This portrait by Richard Schmid displays the loose brushwork associated with alla prima painting.
Alla prima is Italian for “at once,” and it refers to the style of oil painting known as direct painting. As one website puts it, “Alla prima refers to a method by which the artist applies each stroke of paint to the canvas with the intention of letting it stand in the picture as part of the final statement. There is to be no retouching or overpainting after the first layer of paint has dried.” Usually an alla prima painting is executed in a single session (”at once”), though that’s no strictly the case. What defines alla prima is the bold application of color, usually mixed on the palette. Due to the oil medium’s viscosity, edges are fluid and indefinite. As painter Scott Burdick says, “The main advantage of this approach is that it keeps you from painting up to lines and ending up with stale brushwork.” In alla prima, the artist begins by defining the large shapes first, “blocking them in.” Gradually smaller shapes and details are worked in. You can see an excellent step-by-step demonstration of alla prima painting by Scott Burdick here. Burdick works without a net, in that he does not begin with a detailed drawing; he “draws” with his brush. Today we’ll look at how you can bring a fresh alla prima approach to your paintings in Corel Painter.
To begin, let’s take a look at two paintings that exemplify the two major types of oil painting (alla prima and glazing). Here you can see how each approach results in a different sort of look, even when the subject matter is similar. The first, “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”, 1885-1886, is by John Singer Sargent. It may not look all that loose, but keep in mind that the painting is very large (68×60″). The second is by a master of the glazing technique, Maxfield Parrish. It’s called “The Lantern Bearers”, executed in 1910.
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. Oil on canvas.
The Lantern Bearers, by Maxfield Parrish. Oil on canvas.
And here are two landscapes for comparison. The first is by contemporary artist Richard Schmid, the second once again by Maxfield Parrish. Here, the difference in approach is more obvious. In Schmid’s work, the hand of the artist is very much part of the work; in Parrish’s work, it’s nearly invisible.
Alla prima landscape by Richard Schmid. Oil on canvas, 2009.
Evening Shadows, by Maxfield Parrish. Oil, 1950.
Maxfield Parrish achieved his jewel-like colors by employing many layers of pigment, each sealed by a layer of varnish. He used colors straight from the tube, allowing the transparent glazes to optically mix, much like in a watercolor. It was a very time-consuming process, since it required drying time between layers of paint and varnish. The alla prima method, on the other hand, is fast. To emulate Parrish’s method using Corel Painter, you would use (obviously) layers, and just skip the varnish! In a future tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to do a master-copy of Parrish’s work using Corel Painter. To emulate Schmid’s alla prima technique in Painter, you would stick to a single layer (the Canvas), and mix your colors using the Mixer palette.
That’s all pretty obvious stuff, I suppose, but what if you wanted to use color cloning? Can you get that fresh, loose look while cloning? The answer is yes, and the trick is to use Quick Clone. When I’m working on a portrait that needs to look “painterly,” I usually begin with a blank canvas, and pull the color from the original image onto the canvas. I don’t use the Clone brushes, usually, since they will pull in too much detail, and that’s not the look I’m after. To begin, open your file in Painter, and then go File > Quick Clone. In the upper right corner you’ll see a drop-down that allows you to adjust the transparency of the tracing paper. To make sure the tracing paper is turned on, go CMD+T(Mac) or CTL+T(Windows). This is a toggle, that will turn it on and off. In the screen shot below, I’ve got the clone open and positioned above the original, and I’m selecting 80% opacity for my tracing paper.
You can use any brush you like to begin “blocking in” the color. For this example, I’ll use the Acrylics variant Captured Bristle. Set it to 90% opacity, 50% resat, and a good firm stroke to bring in the color. Leaving the tracing paper turned on, but faint (like around 80%) allows you to stroke along the forms in the image, such as the figure and the tree branches. For areas with lots of small detail, look for the larger forms that contain those details. Use a big brush, like size 60 or greater. (If your image is small, 60 may be too big.)
With the orignal open at the same time, begin to block in the major shapes. I'm probably being too detail-oriented here.
Taking my time and being somewhat careful, one hour later I have the following image. You could, at this point, use a Soft Cloner at low opacity to bring out some of the foliage details, and refine the figure. Just don’t get carried away, or it’ll turn back into a photograph! I hope this quick exercise gives you ideas for new approaches to your painting. Let us know how you do!
A one-hour alla prima painting, using a Quick Clone to start with.
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Painted version, using ArtRage 3
We mentioned a few weeks back that ArtRage 3 had been released. Today I decided to take the demo out for a spin, put it through its paces, and report back. The results were not very impressive, though I do see some improvement. I also see that the price tag of the full-featured version has increased from $25 USD to $80 USD, and the reduced-feature version has gone from free to $40. Quite a jump. Is it worth it? Not in my opinion, though I should mention that I’ve been using Corel Painter nearly every day for the last five years. Today’s exercise made me realize I’d been taking Painter for granted. It’s very powerful, and there’s really nothing else like it. That said, I believe it’s too expensive, bloated, and I wish someone would buy it from the meatheads at Corel and give it a proper home. The release last year of version 11 was a disaster, and I’m sticking with version 10 until they come out with an actual upgrade to the program. As you can tell, I’m not the typical Corel fanboi, but I do use Painter and love it. For the type of work I do everyday (photo painting for photographers), I’m afraid ArtRage 3 just won’t cut it. But I had fun playing with it today, anyway. Here’s what I found.
Original photo used, courtesy of Best Friends Photography.
As you can see from the before and after of the cute pup above, I was able to paint a passable portrait, using the equivalent of the smear brush in Photoshop, or the various blenders in Painter. These worked well for the dog. ArtRage has a cloning ability, though it’s not called that. It’s called a tracing. As with Painter, you can tell ArtRage to use a file for color information, to clone color. This is the way I work when altering photographs for photography studios, so it’s what I concentrated on during the “road test.” To use the tracing facility, you begin by creating a new painting, using the following dialogue box.
The new painting dialogue. Click on the green icon to bring in your file for tracing/cloning.
ArtRage conveniently allows you to determine your new file based on the size of the file you’re tracing. You can also just skip the trace file input, and work from scratch. You’ll also choose your paper texture here. The paper or canvas texture works much like Painter’s, except it doesn’t seem to “fill in” with paint; the texture remains fully visible no matter how much paint you apply. You can change the paper texture later, if you like.
After opening your new painting file, you can control the visibility of the color source image (the tracing), much like with Painter’s tracing paper. I like the controls and feel of ArtRage quite a bit, and don’t miss the Windows-clutter of Painter at all. You can easily switch the clone-color option off by clicking on the color palette, but to go back, you’ll need to dig into the menu to tell ArtRage to once again use the tracing for color information. The brushes, familiar from version 2.5, work well for color cloning, though I couldn’t get the palette knife to apply color to a blank canvas, either with color clone turned on or off. It may be designed that way. The new Sticker Spray brush doesn’t clone color accurately at all. Blues come in as yellow, or red…it seems broken.
In Painter, it’s common to start with a “Quick Clone,” which is a blank canvas. The tracing paper control allows you to see a ghosted image of the source you’re cloning. You can do the same with ArtRage, but here is where I really began to appreciate how well Painter does this. ArtRage does not bring in color accurately, to make a long story short. I tried to work from a blank canvas, and then clone back in from the original photo. The results were always crude and disappointing.
What worked much better was telling ArtRage, via the menu, to apply the tracing image to the canvas. This is like a standard clone in Painter, and it’s how I painted the dog at the top of the article. I used a soft variant of the palette knife, which worked just like a blender or the smear brush in Photoshop. New to version 3 are a whole new category of brushes, which seem to be made using a whole new technology. It takes some getting used to. It’s called the Sticker Spray brush. Stickers are similar to the Image Hose in Painter. But they also seem like a new direction for ArtRage, and I wish they had implemented it across the board instead of off to the side, so to speak. I also wish they had finished getting the bugs out before releasing it. There’s a lot of power and flexibility here, but the color cloning, as mentioned earlier, is broken. The colors are not even close to correct. ArtRage’s version of the Brush Creator is not intuitive or well-documented. Controls all over the place, in fact, have names which signal nothing to me. For instance, what the heck is “Drip Spike”? “Auto-flatten”?
ArtRage comes with a lot of brushes that remind me of a program my kids used to play with years ago, KidPix. Why anyone would want to paint with dominoes or cartoon leaves is beyond me. Interviews with the owners of ArtRage indicate they are trying to please everyone from grandma to professional illustrators. They seem to be taking the same road Painter did, adding all kinds of useless fluff with each new release. It’s a shame, because there’s a need for a nice, clean, strong painting program. Do digital artists really want stencils, rulers, and all the odd little toy brushes ArtRage offers? I doubt it. But that’s just my take. You can download and install the demo of ArtRage for free, and it’s good for thirty days. Give it a try, and let me know what you think.
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Use Corel Painter's Colorize compositing mode to quickly add color to black and white images.
Turning a black and white photo into a color photo can be a challenge, even in with today’s advanced software. When you hear the word “colorization,” you probably think of an old movie on Turner Broadcasting. Or you may think of the pre-color film days, when photographers would use an airbrush to add color to photos. In either case, the coloring is flat and unrealistic. Luckily there’s a way to get much better results than that, and it’s built right into Corel Painter. It’s not quite as easy as hitting a “colorize” button, but almost. You can use this technique to bring vintage photographs to life, and turn your own black and white images into color paintings. If you’re a beginning artist just beginning the transition from monochrome to color, you may want to consider this technique. You can establish your drawing and values first in black and white, and then apply color without losing your under drawing. This is just another one of the many advantages of working digitally.
Painter has layer blending modes similar to Photoshop, but they are called composite methods. In both programs, these are found in the upper left corner of the layers palette. By choosing “Color” in either program, you’ll be able to paint a transparent layer of color which allows the layer below to show through. This works pretty well, but even better is Painter’s “Colorize” composite method. As you’ll see, it applies color only where there is some value of grey on the layer below. It won’t leave any color at all in areas of your photo that are pure white. For those areas, we’ll use a second layer with a composite method of Multiply. Multiply “adds” to whatever is below, even if it’s white. Experiment with both layer blending types to see how they work. This technique employs both together, each on a separate layer.
To get started, open your scan of an old photograph (or of a black and white drawing you’ve done) in Corel Painter. The image is on the background layer, which Painter calls the Canvas. Make the layers palette visible if it’s not already (go Window > Show Layer). We’ll do all our color work on layers above the Canvas, leaving the original image untouched. To add a new layer, go Layer > New Layer, or better yet, just click on the new layer icon in the layers palette. It’s the icon at the bottom, third from the left (see above).
Step One
Double-click on the new layer’s name, and a dialogue pops up. Use this to rename the layer to “colorize.” With this layer active (highlighted), we can begin to add color. For this, I use the Soft Charcoal variant of the Charcoal category. Use an opacity of about 50%, and choose a light peach color. Set the resat value to 50%. With light pressure on the tablet, begin stroking color onto the face, making sure the colorize layer is active. You’ll notice that more color is applied to the darker areas of the face and neck. To avoid the usual flat look of colorizations, vary your colors as you paint. Use a rosier color for the cheeks and under the eyes. Choose a nice brilliant red for the lips. Add color as appropriate for clothing and hair. You’ll be applying washes of color that seem to magically combine with the greys from the photo. Here’s what you’ll have at the end of step one:
Light washes of color are quickly applied to the colorize layer using Soft Charcoal. I've left the background untouched.
Step Two
Now add a new layer, and rename it Multiply. Change its composite method to (you guessed it) multiply. In the example above, you may have noticed that the area of the model’s shoulder (her back, really) and parts of her face are still white. As explained above, in colorize mode, the white accepts no color. So we’ll add a touch of color to the whites here on the multiply layer. Use the same peach color as before. If it looks too dark for a sunlit area, just lower the multiply layer’s opacity until it looks right. I used 90%.
Color is added to the model's back and white areas on the face using the multiply layer.
Step Three
Things look pretty good already, but we’ll take it one step further. Clone the image by going File > Clone. Make sure that cloning is active (the “rubber stamp” icon is greyed out, as is the color wheel). Use the Soft Charcoal with the same settings as above. The Soft Charcoal acts as a blender, melting the greys of the original image with the colors you added. This results in a nice smooth finish, eliminating the grain of the old photo. That’s why the final image looks so much better than a plain colorized photo. You’ve really combined the color with the photo, not just sprayed it on top.
Face and clothing are complete, after blending the clone copy.
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Cottingley, by louvre89, a rising star on deviantArt. This photomanipulation is made up of many images...but you'd never know it!
Two-dimensional digital art tends to fall into one of two main categories: Digital Painting and Photomanipulation. Under Digital Painting you’ll find Speed Painting (a quick rendering done freehand, usually with Photoshop), and digital painting (same as speed painting, but not so speedy). Photomanipulation refers to creating a new image by pasting together elements from other images, a sort of digital collage. These categories are just for convenience, however, and sometimes it’s hard to classify a given work. Photomanips, as they’re called, tend to include lots of digital painting, to help blend the elements together. As you can see, the line between them is blurry, and often totally arbitrary. Given this rather unhelpful introduction, I thought we’d take a look at the work of a rising star on deviantArt.com, named Louvre89. She’s a 20-something Australian artist who’s starting to get professional freelance assignments, and it’s no wonder: she’s very, very good. In today’s article, we’ll dissect the work above, “Cottingley,” to see how the artist combined images to create something new.
First off, I’d like to express my thanks to Louvre89 for taking the time to document, using links, each of the images she used in the creation of “Cottingley.” On deviantArt, it’s standard practice to credit the stock artists whose work you’ve used; but Louvre89 takes it one step further and creates a link pointing to the actual file used. This makes our work as detectives so much easier. If you’re interested in learning how photomanipulation works, I’d heartily recommend that you check out this artist’s works, and spend time exploring the link credits to see what she started with. I’ve actually done just that in putting this article together. I hope it will encourage you to explore on your own. It’s a great way to learn.
Stock Fantasy Background2, by deviantArt stock contributor anaRasha. This is a terriffic starting point.
Louvre89 began with the image above, by deviantArt stock artist anaRasha. This makes a great starting point, since it’s like a stage set, waiting for further details to be added. The perspective is simple two-point, so as along as all of your photos are taken straight-on, they’ll match the perspective easily. Imagine you’re sitting in a theatre, sitting in the very center of the orchestra section. You have before you a short foreground, and then a straight, flat wall of a background. This is a good, simple stage setting to create a convincing photomanip with. As you get more advanced, you can move on to three-point perspective, with aerial views, plunging canyons, high mountains, and so forth. But start simple.
Here's a quick refresher. Thanks to Helen South on About.com for the nice illustration of Two Point Perspective.
In the following gallery are the remaining images used to create “Cottingley.” I’m amazed, when I look at how these sort of images are made, at how creative the artist was in choosing the source images. The key seems to be imagination. Rarely will you find exactly the images you need out there in stock photo land. You’ll need to creatively crop them, adjust, warp, twist, and otherwise bend them to your will. For instance, look at how the artist cropped the image of the large tree to use for her main “tree house” image.
Thanks again to Louvre89. Be sure to stop by and check out her beautiful work!
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Learn how to combine filter effects using layers. Hand-painted by Bob Nolin at A Work of Art Studio, using Corel Painter X. Image copyright Photography on the Run.
The secret to creating eye-catching portraits is contrast. By using the full range of values from dark to light, you can really make your subject stand out and draw the viewer in. Adding bold, complementary colors can help, too. We’ll take a look at how you can start with an ordinary drab photo reference and end up with a dramatic portrait. This tutorial shows how to combine filter effects in Photoshop, using layers, prior to opening the file in Painter for digital painting.
Original photo, shot at a Renaissance fair by Photography on the Run. Used with permission.
To begin with, look at your reference photo and think about how you can increase contrast. As you can see in the “before” image (left), there’s already a natural lighting coming up from underneath, so we’ll try to build on that. We’re going to use a series of filters to enhance the photo in Photoshop, and then bring it into Painter for an oil painting treatment. Even if you don’t own the particular filters I’m using here, you’ll be able to use the technique with your own filters.
Step One
The first filter we’re going to use is from Topaz Labs, and it’s their Adjust filter. (This is similar to the Lucis Art filter.) Use the preset called “Psychedelic.” This creates the high-contrast, high-detailed look you see below. Apply the filter and then save the file with a name, such as Psychedelic.psd. Set this file aside for now.
Using the Adjust filter from Topaz Labs brings out a high-contrast image we'll use in our layer sandwich, to add punch.
Step Two
Next, we’ll use the Nik Color Effects Pro filter called Warmth/Brilliance. This will add a nice warm glow to the skin tones, and push the colors a bit. By using the Control Point tool, we can easily restrict the filter to just the face, without having to creating a layer mask. You can see how this looks in the next screenshot. The control handles are very easy and intuitive to use. Apply the filter, and a new layer is created for you. Save and continue. (Note: if you’re using some other filter for this step, make sure you first duplicate the background layer, and run your filter on the duplicate. At the end of Step Two, you should have a new layer on top of the original background layer.)
Using the Warmth/Brilliance filter from Nik Color Effects Pro. The control point is the thing with lines and dots on top of the poor gent's nose.
Step Three
After running the warmth filter in Step Two, use Photoshop’s Paint Daubs filter (Filter > Artistic > Paint Daubs), making sure the new layer from Step Two is active. Our goal here is to add some surface detail. Later, when we get into Painter, this will really help with the brushwork. Use the Dark Rough option, with a brush size of 5, sharpness of 7. Save.
Run the Paint Daubs filter on the same layer created in Step Two, and then give it a descriptive name.
Step Four
Remember the Psychedelic.psd file you created back in Step One? Open it up, if it’s not already open, and drag the thumbnail from the layers palette into the current file. It will create a new layer for you. (Or, in the Psychedelic.psd file, you can just go Select > All, then Edit > Copy. In the file we’re working on, go Edit > Paste.) Rename this new layer to “Psychedelic Overlay 35%.” Delete the Background layer. Change the blending mode to Overlay, and turn down the opacity to about 35%. Now we’ve got lots of drama! As a final touch, drag the bottom (Paint Daubs) layer down to the Duplicate Layer icon. Position this copy as the top layer. Change the blending mode to Luminosity, and turn down the opacity to 20%. This will brighten things up a bit . Here’s what your layers should look like at this point.
Step Five – Painter
Save this file, and then flatten it (Layer > Flatten Image), and save with a new name. (It’s always a good idea to keep a copy of your work with the layers intact.) Now you’re ready to open the file in Painter. Clone the file, and choose the Captured Bristle brush, set at 90% opacity, 20% Resat. This will give you very obvious brushstrokes, so take your time and use short strokes. Vary the size. Use small sizes around the eyes and other detailed areas, larger sizes for the skin areas. Let’s add the complement of the orange skintone, green. Choose a very dark green and paint over the background, leaving just a suggestion of foliage detail.
That’s it!
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Art Rage 3 has just been released. (You can read our review of the previous version here.) It now comes in two flavors: Studio ($40) and Studio Pro ($80). Click here for the press release info.
In October, Sumo Paint 2.0 was released. (You can read our review of the previous version here.) In addition to the free online version of this Photoshop-like app, there’s now a downloadable Pro version for $19. This allows you to run Sumo locally on your machine, which should speed up responsiveness.
Rollip sounds like something you’d buy at Ikea, perhaps, but it’s actually a small online application for processing photos with various effects. It’s free, and has a range of Photoshop-like filters.
Photovisi is another free online app that looks like Rollip’s twin brother. As with Rollip, you upload images and process them. Photovisi then creates a neat photo collage for you. You can download it (to use as a screensaver, perhaps). Even cooler, you can print your collage on a variety of products through Zazzle. What a great idea!
Lightwyrm.com is a new digital art gallery and forum. They also offer some Painter and Photoshop tutorials.
Designermart offers some tutorials and resources for creating slick car illustrations, using Photoshop or 3D Studio Max.
This last item is just for fun. Machinarium is one of the best-looking, most well-designed, funniest and cleverest games I’ve ever played. Just check out the free demo and you’ll be hooked. An amazing achievement by a small group of developers and artists in the Czech Republic. $20.
Got something cool you’d like to share? Drop us a line: webmaster at digitalimagemagazine.com
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Topaz Remask 2 gives great results, fast and easy.
Topaz Labs is primarily known for their low-priced alternative to the $600 Lucis Art filter. It’s called Topaz Adjust, and sells for a mere $50. Now Topaz has released the second version of Remask, their low-price alternative to the overpriced masking tools on the market, and it looks like a real category killer. It’s incredibly fast, easy to use (once you figure it out), and dirt cheap compared to everything else out there: Topaz Remask 2 is $69.99. This review will show how Remask 2 stands up to several alternative masking tools, including those delivered with Photoshop and Vertus Fluid Mask 3. We’ll finish up with a quick-start guide, so you can download the trial version and get right to work.
The ultimate masking test!
Results obtaining using the Green channel as a mask. Not bad, but not good, either.
The other Photoshop method we’ll look at is the Extract filter (which Adobe unfortunately dropped from CS4). As we’ll see, you use Topaz Remask 2 very much like you do (or did) Extract: just draw an outline to tell the software where the edge of your mask goes. Easy as pie. Luckily, Topaz’s version does a much better job than Adobe’s (below).
Without getting into some serious tweaking, here's what Photoshop's Extract filter gave me.
A while back, I invested well over $200 in a masking tool called Fluid Mask 3, from Vertus. Perhaps the fault lies with me, but the fact remains I’ve never been able to use Fluid Mask effectively. For a difficult image such as this one, Fluid Mask requires about six steps. The work flow is completely unlike anything else, and the learning curve is steep. If you are a serious professional retouch artist, you may find it to be a powerful tool. For someone like me, who only turns to a masking tool occasionally, it wasn’t a good fit at all. Here’s my pitiful results using Vertus Fluid Mask 3.
For such an expensive program, these results are quite disappointing.
As you can see in the image at the top of this review, Topaz Remask 2 gives a much better result than anything else we’ve tried here. And it took less time–by far–than any of these methods. Here’s how it works. Remask 2 lives in your plugins folder, and you access it via Filter > Topaz Labs > Topaz Remask 2. But you’ll want to duplicate your background layer before getting started. If you don’t, you’ll get an error message. (Hopefully Topaz will change this so that it works more like the Nik Filters, creating a duplicate layer with a layer mask automatically). Drag your Background down to the Duplicate Layer icon in the Layers palette, and then click on the Layer Mask icon in the Layers palette. It should look like this.
Drag the icon on the Background layer (mini image of your photo) to the Duplicate Layer icon. Then, click the Layer Mask icon.
Make sure your Background Copy layer is active (click it to highlight it). NOW go ahead and start up Topaz Remask, from the Filter menu. When Remask first appears, you’ll see your image with a green cast to it. Down in the bottom left, you’ll see a drop-down called “Menu.” When one of the choices under Menu is the User Manual, but it doesn’t seem to work on my Mac Pro. So, here you are, scratching your head, wondering what to do. And that’s a shame, really, since the program is so darned easy to use. Perhaps they could add a little button that brings up some brief text (or a video) showing how to get started. In lieu of that, here’s my quick start guide.
Goodness! My little boy is looking rather green!
Though Remask is very similar to Photoshop’s Extract tool, it starts by applying a “keep” color (green) to the entire image, and that may throw you. First you’ll mark the dividing line, in blue, between the keep portions and the delete portions. Use the blue paintbrush, as indicated.
Next, click on the red bucket icon, as shown below. Click anywhere in the “delete” (background) area. It fills with red.
Now click on the compute button. I choose the “High Quality” setting, since my image is only 1MB. In about two seconds, it’s done. Click on the Mask tab (shown below) to see the mask you just created. Not too shabby!
Pretty impressive results for about a minute's worth of effort, I'd say.
If you’re happy with the mask, just click OK, and you’ll find your image file has been updated. Now the layer mask has your selection mask in it. Using a layer mask this way is non-destructive, and allows you to keep working on the mask to refine it. However, there is a Magic Brush option available to you within Remask, once it has processed the initial Compute. You’ll see the checkbox become available. By using the green and red brushes in Magic Brush mode, you can explicitly tell Remask where to clean up the mask. One other adjustment you can make is to the edge hardness, which is like a feathering control.
There are some Remask 2 tutorials available on the Topaz site, but the product is so simple, I hope the above will be all you need to get going. Overall, it’s a great product, and performs nearly miraculously, even in the worst situations. If you’re looking for an easy and fast masking tool that won’t break the bank, give the free trial a spin. I think you’ll like it.
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Two great how-to books came out in 2009: Imaginative Realism by James Gurney, and Digital Painting Techniques, from 3DTotal.com.
With Christmas and the end of 2009 fast approaching, we’ll take a look today at two of my favorite how-to titles of the year. Though one book is strictly digital and the other is based on traditional materials and methods, they both offer a ton of useful content for readers of Digital Image Magazine. In fact, that’s probably the trait they both share more than anything: they’re simply crammed to the hilt with information. Plus, they’re both gorgeous books that are a pleasure to browse through. If you haven’t submitted your list to Santa yet, you’ll want to add both of these.
The first is by the wonderful illustrator James Gurney, titled Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist
Gurney’s thorough grounding in the foundations of art shine through on every page of his new book. There are a few pages devoted to traditional materials and methods, but most of the book contains information any artist, digital or otherwise, will find helpful. Even if you’re not painting fantasy images, you’ll find useful techniques for composition, altering lighting, color schemes, focus, directing the eye, telling a story, and so forth. Gurney gives quite a few examples of how he creates models, known as maquettes, to paint from. These help with composition and lighting. You may find that, instead of learning a complicated 3D package to create buildings and space ships for your paintings, all you really need is some Sculpey
The other book in our review today is Digital Painting Techniques: Practical Techniques of Digital Art Masters
- Custom brushes – learn how to make and modify brushes in Photoshop
- Speed painting – find out why these artists are in such a hurry!
- Matte painting – combining photographs with painting for movie backgrounds, etc.
- Creatures – similar to the Gurney book, learn how to make up stuff
- Humans – portraiture with a digital pen
- Environments – landscapes, cityscapes, tornados, etc.
- Sci-fi and Fantasy – knights, planets, spaceships
- Complete projects – putting it all together
This book covers a lot of ground, as you can see, and it does it quite well. Obviously, you won’t learn everything from just one book, but with this one, you’ll be off to a great start.
Update: another of the books reviewed here earlier this year, Luke Ahearn’s wonderful book on creating 3D textures, is now out in a revised, second edition.
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We'll create these unusual tats for this young lady, while learning how to use the layer mask tool in Corel Painter.
I’ve been wanting to write a tutorial about Layer Masks for a while now, but frankly, most of the time, I don’t use Layer Masks in Painter, only Photoshop. But I started playing around (which is the best way to learn Painter, by the way), and found some really neat stuff you can do with Layer Masks in Painter. So, this isn’t a tutorial about adding tattoos to your portraits (though you will learn about that!): it’s about Layer Masks in Corel Painter.
To understand Layer Masks, think of two panes of glass, one on top of the other. Let’s say the bottom pane is painted solid white. When you lay the second, clear pane on top of this, you see the white color showing through. Consider this top pane to be an empty layer. Now, let’s cover that second pane with solid black. You can no longer see what’s on the first pane (solid white). Imagine that you had a special brush that made the black paint disappear wherever you painted with it. As you paint with this magic brush, the white pane underneath is revealed. Layer Masks work the same way: they “cut holes” in the current layer, allowing what’s below to peek through.
Step One: Float The Canvas
Now let’s see how this works in Painter. First, let’s open a portrait image. This one is from a stock photographer on deviantArt named Dagwanoenyent-Stock. (Click on that link to get yourself a copy of this image to follow along.) Here’s what it looks like:
Original image from deviantArt.
If you’re new to layers in Painter, never fear, I’ll take it slowly. They’re just different enough from Photoshop to cause some real headaches! First, make sure you can see the Layers palette. Go Windows > Show Layers. When you first open an image in Painter, it’s automatically on a layer already, called the Canvas, similar to Photoshop’s Background layer. To duplicate the Canvas, you must “float” it. (Told you it was different!) I have no idea why this, but it just is, so let’s keep going. To float the Canvas and turn it into a regular ol’ layer, go Select > All, then Select > Float. The image that was on the Canvas is now on a new layer, Layer 1 by default. The Canvas layer is still there, but it’s blank. We can ignore it from here on in. Now, when you go to the Layers menu, you’ll see that “Duplicate Layer” is no longer grayed out.
Rename Layer 1 to something, by clicking on the name. I called it “Tat coloring.”
Step Two: Duplicate the Layer
Now let’s duplicate “Tat coloring.” Go Layer > Duplicate Layer, or right click on the layer in the Layers Palette and choose Duplicate. You get a duplicate layer named Layer 1. You can leave it at that. In the Layers Palette, turn off visibility for Layer 1 by clicking on the eyeball. As you work with layers, it’s very important to keep an eye on the Layers Palette, and notice which layer is currently active. For now, click on the Tat Coloring layer to activate it. This layer is going to serve as the coloring of the tattoos (hence the name). We will change the coloring first, then, on Layer 1, we’ll add a Layer Mask, revealing tattoo-shaped holes filled with this new color. One step at a time. First, let’s modify Tat Coloring.
Step Three: Prepare the Tattoo Coloring
The Tat Coloring layer, completed.
I’m going to change the coloration of the original image here on the Tat Coloring layer. Before you go one step further: Make sure the eyeball on Layer 1 is closed! You will be tearing your hair out in a minute otherwise. Eyeball closed? Good. With the Tat Coloring layer active (highlighted), go Effects > Tonal Control > Adjust Colors. The dialogue box that comes up acts much like the Hue/Saturation controls in Photoshop. Choose Uniform Color from the drop down, and then move the Hue slider until the preview image turns a nice healthy deep purple (or whatever color suits your tattoo needs). Notice that, in the image here, the face is coated with pancake white make-up. You’ll want to use an image with similarly pale skintones, or use light tattoo colors for dark skin.
Step Four: Create the Layer Mask
Now you can open the eyeball on Layer 1. When you do so, the middle layer (Tat Coloring) is no longer visible at all. So now we’ll create a bunch of tattoo-shapes as a mask. First, open the Papers palette: go Window > Library Palettes > Show Papers. Click on the tiny triangle in the upper right to get the drop down, and find a high-contrast paper, preferably the one I used, Mini Glyphs. Move the Contrast slider over to about 260%. You want a design that is strictly black and white with no greys. Move the size slider to taste: this controls the size of the design on your image, as you’ll see in a second. Set the Brightness at 50%.
Activate Layer 1 by clicking on it, if it’s not already active. Go Layers > Create Layer Mask, or click on the “Create Layer Mask” icon in the Layers Palette. A white icon appears next to your image icon in the Layers Palette. It’s white, meaning the Layer Mask is not masking anything yet. We need to paint on it with black to let Tat Coloring show through.
Step Five: Paint the Layer Mask
With the eyeball closed (this screenshot is from Photoshop) on the Tat Coloring layer, you can see white holes showing where we've painted the Layer Mask. The white is from the Canvas layer.
Here’s where the magic happens. Select solid black as your main color. Choose the Pastel variant called Square Hard Pastel 40. Make sure the Grain is set to around 10, Resat and Opacity at 50 or higher. Click on the layer mask icon to activate it. You’ll know it’s active when its outline gets a bit heavier. Now, begin to paint on the image itself. You’re actually painting on the layer mask. If all goes according to plan, it should look like you’re painting on the image. If the design is looking black as you paint, you have the image selected, not the layer mask. Keep painting all over the face, avoiding the eyes, mouth and hair. Cool, no?
What’s going on here?
This is what the layer mask looks like.
As you were painting the layer mask, you may have noticed that the layer mask icon was updating, showing a miniature tattoo drawing happening. Want to see the actual mask? Easy. Go Window > Show Channels. Down in the Channels Palette, click on the eyeball icon for the Layer 1 layer mask. You should now see the full-size Layer Mask instead of the painting. You can actually paint right on this, with white, black or gray, to continue working the mask. It’s just easier to do it the other way, as it allows you to see what the effects are of the mask. It’s useful to see the whole thing, sometimes, to do touchup work.
Finishing up
The only other thing I did to this image, since it’s just a demo, was to paint the eyes a tad. I used Painter’s Dodge tool (in the toolbox in versions 10 and up, otherwise it’s in the Photo variants) to brighten the whites. Then I used the eyedropper to select some of the cat’s eye color, and tweaked the woman’s eyes with the Digital Airbrush. I hope this tutorial helped you get a handle on Layer Masks. If it didn’t, or you’re stuck somewhere, just leave a comment and I’ll try to help you out right away. Thanks for reading!
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Learn how to create painterly faces with Richard Ramsey's DVD. Click on the image to go to his site.
To say that photographer Richard Ramsey is highly regarded in his native Tennessee is almost an understatement. Ramsey has been awarded Tennessee Professional Photographer of the Year twelve times! Part of the reason for his success is his ability to transform his photographs into striking, artistic digital paintings. Odwin Rensen, a portrait artist from The Netherlands (profiled here), learned some of his technique from tutorials Ramsey has issued on DVD. As a digital portrait artist, I work with professional photographers who choose to outsource their Painter work. I was very impressed with Ramsey’s work. Since he has been using Painter and Photoshop successfully with his clients, I thought it would be worthwhile exploring his technique, so I ordered one of his DVDs, titled “Painterly Faces.” Not only is Richard Ramsey a fine digital painter, he’s also a good teacher. His DVD was a pleasure to watch. Here’s a brief review of “Painterly Faces.” (By the way, this is an unbiased, unsolicited review. I get no commissions on sales of Mr. Ramsey’s DVDs.)
Self portrait, by Richard Ramsey
Before we get started, you may want to browse through a gallery of Ramsey’s work. He has posted quite a few paintings on the Corel Painter Magazine website’s member gallery, here. This is a good way to see if you find an affinity for his style and approach. If you don’t like his work, then you probably won’t find his DVDs helpful.
The focus of “Painterly Faces” is just that: how to turn a portrait photo into a painting. As Ramsey says, most photographers and digital artists balk at painting the face. They have no trouble with backgrounds and clothing. But hair and faces are the stumbling block. This DVD aims to help you get over that hump, and it succeeds admirably. Ramsey uses a portrait of senior boy for this tutorial. I find that men (and older boys) are easier to do a “loose” painting of: rough brushwork tends to look good on men, but not so good on women. I would have liked to see how Ramsey manages to get a painterly look while maintaining a smooth, feminine look.
A senior portrait with attitude!
Ramsey begins by using the LucisArt plugin, which he acknowledges has become prohibitively expensive in recent years. (This is why I haven’t reviewed it here on Digital Image Magazine. I can’t recommend any Photoshop plugin that costs $600. That’s pretty much what Photoshop itself costs.) With that in mind, Ramsey recommends the much more reasonably priced Topaz Adjust, which basically does the same thing as LucisArt, for only $50. Ramsey uses this filter to bring out details and grain, which helps during the painting stages to come. (A free alternative is the “Draganizer Action” available here.)
I won’t give away all the details of Ramsey’s technique, for obvious reasons. I will give a high-level overview, though. After running the filter, Ramsey opens the image in Painter X. He paints with the Captured Bristles Acrylics variant, using it at 90% opacity. This really moves things around, leaving lots of visible brushwork. With Painter X, the Photo Burn tool has made its way to the toolbox, and Ramsey uses it to add drama and contrast. He also uses another Photo variant, Saturation Add, to boost color strategically. He then brings out the Sponge brush and Tiny Spattery Airbrush to add painterly texture. This was really neat to watch.
Victorian princess by Richard Ramsey
Ramsey uses the Captured Bristle on the hair, and then adds back in some detail using the Real Bristle Real Round, which I have never tried. It’s a clever approach, and one I’ll be using in the future, I’m sure. He also shows how to paint the eye, which can be tough for some of us. One of the best things about this DVD is that, if you follow the instructions and copy it first to your hard drive, you’ll find the QuickTime movie is sharp and clear, with no stuttering or hesitation. You can clearly see the cursor painting. The benefit here is that you really get to see just how fast Ramsey’s brush is moving. His strokes are quick and assured. Ramsey mentions how important it is to not worry over the details. Break up the edges, use short, fast strokes, and be bold: that’s the key. Though he jokes that watching someone paint is like “watching the grass grow,” it’s a pleasure to watch this pro at work.
Ramsey goes on to show how to paint clothing, and then he gives a great demonstration of how to use a background on a separate layer. This is a technique I use all the time, and I’ve written about it here. You’ll learn how to use Layer Masks in Photoshop to combine objects on different layers. Once you learn it, you’ll find yourself using it all the time.
The DVD comes with a bunch of nice extras. Six backgrounds are included, as are a set of custom Photoshop brushes. The tutorial itself clocks in at 1:15 hours, spread over three .mov files. There are also three bonus movies. These cover how to control color management between Photoshop and Painter, a quick review of the brushes used in the tutorial (this was a nice addition, I thought), and lastly a movie showing how to use the included PSD file containing six backgrounds on layers. Ramsey includes the photograph used in the tutorial, so you can follow along. Altogether, it’s a nice package, and it’s nicely done. Ramsey’s soft Southern accent is clear and easy to listen to. If you’ve got questions for him, he even welcomes you to give him a call.
Ramsey could have titled this DVD “No More Scary Faces,” because after you’ve viewed it, you won’t be afraid of faces anymore. Highly recommended. Painterly Faces is available from the author, here.
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