Here are some quick and dirty things I do at least once or several times during the creation of a painting. I recently changed to Photoshop CS2 but most of the tips are easily done with Photoshop 7 too. If you use an older version then PS CS2 you can always shoot me an e-mail and ask if you have a question:
Flip Canvas horizontally
Do this often. I can’t stress enough how important this is. For some reason our brain gets used to errors if we don’t change the perspective a little. Flipping your painting horizontally helps with getting a fresh look at things.
I am most of the time pretty shocked when I flip my work for the first time during the process.
Special note: sometimes you might even like that flipped version better composition wise and leave it at that. You can even try to flip it vertically for a totally different view
Save often
This is not only important for personal reasons but for some other points I am going to mention later on.
It makes the most sense to save several process collapsed .jpg files in the resolution you are working in.
Special Note: If you have a lot of harddisk you can even save .psd files.
Check your process
Often, when I am painting for quite a long time, I might get lost in details. I change facial features or hair or even the color scheme. If you have earlier steps saved you can always go back and compare them with your current version. Do you like the changes or you think an earlier version is better?
If you notice that you changed an element for the worse it is easy to open an earlier step of your process and cut and paste that special element over the current version of your painting.
Correct minor issues the dirty way
I tend to tinker around with facial expressions for a long time. Using the liquify tool is an easy way to correct slightly off features.
If you are working in print resolution (everything bigger then 72dpi (dot per inch) you should make a rough selection around the area you want to correct. You can either use the rectangular marquee tool or the lasso tool.
After you have the desired selection go to Filter -> Liquify (or Shift+Ctrl+X). This will open a new window inside Photoshop.
The tool I use most often is called “Forward Warp Tool” and can be found on the very top of the left tool bar in the liquify window.
This tool lets you push certain elements around. You have to be really careful though and probably try it out a few times to develope a feel for it. You will also notice that the actual part that gets pushed is in the middle of your brush circle that is visible in that liquify view. You can experiment with the brush size and brush pressure which are the only two settings I normally change. The mode can be set to stiff but you can also try out different modes and pick whatever suits you the best. CTRL+Z works here and you can undo a step if you messed up something. Or you can always cancel the whole liquify window and go back to the normal version.
Special Note: Use CTRL+Z to undo one step at a time in the liquify window. You definately need to experiment with this tool in order to develope a feeling for it.
Work with two windows simultaniously
If you are working at a very high resolution (say 300 dpi for print) you might lose the overall feel for the painting while working on 100%. Sometimes you are fiddling with details way too much and they are not even visible in the actual size the print will be at the end.
You can find a seperate tutorial on how to work with two windows of the same file here.
Check your values
The most important element of a painting is its values. If you got the values right you can use almost any color and your painting will still be perfectly readable. To check your values every now and then, duplicate your current painting (Image -> Duplicate..), flatten it down and desaturated it. See more information about theoretical terms and in particular value here.
NOTE: Duplicate an image and opening two windows of the same painting are NOT the same. If you duplicate an image it will only open a copy of the file and any changes you make on the copy will NOT be made on the original file.
Don’t start too dark or too bright
It’s much easier to start with mid level colors. Don’t forget that you have to add shadows and highlights to the overall painting.
Check your values every now and then (see above).
For hair however it’s best to start with the darkest color and go from there to the highlights.
Special note: Never EVER use black for shadows and white for highlights. Those two colors don’t exist in nature. A more saturated skin color tone with some hints of the ambient light works well for shadows. For Highlights use a brighter skin color variations.
Rule of Thumb: Cold shadow color -> warm highlight color, warm shadow color -> cold higlight color
Make actions of steps you do often
More to this later 