Photoshop: Only The Super
Important Stuff
Martin Constable
School of Art Design and Media, NTU
01: Intro
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Photoshop_History
Intro / History
History
•
Photoshop is the only application to have become a verb
•
Photoshop has roots that begin in 1988: developed by the brothers
Thomas and John Knoll.
John Knoll
Thomas Knoll
The super-first version of Photoshop (its
first name was ‘Display’)
•
Version 1 was 728 KB (small enough to
email to someone). Current version is 1.15
GB (2,160 times bigger).
Intro / History
•
Intro / Toolset Reduction
Toolset Reduction
•
•
In the process of its growth PS has consciously tried to serve users
in two directions:
-
Horizontally: different user communities such as web
developers, photographers, painters etc. This means that many
of PS’s tools will not be of relevance to your needs.
-
Vertically: expert users and amateurs. One of the
consequences of this is that there is a lot of duplication in PS’s
tool set.
These are the reasons why you will never need to use around 95%
of Photoshop. Your task is to learn where the remaining 5% is and
how to use it.
Core principle: simplicity!
•
Intro / What is Painting?
What is Digital Painting?
•
•
Broadly: there are two camps of thought regarding digital painting:
-
Pure painting: something that only involves the use of the brush toolset. An
assumption is made that photographs are not used as reference and that
reliance is given on painting and composition skills alone.
-
Compositing: masking photo reference in many layers to unite them as a
whole. An assumption is made that photographs are used as reference and
that drawing and composition skills are not important.
In my opinion, both of these schools of thought are incomplete without the
other. There are many ways to paint, but what is evolving (and gaining
prevalence) is a complex hybrid between old-school (painting / drawing /
composition etc) and new school (masking / color adjustment etc).
•
Nota Bene!
•
Photoshop is not a substitute for pictorial skills.
•
There is no genius filter in Photoshop.
Intro / Nota Bene
02: Summery
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Key_Technical_Skills
Core Skill-Set: Summary
Contents
•
I shall briefly present six key technical skills:
•
Selecting / Masking
Layer Blends
Layer Clipping (and Layer Structure)
Adjustments and Adjustment Layers
Filters
Brushes
Other Stuff
Also: I shall briefly cover a few key pictorial skills:
-
Tone Organisation
Edge Organisation
HSL
Regions
Options Bar
These are all the pallets
that you will need.
Brush Palette
Layers Palette
Tools
03: Core Skill-Set: Selecting / Masking
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Selection_to_Mask_Workflow
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Clamping
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Quick_Mask_Mode
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Intro
Intro
•
A mask is a means to non-destructively erase part of an image. Creating
masks is a vital compositing skill.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Workflow
Workflow
•
A mask can be easily derived from a selection: after making a selection,
simply press the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers
Palette.
•
Typically, the masking workflow is:
-
Make a rough selection
-
From this make a rough mask
-
Refine this mask with more selections, clamping, painting tools etc
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Regions
Regions
•
The three regions of a mask are (colorcoded for ease of viewing):
-
Background (junk)
-
Edge
-
Foreground (holdout)
•
The edge is the most crucial: too soft and
too hard are both mortal ‘mask crimes’ but
most students make their edges too hard.
•
A soft edge requires that the border is
composed of grey pixels in the mask.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / The Tools
The Selection Tools
The Magic Wand Tool
•
Pro: None. Don’t use it.
•
Con: Only returns a black / white mask.
No grey (i.e. no semi transparency). Such
masks are useless.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / The Tools
The Selection Tools
The Quick Selection Tool
•
Pro: ‘Edge aware’ (as opposed to region
aware). Can return a better selection than
the magic wand.
•
Con: Edges can be too un-detailed.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / The Tools
The Selection Tools
Color Range
•
Pro: Returns wonderfully soft edges with
many levels of grey (i.e. semi
transparency).
•
Con: Is not edge aware: selection will
extend into the background and foreground
regions. Also the transparency can be
excessive. Masks derived from this tool will
frequently need editing.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (i)
•
Don’t loose your way. When working in the Layer remember that there are at least
two places you can be: the Layer Contents (A) or the Mask (B). For example, it is
easy to think that you are painting in the mask, when in fact you are painting in the
layer contents.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (ii)
•
Clamping is:
-
By adding a blur to black and white mask an grey is introduced.
-
The grey is then re-defined as a white or black.
-
In the process the boundary of a white region is expanded (dilated) or
shrunk (eroded).
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (ii)
•
Clamping visually illustrated:
1: the source
2: add a blur to the source.
3: apply Levels to the result. This
will ‘shift’ the source to the right.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (ii)
•
Use clamping to move edges (otherwise known as dilating / eroding):
Caution: this method can damage edges and / or introduce noise
1: Source.
2: Blur applied.
3: Levels (see how the circle has
shrunk).
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (ii)
•
Use clamping to remove noise:
Pro tip: using levels on a noisy surface can actually accentuate the noise and
is useful for such things as making star fields.
Blur
Levels
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (iii)
•
Beware: anything that you do to treat the junk or holdout areas might also
negatively impact on the crucial edges.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (iv)
•
Check your mask 1:
-
Place the mask item against a colored background
Tested against a color the
same as the original
background
Tested against a color very
different to the original
background. Note: mistakes
more visible
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (v)
•
Check your mask 2:
-
Look directly at the Mask (Option click on mask in Layers palette)
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (vi)
•
Check your mask 3:
-
Do a huge (temporary) Gamma adjustment using the Curves or Levels.
This will force the dark greys into white or the light greys into black
(depending in which direction your gamma adjustment is). This is known as
a gamma slam and is good for making faint noise more apparent.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (vii)
•
Remember: masking is drawing. Remove or add what you wish to improve the
form of your result.
Original
Masked. Note extensive redrawing
Tips (viii)
•
If, through masking, you replace a
background with one that is a very
different light value to it, then...
Tips (viii)
•
...the result can look very unnatural
(especially around the edges).
Tips (viii)
•
The fix requires that both the new
background and the masked object
be adjusted.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (ix)
•
When working in the mask with paint: use ‘cutting in and out’.
•
This means: removing regions by painting into the mask with black (cutting out)
and adding regions by painting into the mask with white (cutting in). A process that
involves only cutting out leads to ‘soft corners’.
Original
Bad mask (cutting out only)
Bad mask (cutting in and out)
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Tips
Tips (x)
•
Working in the mask with paint requires that you learn how to set the Background
and Foreground colors to black and white with the D key, and swop between the
two using the X key.
-
Set to default Black and White (D)
-
Swop between the two (X)
-
Foreground Color (click to edit)
-
Background Color (click to edit)
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / NB
Note Bene!
•
A simple selection to mask workflow is very rare. Almost always you will have to
edit the mask with a paint brush.
Key Technical Skills: Selecting Masking / Evil
Adobe Evil
Selections, Masks, Quick Maks,
Channels, Saved Selections etc etc are
all the same thing. All this multiplicity was
designed to make things easier, but
IMHO has done the opposite.
04: Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Key_Technical_Skills#Clipping
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Layers
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Color Numbers
Color as Numbers
•
Follow this argument closely:
-
Images in Photoshop are digital.
-
Digital means numbers. In the digital world, white = 1, black = 0.
-
Numbers can be added, multiplied, divided etc etc. (the actual maths
behind some of the operations can be quiet complex, but you dont need to
know it).
-
Hence (a simple Multiply blend mode):
0.8
X
0.5
=
0.4
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Overview
Overview
•
This simple principle can be extended. The blend
mode families are:
-
A: Normal.
-
B: The darken group. Will only darken an
image. The most important modes are
Multiply and Color Burn.
-
C: The lighten group. Will only lighten an
image. The most important modes are Screen
and Color Dodge.
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Overview
Overview
-
D: The contrast group. Will darken with dark
values and lighten with light values. Most
important mode is Overlay.
-
E: The weird group. Will do weird things.
-
F: The value group. Will change the value
attributes of an image such as its hue,
saturation etc. Most important modes are Hue,
Saturation and Color
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Neutral Colors
Neutral Colors
•
All blend modes have neutral colors. A neutral color is one which is ignored (i.e.
‘pass through’) by the mode.
•
The only modes in which this is useful are the Color Dodge and Color Burn
modes which do not function unless the layers are first filled with their neural
colors (black and white respectfully)
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Useful Blends
The Most Useful Layer Blends
Mode
Multiply
Color Burn
Screen
Color Dodge
Overlay
Function
Top Tip
Adds shadow
Makes things look burned
Use on layer filled with its neutral color (white)
Adds soft light (affects black)
Consider changing the black point sliders of the
Underlying Layer ‘Blend If’ values (found in Layer
Style dialogue). This will selectively ignore the black
of the image. Shift drag this slider to soften its range.
Adds high lights (ignores black)
Use on layer filled with its neutral color (black)
Adds texture
Use the end points of a Curves adjustment to adjust
towards its neutral color. Consider also desaturating
so as to only affect texture, not color. Sometimes
using a random texture will work wonders (e.g. a rust
texture on human skin to make it look old).
Color
Adds color to human skin (e.g. cheeks)
Hue
Changes the hue of a region
The only way to soften the effect of this mode is to
change the opacity of the Layer Blend.
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Tips
Tips
•
Do not use Color Dodge or Color Burn without first filling the layer with its neutral
color.
•
If you are painting on a Layer Blend, then use very, very low Flow rate on your
brush. It is not uncommon to use a Flow rate of 1%.
•
You may achieve an even lower Flow rate by changing its Spacing value in the
Brushes Pallet.
•
There is rarely any need to change the transparency of a Layer Blend. It is far
more efficient / reliable to change its value using an adjustment such as a Curve
or Hue Saturation.
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Tips
Tips
•
To unite a foreground image (e.g. a tree) with a new background (e.g. a sky), try
laying the new background over the foreground, blurring it and setting it to
Overlay blend mode.
Key Technical Skills: Layer Blends / Tips
Nota Bene!
•
Working with Layer Blends is similar to the glazing and scumbling that the old
masters used in oil painting for hundreds of years: a wonderful way to modulated
the values of an image.
05: Key Technical Skills:
Layer Clipping (and Layer Structure)
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Key_Technical_Skills#Clipping
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Layers
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / Intro
Intro
•
Clipping uses the transparency of one layer to mask another
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / Intro
Intro
•
Clipping uses the transparency of one layer to mask another
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / Intro
Intro
•
Clipping uses the transparency of one layer to mask another
Essentially, the circle layer
(layer 1) is acting as a mask
to the dots layer (layer 2)
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / Function
Function
•
In this example a masked ball is composited over a background. Clearly
the result is unconvincing:
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / Function
Function
•
The solution: the BG and ball separately adjusted with Layer Blends.
This is possible only by clipping the ball’s Layer Bland to the Ball:
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / Function
Function
•
Clipping is one of the key things that drives the structure of the
layer stack.
-
Managing your layer structure is more than just good
manners for whoever you might be sharing the file with: it is
vital in managing your understanding of the picture values of
your work.
-
Good layer structure involves: establishing layer naming
conventions, color and grouping layers, rationalising layers
etc.
-
Layer space echoes real-world space with near equating to
the top of the stack and far to the bottom of the stack.
Key Technical Skills: Clipping / NB
Note Bene!
•
Working in a non-destructive workflow (i.e. with many layers) can be very
addictive. HOWEVER: it only makes sense if you are doing a complex
composite. If you are doing a simple painting, then it it a lot easier / more
efficient to work on as few layers as possible.
06: Key Technical Skills:
Adjustments and Adjustment Layers
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Adjustments
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / Overview
Overview
•
Adjustments will change all the pixels of your image
in exactly the same way.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / Overview
Overview
•
Adjustments will change all the values of your image
in the same way.
•
Photoshop provides a whole heap of Adjustments,
but the only really useful ones are: Curves, Levels,
Hue Saturation and Selective Color.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / Overview
Overview
•
Adjustments will change all the values of your image
in the same way.
•
Photoshop provides a whole heap of Adjustments,
but the only really useful ones are: Curves, Levels,
Hue Saturation and Selective Color.
•
Of these, Curves is the master.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / Overview
Overview
•
Each Adjustment has two incarnations:
-
Destructive: through Image / Adjust menu.
-
Non-destructive: through Layer / New Layer
Adjustment.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / NB
Note Bene!
•
Adjustments is Photoshop’s main tools for adjusting the color of an image. I
shall only cover color editing very lightly. See my previous talk on the subject
for full color-adjustment wisdom.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / NB
The Adjustments
•
Levels is a Histogram (a type of data graph). It can re-define the key point
values of your image. These values are:
-
Input: black, white, mid grey.
-
Output: black, white.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / NB
The Adjustments
•
Curves is the most powerful of the Adjustments. It can do everything that
levels can plus arbitrary adjustments.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / NB
The Adjustments
•
Hue / Saturation changes the HSL values of the image. It is useful for
changing the color of a flat region. It is not useful for photos except to change
their saturation values.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / NB
The Adjustments
•
Selective Color is a powerful hue editor. Using it the yellow in the rainbow
gradient below de-saturated and lightened. Only Selective Color can do this.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / Levels
Tips
•
Get to know the function of Adjustments by testing them on simple gradients.
Key Technical Skills: Adjustments / Levels
Tips
•
Get to know the function of Adjustments by testing them on simple gradients.
07: Key Technical Skills: Filters
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Filters
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
Overview
•
Unlike an Adjustment, a filter does not act upon the entirety of the image.
Instead it acts upon each pixel according to the values of its neighboring
pixels.
•
Though they look wonderfully attractive, if they are used too liberally the
image can suffer.
•
The most useful filters are quite mundane (e.g. Gausian Blur, Noise).
•
A few are funky and glorious (e.g. Liquify and Plastic Wrap).
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Gaussian Blur: the most useful of all the blurs.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Lens Blur: a more realistic
emulation of camera defocus
than Gaussian blur. Needs a
depth channel to work
effectively.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Radial Blur: make a square selection with a simple
cross in the centre, Radial Blur (in Zoom mode): hey
presto: a star!
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
High Pass: use in conjunction with an Overlay blend
mode to make a sharpen filter. Once you have
learned this, there is no need to learn the clunky and
difficult Unsharp Mask filter.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Clouds: creates simple cloud forms. So simple it
does not even use a dialogue box. Such noises are
useful for an artists, but this one is far too simple to be
of much use. I normally make my noises in another
app.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Add Noise: useful for loosing detail to an image or
as a ‘key’ for further filters (e.g. making a star field
with Gaussian Blur and Levels).
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Grain: fakes a photo grain. Use
the ‘Clumped’ grain type for this
purpose. Can be passed onto a
neutral grey value and passed
onto any image via the Overlay
blend mode.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Plastic Wrap: useful for faking
gore and guts.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Overview
The Filters
Liquify: great fun and
sometimes useful.
Caution: is quite complex
to use. Read the manual!
Best results are had by
using large brushes.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Usage
Usage
•
Filters are often used in conjunction with each other. For the sequence below:
-
The first image is a simple Noise / Noise. This, and the Clouds filter are
useful for provide a semi-random 'key' onto which subsequent filters can
do their thing.
-
The second filter is a Pixelate / Crystalize.
-
Then a simple Blur / Gaussian Blur.
-
Finally a Sketch / Bas Relief.
Key Technical Skills: Filters / Usage
Tip
•
Filter Keystrokes
-
Command F to repeat the last filter at the same setting it was last run.
-
Command Option F to repeat the last filter via the filter's dialogue box.
08: Key Technical Skills: Brushes
http://opticalenquiry.com/photoshop/index.php?title=Painting
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / NB
Note Bene!
•
A pixel is NOT paint. For this reason a digital brush is NOT equitable to a
real brush.
•
At its worse: a Digital brush is a shoddy emulation of a real brush.
•
At its best: it is better than a real brush: more flexible, more mutable etc.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Brush Palette is composed of three sections:
-
Brush Tip Shape Editor: This changes the
Hardness and Softness of the brush (also
available through the Contextual Menu). Also
the spacing. Most importantly the 'stamp
shape' of the brush. For most purposes the
default round stamp is fine. Some painters
make a big deal out of specialist stamp
shapes but most painters can get by without
them quite happily.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Brush Palette is composed of three sections:
-
Parameters: This offers the ability to change
the way that your Brush behaves: making it
change it’s shape, flow, transparency etc
according to how hard you are pressing the
stylus, how far the brush has traveled etc. It is
not as important as you might think and,
personally, seem to be able to get by without
using it much.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Brush Palette is composed of three sections:
-
Presets: Here is where edited sets of brush
shape and brush parameter can be stored.
Not as wildly useful as you might think (in fact
in any new installation I delete half of these).
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Parameters settings that I have found most useful are:
-
Shape Dynamics: The settings here are useful for getting the brush mark to get
fatter if you press the stylus harder, just like in a real brush. If you want to make
realistic hairs this is the place to go, although a hair brush will also require its
Transfer parameters played with.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Parameters settings that I have found most useful are:
-
Shape Dynamics: One important setting easily overlooked in the dynamic
control pull-down menu affiliated with the Angle Jitter.
Angle / Jitter Control: Direction
Angle / Jitter Control: Off
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Parameters settings that I have found most useful are:
-
Scattering: A brush mark is not made from a solid line of (digital) paint. It is
made from lots of separate instances of the brush tip shape. Spacing places
these instances further apart. Scattering does what you would expect it to. I
have used this on a number of occasions when I want to make things like
entrails and stalactites (and stalagmites).
Various Scattering settings.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Parameters settings that I have found most useful are:
-
Texture: useful for getting organic edges to your brush, though not hugely
useful. Pretty good results can be had just by choosing one of the default
Spatter brushes from the Brush Menu or from playing with the scattering
settings.
An ordinary brush (left) with some texture added (middle
and right). Note the repeated pattern effect in the middle
brush that is dealt with by adding a bit of scattering.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Parameters settings that I have found most useful are:
-
Color Dynamics: varies the color properties of the brush. These are tied to
the Foreground and Background colors. Very useful for making tree leafs,
pebbles, stars etc.
Red and Green as Background and Foreground colors.
Various Colr Dynamics settings applied.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / The Brush Palette
The Brush Palette
•
The Parameters settings that I have found most useful are:
-
Transfer: This is where they hide the Opacity and Flow settings. Good for
getting a brush mark to fade away. These setting should be changed if you are
trying to paint a fade out line such as those that are needed for painting hair.
Without Transfer
With Transfer
(Opacity and Flow of brush fading)
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / Tips
Tips
•
Adobe asumes that you should you posses a Wacom Tablet then you will always
want the size of your brush regulated by the pressure of your digital pen. This is
retarded. Deal with this by deleting all brush presets that have Pressure Setting
enabled. Also disengage the Pressure For Size button in the Options Bar.
•
When you are painting, change the Size and Hardness of the Brush (I am
constantly doing this).
•
Use the Dodge, Burn and Sponge tools to change the tones and color of the
brushstroke (useful for small, local areas).
•
Use Levels, Curves or Hue Saturation to adjust tones and colors (useful if you
want to change entire areas).
•
Use Edit / Fade Command. This command fades the last thing you did (usually).
You can also use this to change the Blend Mode of the brushwork.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / Tips
Tips
•
Blur using either Gaussian Blur (entire areas) or the Blur Tool (small, local
areas).
•
Use Quick Mask (Q) to quickly paint on a selection just so you can adjust that
bit.
•
After painting your stroke, re-size it to become very small. Then re-size again to
large. If you repeat this a few times the pixels of the brushstroke become
‘stressed’ and take on a natural looking unevenness.
•
Selectively erase parts of it.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / Tips
Tips
•
Adjusting the flow rate of the brush is more important than adjusting
transparency. Learn flow! Learn what it is and how to use it!
The scribble on the right was made with a brush
set to a very low flow rate (2 in this case). The
scribble on the left was made with a brush set to a
Transparency of 20 (Transparency and Flow are
not equitable). No matter how much I scribbled I
could not build up an opacity.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / Tips
Tips
•
Constraining a line limits it to painting straight lines. To do this: click once where
you want the brush mark to begin, then click where you want it to end whilst
holding down the Shift key. This method, paradoxically, is useful for getting
reasonably accurate curves (which can be built up from many small, straight
lines).
A square made using four constrained
lines. Also... a reasonable curved line made
using many constrained lines.
Key Technical Skills: Brushes / Tips
Tips
•
Learn how to make your own brushes using Edit / Define Brush Preset.
A whole bunch of lovely ants made using a simple homemade brush and adjusting the scatter / Transfer / Shape
Dynamics settings.
09: Core Skill-Set: Other Stuff
Key Technical Skills: Other Stuff
Other Stuff
•
Menu: Edit / Fade to: fades the last command. This can also be used to change
the blend mode of the last action.
•
Blend If in the Layer Style dialogue box for
•
Puppet Warp for moving bodies into new positions.
•
Learn Keystrokes!
•
Always, ALWAYS check the progress of your work using a flip (aka ‘the
Fliparoo’). You can do this on a large, layered file by:
-
Command A (select all).
-
Command Shift C (copy all visible layers as merged).
-
Command V (paste).
-
Command T (Transform, then right click: flip horizontal).
10: Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
Threefold tone organisation: LIGHT / MIDDLE / DARK
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
But Light, Middle and Dark is not an absolute measure. It does not always
equate to an even division of the lightness range.
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
Tone organisation is relative: i.e. light-est, middle-est, dark-est. The relative tone
distributions of the Rembrandt and Gwen John painting are very different, yet
they both employ clearly separate tone regions.
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
It is also important how these values are distributed. The histogram of the two
paintings by Manet below show them both to have a similar extent of lightness,
but the values of the standing figure are less evenly distributed than the woman.
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
In practice, the simple three-fold model is not fully useful. It makes better sense
to separate out the highest and lowest points as different regions.
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
You should treat the pure black (the occluded area under the pipe) and
pure white (the highlights of the pipe) as ‘special guest stars’ in your
painting: use sparingly.
Key Pictorial Skills: Tone Organisation
Tone Organisation
•
You should treat the pure black (the occluded area under the pipe) and
pure white (the highlights of the pipe) as ‘special guest stars’ in your
painting: use sparingly.
11: Key Pictorial Skills: Edges Organisation
Key Pictorial Skills: Edge Organisation
Edge Organisation
•
The companion to tone is edges, which can be thought of as existing in hard,
soft and diffuse variants. These two combined give us a multiplicity of options.
Dark
Hard
Soft
Diffuse
Middle
Light
Key Pictorial Skills: Edge Organisation
Edge Organisation
•
Here a soft edge is used in opposition to a hard edge to give us a diagonal vista:
Key Pictorial Skills: Edge Organisation
Edge Organisation
•
Here a soft edge is used in opposition to a hard edge to give us a diagonal vista:
Key Pictorial Skills: Edge Organisation
Edge Organisation
•
Soft and hard edges are key to getting shadows to work:
Hard edges of cast shadows
Soft edges of form shadows
12: Key Pictorial Skills: HSL
Key Pictorial Skills: HSL
HSL
•
Organizing lightness is fairly simple. Organizing color is more complex. It will
help if you separate the values of your image into Hue, Saturation and Lightness
-
Hue: the ‘name’ of the color (e.g. red, green, purple etc).
-
Saturation: the ‘amount’ of colourfulness (grey black and white are
unsaturated, pure red is saturated).
-
Lightness: otherwise referred to as tone.
Key Pictorial Skills: HSL
HSL
Hue
Saturation
Lightness
Key Pictorial Skills: HSL
HSL
•
Note that in the Monet painting below the form of the sun is held by the
saturation, not the lightness (as a tone-based artist such as Rembrandt
would have done)
Hue
Saturation
Lightness
13: Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Regions
•
The illusion of a painting is a deep thing (Z space) but its actuality is flat (X and
Y space). This flat space is governed by regions.
•
Regions are usually pictorially defined by objects (e.g. figure / background).
•
The are formally defined mostly by lightness, though all values can contribute.
•
This is aided by contrast organisation.
•
Contrast has two forms:
-
Inter Contrast (contrast between regions)
-
Intra Contrast (contrast within regions)
Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Regions
•
In this simple portrait by Goya the figure in generally lighter than the background
(Inter Contrast)
•
The figure has high Intra Contrast (white to black) and the background has low
Intra Contrast (light grey to dark grey)
•
As well as contrast being managed through lightness organisation, it is also
managed through saturation organisation (figure: high saturation to zero
saturation, background: generally low saturation).
Lightness
Saturation
Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Regions
•
In the Goya portrait the regions are simple:
background / foreground. This is a
common feature of portraits.
FG
FG
Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Regions
•
In a landscape painting the regions can be more numerous and
difficult to define.
Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Regions
•
In a landscape painting the regions can be more numerous and
difficult to define.
Sky
BG
MG
FG
Key Pictorial Skills: Regions
Tip
•
•
The following regions should be treated with care. Nothing should
remind the viewer too strongly of their existence.
-
Centre point
-
Centre line
-
Corners
-
Edges
Why? Because these regions are inherently flat (i.e. 2D) and if your
composition inhabits them too strongly then the illusion of depth
might be damaged.
Thank you
Remember to check out my Wiki for further details