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Tutorial 002 - Useful painting shortcuts in Adobe
Photoshop(tm)
Welcome to my second tutorial, this time i will try to give you usefull
information on keyboard shortcuts, dialogs and tricks in Adobe Photoshop(tm).
Using the techniques explained in this tutorial can help you improve
your efficiency and speed when painting.
I will also go over some functions in Photoshop that can quickly change
the mood and colors in your painting. I'm talking about the powerful
"Curves", "Hue/Saturation", "Color Balance"
and other dialogs.
These functions can be VERY useful to fix problems, add fx postwork
and much more.
NOTE:
This tutorial is currently in Beta mode, it has NOT BEEN CORRECTED,
and probably have many mispelled words. I will go trough this text
asap and update to Final.
This tutorial is based on Adobe Photoshop 7.0, but most rules aply
to older versions as well. Contact me if a certain function don't work
for you and I'll update the tutorial.
Note: I will only go trough those
functions that i found to be very helpful
to an artist when painting. Adobe has put together a quick reference paper
on many of the most used shortcuts. The file is availiable as PDF.
Click here to download Adobes Quick Reference paper.
(you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed)
I would love some input and feedback
on these tutorials so please don't hesitate to comment on my portfolio
or mail me at nicklas@nalf.it
- portfolio: http://www.nalf.se/paintings
Painters most used tools:
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Hold over
tool to see
shortcut.
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Brush Tool |
Keyboard
shortcut: B |
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The most common tool, used
for painting in the canvas. Can be set to have soft
edges (airbrush) or hard edges. In Adobe Photoshop 7.0,
these brushes can be modified using the brush engine.
To reach this tool just press the keyboard button "B".
ALT + mouseclick
Quick eyedropper mode: Hold down ALT and click
on the painting to pick the color beneath and use it
as the current drawing color. Very handy! I think i
use this function the most when painting. SPACEBAR
Move in canvas: Hold down SPACEBAR when using
the brush tool to use the Hand Tool and you can then
move on the canvas. When you release SPACEBAR you can
continue painting. Good to use when working on details
zoomed in. SHIFT
Draw straight lines: If you hold down
SHIFT while painting your brush strokes will become
vertical or horisontal straight lines. SHIFT
+ mouseclick
Draw more specific lines: If you hold
SHIFT and click in the canvas the line will go from
point A to next click point. This is realy good for
doing perspective layouts. See
example image here.
Opacity
Opacity defines how much color to paint with and how
much of the background to go trough. 50% will paint
with half the color you choose and let the background
be 50% visible in the background.
While using the brush tool you can set the opacity using
following:
Opacity %: |
10 |
20 |
30 |
40 |
50 |
60 |
70 |
80 |
90 |
100 |
Keyboard: |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
0 |
To use 45% in opacity you first click 4 and
directly after a 5.
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and , (semicolon and
dot) Select
brush
There also is a keyboard shortcut for choosing brushes.
You can go forward and backwards in the brush list.
I usually paint with the default brushes. They come
in sizes from 1 pixel to 300 pixels. So i'ts a quick
way to increase and decrease size of brush.
[ and ]
Increase and Decrease brush size
Using these keys to change the size of the current brush.
Note: I haven't
been able to use this on my swedish keyboard, if you
have any information or tips on this, please contact
me.
Exact brushes
Most artist want to see the exact size of the brush
when you are painting. This is not turned on by default.
To change this, go to "Edit" in the menu.
Then choose "Preferences" and "Display
and Cursors".
Set the settings for the cursors as the image below.
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Eraser
Tool |
Keyboard
shortcut: E |
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Eraser tool practicaly
much do what it suppose to do, it erases what you
have painted. It acts just as a brush, so you can
configure the eraser just as an brush. All brush shortcuts
also works on the eraser.
Tip 004
- Don't undo faulty brushstrokes
If you are painting a sketch or an outline where
you for example needs to draw a line. But you
don't manage to get it correct... Don't erase
or undo your faulty brushstrokes (apply this only
if you are painting on a transparent background).
Instead have the faulty stroke visible and draw
the new on top over the old one. Then you can
more easily avoid doing the same mistake again.
When you have a correct brushstroke, use the eraser
tool to remove the faulty one. If you are used
to layers, why not draw the new stroke on a seperate
layer. Then it's just to remove the other layer. |
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Useful shortcuts:
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Photoshop has many
shortcuts for often used actions, and some of them can greatly
help you paint faster and more efficient. Other shortcuts
will make Photoshops interface less "in the way"
and let you use all your creativity on a big canvas without
annoying dialogs and menus. Shortcuts that handles the brushes
are explained in the text above.
Note: Some stupid
programs that interface with windows such as ICQ can sometimes
be configured to take over some shortcuts. So if ICQ or
another program pops up when you use these, check that programs
configuration. I know ICQ has a setting to disabling this.
INTERFACE
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Hide
all dialogs and windows in Photoshop. Leaving an empty
work-space where you can work with a big canvas without
beeing distracted. Note: you
can still paint. If you already know shortcuts for the
most used tools then it should be a breeze. |
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Hides
all dialogs and windows except the toolbox and the tool
setting window. Good for quickly hiding the layer, history,
info window and still be able to edit and paint on your
painting. |
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Click
F once to switch to full screen mode with menus. It
will hide all open files and canvases, centering the
current selection canvas. And the workspace around the
canvas will be a grey color.
Click F one more time to go from full screen mode with
menus to a complete full screen mode without menus.
The workspace will now be black. This mode combined
with TAB will let you paint without any distraction
only showing the canvas. THIS IS HOW I PAINT. |
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When
working in full screen mode you can force the menu to
be hidden or visible by pressing SHIFT + F. If the menus
are hidden a little arrow will come on the top part
of the toolbox. Clicking on this arrow will bring up
the menu. |
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In
Adobe Photoshop 7 comes some annoying functions such
as the slices. Although they can be very useful for
a web designer such as myself, they become a burden
for a painter.
CTRL + H will hide all "extras" such as slices,
guides, audio, notes selections and so on. If you press
CTRL + H while these are hidden they will become visible
once again. When starting on a new painting i always
hide these elements directly. |
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CTRL
+ R will hide or show rulers to the painting. Rulers
can be a great tool when doing perspectives and web
designs. If you click on the ruler and drag out to the
canvas a guideline will be created.
Using the move tool these guides can be moved or deleted.
To delete a guide just drag it to the ruler or outside
the canvas. A painter ordinary doesn't need the rulers
to be visible. |
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ZOOM
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Shortcut
for zooming in on the painting. Zooming is useful for
adding details. When zoomed you can navigate on the
canvas using the hand tool. A shortcut for this when
your are painting is to hold down SPACEBAR. |
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Shortcut
for zooming out on the painting.
When working on paintings for print, the size often
increases to severeal thousand pixels in both height
and width. It can be practical to paint in 25%, or 50%
on a 5000 pixel big painting. When working out zoomed
the painting looks best in 12.5%, 25% and 50%. |
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This
zoomes in on the painting and increases
the canvas window according to the zoom. |
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This
zoomes out on the painting and decreases
the canvas window according to the zoom. |
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Most
new mouses have a scroll mouse attached to itself. Some
of these (most microsoft and logitech) can be used as
a zoom shortcut in Photoshop. Scroll the scroller up
to zoom in on the painting. |
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Scroll
the scroller down to zoom out on the painting. |
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UNDO
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Very
useful :) Poor traditional artists, but when you start
getting used to painting and you are getting good you
don't use this feature as much as a beginner. Instead
of undoing every missplaced stroke I simply paint over
it and uses the faulty stroke as a texture. CTRL + Z
will only undo latest change. Pressing undo again directly
after undoing will undo the undoing :) |
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In
Photoshop there is a history window, it stores all your
actions. (max 99 actions, can be configured in photoshop
settings). This shortcut will go one step back in the
history window. Allowing you to undo multiple actions. |
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This
shortcut will instead go one step forward in the history
window.
If you just have undone several steps and went one step
to much. Use this shortcut to go forward again. It looks
like a shortcut from hell but when you know it, it's
very useful. |
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FEATURES/WINDOWS IN PHOTOSHOP
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Brings
up the Color Balance window. - read
more.
I will in detail go over this further down in this tutorial. |
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Brings
up the Hue/Saturation window. - read
more.
I will in detail go over this further down in this tutorial. |
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Brings
up the Curves window. - read
more.
I will in detail go over this further down in this tutorial. |
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OTHER
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Mostly
useful when editing. If you have selected a part of
a painting this will let you freely transform the selection.
Can be useful for adding perfect reflections in water.
I briefly explained this in my first Tutorial
- 001 - Desirable Thirst. |
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Fills
a selection or the canvas with the current background
color.
I usually use this when starting on a new painting. |
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Fills
a selection or the canvas with the current foreground
color.
I usually use this when starting on a new painting. |
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Click here to download Adobes Quick Reference paper.
(you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed)
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What can Curves do for you?:
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Curves
is a very useful feature and function in Photoshop.
Mostly used on photos by photographers. Curves can
fix bad contrasts, too light highlights, details gotten
lost in shading and much more. When i paint skin tones
i found it very useful to use curves. Sometimes i
get the color balance wrong and i have to much midtones
everywhere. Using curves usually fixes this.
The Keyboard shortcut for Curves is CTRL
+ M.
This will open a Curves window, and the settings you
apply here will only affect the current layer. But
if you want some insurrance you can add an "Adjustment
Layer". You add such in the "Layer"
menu, under "New Adjustment Layer". This
will create a layer with your Curves settings. You
can later delete this layer, change opacity or blending
mode. You can even paint with black on this layer
making everything that is black to not be affected
by the curves.
Note:
It can sometimes be sufficient to just press
the "Auto" button.
Tip 005 - Paint with
value, not color:
When an artist paint, the artist should paint using
values instead of color. Since if you paint with correct
values a painting can look great in greyscale, red
colors or even blue.. But if you have incorrect values
it won't look good in any way you show it. Beginners
usually paint a portrait in greyscale, that way it's
much easier to draw the correct values. When you have
a correct value template they add a new layer with
the blending mode set to "Multiply". Now
can they paint with color and the values will be intact.
Fixing midtones in shadows.
Here is a work in progress, I'm painting a portrait
of my sister. This is far from done, but here i had
to use Curves to fix the midtones. I had pretty much
nailed the values in it. But i had to much "red"
in my shadows. Using Curves i managed to fix the most
problems. (I know that i have added some hair in the
after painting).
Click on either the Before or After painting
too see full view version.
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What can Color Balance do for you?:
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Color
Balance is something i almost always play around with
when i have finished a painting. It can create amazing
moods and color variations. But once started changing
it can be hard to quit. You can change the midtones,
highlights and the shadows base color. I would recommend
you to use the "Adjustment Layer" just as
we did with the Curves. But if you only want to use
this function on a layer, then the keyboard shortcut
is CTRL + B.
Changing the mood and concept.
Here below is my first edition of my painting Evergrey.
I just fooled around in the Color Balance dialog and
made a fantasy world concept. It's green :) I used
this function to get the cold blue mood that i have
in my finished painting Evergrey.
Click on either the Before or After painting
too see full view version.
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What can Hue/Saturation do for you?:
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Hue/Saturation
works almost like the Color Balance, but instead of
defining midtones, shadows and highlights seperatly
this function changes the color on all simultanius.
If you click in the "Colorize" box in the
window, it will change all colors and to your color.
And because nothing is just one color this isn't a
very useful function. Except for experimental paintings
and post fx.
The Keyboard shortcut for Curves is CTRL
+ U.
Quick change of color.
Here below is a speedpainting that i did some years
ago. Using Hue/Saturation i could quickly change the
color of this greyscale painting. I could just as
easily made it blue, matrix green, made it darker
or lighter.
Click on either the Before or After painting
too see full view version.
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We have now come to the end of Tutorial 002.
I hope you learned something and picked up a few tricks. Please tell me
what you thought,
and you are always welcome to mail me suggestions and tips for future
tutorials. Errors and
mispelled words is also appreciated, i'll fix them at once.
Take care.
Sincerely
Nicklas Forsberg
All paintings are protected by copyright laws. © 2002-2003, Nicklas Forsberg - NALF This tutorial has been viewed 40288 times.
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