TECHNIQUES MASTER PRO PAINTING TECHNIQUES
QUICK TIP
Checking depth is very easy in black-and-
white images. Place a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer over all your work. Set the
Saturation slider to -100. Make this layer
visible every time you need to check that the
depth and perspective are working.04
SKETCH AND LIGHT A NEW VIEW
Use a simple brush and draw on a new
layer on top of the stack. It is time to combine all
the previous planning in a sketch that will serve as
the foundation for the work ahead. Avoid too
much perfectionism, remember it’s only a sketch
not a final piece of art. On a lower layer, place a
suitable base colour that matches the
atmosphere. Over this one, place a new layer in
Overlay mode and paint using shades of grey to
rough out a first lighting and value setup.05
SET UP THE COLOUR PALETTE
A quick way to create a colour palette for this kind of work is to choose a few textures that, when
blended over the desaturated value layer, provide some basic tones and grainy detail. The sketch base colour
was a deep blue, so the chosen textures are blue with some details in a contrasting colour: orange or red.
Masks, blending modes, and Levels and Curves adjustment layers (Layer>New Adjustment Layer) are
powerful tools for fine corrections in order to obtain a full palette that serves well at all picture depths.06
CREATE A FIRST BASE LAYER
Collapse the base colour, value, textures
and adjustment layers into a single one – the base
layer. Place your sketch layer over this one to
serve as a painting reference from now on.
Prepare a soft brush with a low flow (20%) and
medium opacity. The Eyedropper tool is an ally at
this step, because now we proceed with picking
up tones and painting with them, defining our
sketched shapes with colours. After finishing, do
not hesitate to use Curves or Levels adjustment
layers in order to achieve fine corrections.07
PREPARE A GROUP OF MASK LAYERS
This is a long range picture, with a lot of
overlapping elements placed from near to far away.
In this kind of work it’s crucial to keep a correct sense
of depth as it’s easy to lose it in the painting process.
As a preparatory step, create a group of masking
layers. Every layer matches a group of elements at a
certain depth. You can do the same by saving pixel
selections, Select>Save selection, but this way is a
more visual and immediate one.08
CREATE DEPTH WITH ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
Traditional methods for creating depth
require you to individually stroke colours, varying
saturation, hue and value until the correct depth is
achieved. A far quicker way is to use our recently
created masking layers in combination with new
Hue/Saturation and Levels adjustment layers. This
way you will obtain the colours that provide the
correct depth. Do not hesitate to stroke rough details,
adding new colours or modifying elements if you feel
like it. When finished, merge all onto the base layer
in order to maintain a neat layer stack, lower file size
and cleaner memory scratch disk.