TIME TO COLOUR

I've started colouring in photoshop. I actually have a Bamboo Tablet. I bought it to colour and draw with. Also it came bundled with Photoshop6. I should probably use the tablet to colour with instead of using my mouse. But I use my mouse, so if you don't have a tablet, don't worry. Because  I'm lefthanded and I use my mouse with my right hand I devised a way to colour that didn't show up too much if I went outside the lines a bit.

Background: Land of Nod

© NeonSun Studios, All rights reserved 201

Okay, let's get started.
The first tip is to enlarge what you are colouring. Make it say, 200% by clicking the + sign in the righthand panel that says NAVIGATOR. The larger the picture, the easier it is to get into those little nooks and crannies. It also looks better when you shrink it down to the original size.

I use a round, solid brush from my default brushes. Don't worry about the size. Along the top where the picture of your brush is, are the SIZE, MODE and OPACITY.

SIZE - Has a slider that you can adjust the size of the brush. You can also type the size in a box. However, I like using the slider as I'm constantly changing the size of the brush.

MODE - Is the most important. To make it look more like a water colour I use the drop down menu here and choose MULTIPLY. When you paint over the drawing, you won't blot out the lines with your colour.

OPACITY - I use between 50% and 75%. As you can see in the picture above you can darken (increase the opacity) a bit and accentuate shadowing or add depth.

EYEDROPPER TOOL - Located on the top lefthand tool menu. I use the eyedropper tool a lot to fill in spots I've missed or copy colours for other parts of the picture. It's good for picking a darker shade of a colour.

So, those are the tools and how to use them. Give it a crack. Feel free to post questions or send pics or advise. I'll publish them here.