a specific
situation. I do recommend using
bespoke brushes, but only in
small quantities. This scene was
painted with between six and
eight custom brushes, including
one cloud and one rock brush.
The other advantage of limiting
the number of brushes is that
you’ll give more consistency to the
rhythms and microshapes of your
image. The human eye is always in
search of repetitive patterns, and
adding these repetitions through
the use of a small set of brushes
will benefit your artwork no end.In depth Concept artist