Photoshop Colouring!

by: oddhatter

First, I'm going to say that this is the way *I* colour in Photoshop. There are many other ways to do so; and mine is by no means the best. But it does work. I'm staring with a picture of my pet Gelert, Ally_2002_. If you look at the picture below, you'll see that the picture is actually at 25%. The actual picture is over 1000 pixels in width and height. I like to scan my pictures in at around 200 dpi to work with and then shrink it down later. That way, I have lots of room to work and jagged edges blend better. (note: monitor resolution is 72 dpi)

The picture here has already been adjusted so it's mostly black and white. (there is some grey...but I'll tell you how to get past that soon.) A mistake that most artists make is merely filling in the white sections using the "fill" tool. That tends to leave lines not-so-sharp, odd white spots, and just takes away a bit from the overall niceness of the colouring. This is when Photoshop's layer feature comes in very handy.

Make sure that your picture is on a separate layer (i.e Layer 1) and not on a background layer. To get it on a different layer if it's on the background, just select the entire picture(ctrl+A) and copy(ctrl+C) and paste(ctrl+V) it again. To create a whole new layer, it's layers >new >layer (or shift+ctrl+N).My layers box currently looks like the one below.

Then, click on the "channels" tab, also located in the "layers" window. There is a "load selection as channel" button at the bottom of it. Click on it. What it does is select all the "white" areas on your picture. Go back to layers and hit delete.

You should now have a top layer that has all the white areas removed. It will probably be fairly light, that's because all the whites(including the whites in greys) have just gone poof. If you haven't already, create another layer UNDER the one with your lines on it and make it white so you won't have to deal with the checkered pattern. Now, back in the layers window(where you should be already), "lock" the lines layer. What locking does, is make sure that only parts of the already existing picture will be coloured on-right now, that would be your lines. Grab a nice big brush(black) and just scribble over the picture. You should see your lines get darker and thicken.

Congratulations, you've just created a nifty layer with ONLY your lines on it.

But then, you also want colour...this is when patience comes in handy. You have your lines, and you're going to colour UNDER them. Create another layer underneath your lines layer. then grab a brush and colour, trying to stay within the lines. You can't use the fill tool this time because that layer is essentially a blank one.

Above is how Ally looks with only her brown colours in. Now, I'm going to shade it. First, "lock" the layer. You'll be using the airbrush...no "dodge" and "burn"...it's too harsh and better left for effects. Set the airbrush tool to "multiply" at a low pressure, preferably no more than 15%. You'll probably learn what you're most comfortable with soon. Select the same colour or a slightly darker one for your shadows. Add shadows.

Set the airbrush to "screen" for highlights. Play around with colours, you can actually use the same colour as your base colour for all highlights and shadows, but it's nice to play with other colours too.

This is how Ally currently looks like. The "fur" effect was done by merely swiping the "smudge" tool(it's below the eraser) back and forth a few times.

And I repeated the same thing for her wings, eyes, nose...and so forth.

After colouring everything(each colour on separate layers) and adding some other touches(like a simple blue background frame thing), I flattened the image( layer> flatten image) and shrunk it down.

The finished picture!