Help w/ Shading

Ok. I'm working on a warrior uniform for a Gorean Sim and I'm using some leather material. I'd like to get some chest and leg defintion in the design and I'm curious exactly which tools to use to get the right shading. I'm using PS Pro 9. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I don't remember PSP's exact names of the tools I'm about to list, but they should be fairly close to the Photoshop names, if not exactly the same. In Photoshop, the burn & dodge tools are great for shading. The burn tool basically 'paints darkness', and the dodge tool 'paints lightness'. By using the two in conjunction, you can create very good looking highlights and shadows on any material.

I think that in PSP, burn & dodge might not be separate tools. I seem to remember they might be modes of what's called the "retouch tool". Check the PSP help file if you have any trouble finding them. They're in there somewhere.

Another tool to incorporate would be an overlay layer, which will allow you to apply your shading non-destructively. Create a layer on top of all your others, fill it with 50% gray, and set the mode to overlay. Now use the burn & dodge tools on the overlay to create your shading.

Assuming overlays work the same in PSP as they do in Photoshop, and I'm pretty sure they do, then the logic is as follows. Overlays do not have any visible appearance of their own, but instead affect the appearance of whatever is beneath them. A value of 50% gray on the overlay will be mathematically equivalent to zero, and will not have any affect. Anything darker than 50% gray will have a shading affect on the layers beneath, and anything lighter than 50% gray will have a lightening affect.

By using overlays instead of directly painting light & shadow onto your garment, you can have identical shading on multiple garments, or you can have multiple differently shaded versions of the same garment, with relative ease. Simply copy the overlay from image to image for the former, or use multiple overlays and toggle them individually on and off for the latter. It's a great time saver over having to repaint the entire garment from scratch every time.

I am far from an expert on shading and you have received splendid advice. However, I have also found that using different styles of brushes will give you different shadings for your leather.

I am not familiar with PSP so I apologize, but if different brushes are available try them out using different gray values on a layer set to burn or dodge/overlay then *dab dab* the shading building up areas from intense to less intense.

This will give you different worn leather textures, or even a suede look.

The technique reminds me a lot of pointillism (the style of painting where the picture is created out of a gazillion dots)...but anyway that's the idea behind it.

Also, if you have a smudge tool use that to pull the shading/highlight out to soften it up without bluring the entire area (unless you want to of course).

Chip had a great answer in a thread I read once that had to do with using masks for shading that sounded interesting (albeit for Photoshop)...let me see if I can find it: Nope, sorry

I hate to send you somewhere else, but have you read through the Tips and Tricks and other stickies? I know there are a lot to go through but perhaps some of the info is valuable for PSP as well.

Best,
~Ari

Another technique is to use a combination of the multiply and screen layers. They work much like the overlay layer but give you individual control of both the highlights and shading.

The multiply layer is used to add shadows. Use low brush settings (25-35) of black to gradually build up the shadows. You use the screen layer to add those highlights. Use settings around 10-20 of white here. A little goes a long way.

Once you are done, you can raise and lower the opacity of each layer depending on the color of the material. Darker materials usually have high opacity settings for the shadowing but very little highlight. The reverse is true for the lighter materials.

Jen

Oooh Jen! I'm going to give that a try! Never though about using Screen!

Thanks!

~Ari