painter tutorial

[Linda G]

Painter 8 tutorial for a portrait painting, starting and ending in Photoshop

I wish I had Tom's ability to communicate!!!

First, choose an image to paint. I would suggest, as a beginning project, to choose a head and shoulders shot, one with an unimportant background. Choose one with nice, even light.

Now, bring the image into photoshop and do typical retouching...removing blemishes, smoothing skin and correcting color. Make any cosmetic changes you wish now. To get an idea of how much to do, think of a painting, look at the image and think of what you would NOT put there. Freckles, to some extent, moles, maybe, scars? nah. and definitely no zits.

Soften any facial lines if there are any, caused by either harsh light or 'age'. Change the colors of any clothing you may wish to at this time.

Make a new, blank layer, name it 'lights' and choose your paint brush, using the 'multiply' mode, 'opacity' 05%, white color and if you have a tablet, make sure the pen tool option is selected for pressure sensitivity.

Now start adding light. Think about where light would be hitting the face and go in gentle strokes in that area to add light. This is where you add highlights to eyes, whiten teeth, lighten dark corners and whiten the whites of eyes. Keep in mind, the lightest part of the whites is at the bottom due to moisture reflecting light. It's easy to overdo, but there's always the eraser brush, used at different opacities, you can erase all or just a little. Practice! See what you like and don't like. I find, after I'm in Painter, I see more areas I wanted to lighten, so I end up going back and forth....I need better internal eyes and planning. <g> If you have arms or fingers in your pose, highlight down the middle of them, adding light. It gives it a painterly feeling,

[Linda G]

Irina

[Linda G]

Add light to specific areas of the face such as under and over the eyebrows, tip of nose, between the eyes.

I've made a new layer, filled it with black so that you can see where all I've added light.

The image on the left is with light, that on the right is before light.

[Linda G]

Here is the lights attachment

[Linda G]

Now add a new layer and name it color. Choose a color for the lips and cheeks and, using your brush on color mode and a low opacity, brush on the color where you want it. Remember, this is in a new layer so if you overdo it, you can either erase or lower the opacity on the whole layer. I did not add more color to her lips because I felt they had enough color for now, but was generous with her cheeks. I sometimes add more to the white layer after adding color to get the effect I want.

Go to the original layer, choose the sponge tool on saturate. With a small brush on lowered opacity, go around the iris of the eye, emphasizing the natural colors of the eye. You'll usually be surprised by the colors that are there. This is where, if you'd like, you can add small zags of different colors in the eye by, after choosing the color, making small, zigzag lines from the center of the eye out. A very subtle touch is required. Also, take your burn tool and, with a very small diameter brush, go around the outside of the eyeball, making it darker and emphasizing both the whites of the eyes and the color.

Now we're going to add some more eyelashes. Make a snapshot before you begin so you can return to this point. I seem to have to often. *sigh* If the opacity is still at 100, you can use your colors layer, otherwise, make a new layer. Start your brush at opacity of about 80 and use the shape dynamics option. This, for me, is one of the toughest parts to get right. Choose a color to make the lashes by selecting an area from the hair. Now, just practice that motion to make eyelashes, expecting to erase a lot. <g> Play with different opacities and colors to get the effect you want. Also, I'm going to add a few lashes on the bottom by crossing them in an x fashion and making them fairly short.


One last step and we're about to take this image into Painter. Before you do this, you may wish to save the image, complete with layers as a copy.

Flatten the image.
Size the image:

Painter adds pixels so if you have a fairly small res file, you can still get great quality for priniting larger than the original file. Flatten all layers and crop the print using the sizes 7 x 9 at 300 resolution. Make sure your background color is white and go to canvas size and change it to 8 x 10 with the image remaining in the center. You now have an inch border. You can make more of a border if you like. I'm leaving it there for now.

Save this as a tiff with a new name, painter1 or some way, just to designate it is ready for painter and is pre painter. I would suggest you save several along the way to learn from and see what you like.

[Linda G]

Take the flattened tif into Painter, making sure, unless you have a super amount of memory, to close out Photoshop. Leaving them both open takes resourses usually needed for the other program. I like an uncluttered screen so I close out all pallets but the colors, layers and tools.

Immediately make a new layer and make sure Pick up underlying color is checkmarked. Now, if you need to stop and close out your work, save the image as a RIFF file.

Here is where you can experiment but I like the pastel brush on artist pastel chalk the best for what I do. To choose a color, alt click on the color you want. It will take you to that color in the triangle inside the color wheel. I'd start with 100% opacity with a fairly small size brush to begin with. I'm going to start with the hair.

Her hair is fairly dark so I'm going to add some highlights by alt/clicking on a section of it and then moving the circle in the triangle up and to the left to get a lighter, less saturated color. My brush is no larger than 6.0.

Unlike Photoshop, each control/Z erases a step, up to twenty. There is no history pallet. Working on a separate layer allows you to erase.

I have used two colors, a lighter one and a darker one, to put streaks into her hair. I'll blend it later, but I need to choose a place in her hair to make a visible highlight. Looking at the light on her face, I see it's brighter on her left high on her cheekbone so I choose a place equivalent on her head to add the most light color. fig-5

Now I'm going to blend using the blender brush as 'Just add water' . start with a very small brush, you'll be surprised how fast it blends. Use brush strokes in the same direction as the hair is lying, making it look less like a photograph and more like brush strokes. If you need to, add more color with the pastel brush. fig-6

[Linda G]

Blended

[Linda G]

I've made a third layer, and am going to work on the background. You can make a new background, blur it all unrecognizable or 'paint' it. I want to keep the feeling of outdoors in this one, especially since she's wearing a coat. There are people on the right side with color I may want to use in the rest of the image so I'm going to keep the blender tool and blend what's there, keeping in mind I will go back to add color. I want to downplay the tree growing out of her head but keep trees back there. You'll find out pretty fast that you can blend color right into the border. That's okay, in fact, many times it's done on purpose to make a softer edge.

I chose the color of the fushia jacket from the person in the background and added a flower patch behind/beside her, making dots of the color, adding lighter and darker in the same section of the color wheel. I also added a little green for the flower's greenery and then blended carefully. I think, when I take it back into Photoshop when I'm done with Painter, I'll darken the background a little. It could be done in Painter, but easier in photoshop.

[Linda G]

Next is the face. I used the hair layer since the areas are similar but won't overlap if I need to erase. I use the blender tool again, outlining features to enhance them. I added no color, just blended what was already there.

If the file is large enough and smooth enough, I may not even touch the skin, but since this file started out as smaller, I need to blend pixels. For outlining, go gently around the mouth, follow the nose lines, and the area under the nose, above the lip. Some call it 'angel's kiss'.

Be careful when outlining it as it is one of those areas that define a face as an idividuals. Change it, and the whole face changes, more than you'd think a small area would affect.

Ears are another place to outline to add a painterly affect and in this image, we have only a small part of one, but do follow through. It may not change that much on the screen, but if you print it out, it's one of those finishing touches that make it great.

[Linda G]

Back in Photoshop, I notice the colors and light/dark are different (why can't they all get together!) and it's not as dark. I still remember where I wanted to add more highlights so I make a second layer and use the brush on multiply, white, 5% again to brush on more light on her left side, adding some to the side of her nose and cheek. I hit her right cheek very slightly where the light would have hit it. I then run over the highlight area in her hair to accent that and flatten.

There are many methods to darken the background but I want it fairly simple this time so I just use the burn tool with very soft edges (your bracket keys enlarge and shrink the size of the brush, holding down the shift key hardens or softens the edges) at about 800. This gives her a little vingette affect and brings more attention to her face. Flatten again and return to painter.

[Linda G]

Open the image back in Painter and go to Canvas, canvas size. Remember the two dimentions and make a new file with the same ones. This one is 2400 x 3000.

Go to file clone source and choose your original file. In the brushes, choose cloner/straight cloner to begin with and fill in the center.

For the edge, try different cloner tools to see what effects you can get and which ones you like. I like the cloner spray but there are others, too. I sometimes like just the soft cloner, making a soft edge.

Save it, change it, make it your own! You now have the basics to get started! :)


Linda

[Igor]

Linda, that's wonderful!
Thank you very much!

[Marcel F]

Thanks Linda and Igor ..
Great job , Great subject .. I have this tutorial in WORD ... More convenient to print , share , use ...

Regards

Marcel

[sandman]

Phew..!!.

Not much to choose between you and Tom , Linda . Both of you communicate a lot better than i'll ever be able to.

Great work , i might even go out and buy the software myself .

Brian

[jhawk1000]

Way too many steps for me to do!!!!! Besides, I have a resident painter expert at my disposal :)

Mel

[Linda G]

:p

Brian,

I need a smiley with raspberries.

[Ross]

Linda,

I've only just looked through this, as it's not normally my sort of thing, but this is gorgeous!

Thanks for sharing - I might even be inspired to give it a try one of these dark winter days :)

Ross

[CaptJR]

Linda

That is absolutly GREAT! I've haven't been on here much lately, so I'm just now getting to do some more reading here. You may or may not remember, but I think I was one of the first to ask you how you did this. Thank you so much! When I ask, I really didn't mean to put you to such a task as writing all this. What an answer to my question:) I can't wait to dig in and give it a try. I'll post my first one here to show you how I'm doing (no matter how bad it is). It will probably take a couple of times to start getting it better.

Thanks again, so much
CaptJR

[Linda G]

Thank you both for your enthusiasm!

I do want to see your results and hey, that's how you learn! We can post here and get feedback through fresh eyes.

Glad you all are using it or are feeling the pull to try!

[PGS2PRO]

This is a great job Linda. I really appreciate the mix between the face and the painted body and background. If you a beautiful model it enhances the important part we want to keep.

I have to try that. :)

Cheers.

[Linda G]

Here's the latest one I've done, taken of a friend, visiting after transporting her boyfriend to a base for deployment to Iraq. We printed one out and she's sending it to him.