Digital painting workflow : 4 tips for a better workflow

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Digital painting : Tips for better workflow

Your workflow when you paint an illustration can define the time you take and by this way, how much you are efficient. I can give you five tips for free that i wish someone gave to me when i was a young painter full of hope.  Paint in normal mode : No one told you that but if you have a strong knowledge of colors and light. You can paint in normal mode and get a hell of an awesome artwork. To improve your workflow, i advice you to use these three shortcut for this basic technic : Shift+ctrl+alt+e : It merge all the layers into one final sample. B : it select the brushesE: it select the eraser.   Ctrl +alt + shift + B : it makes your drawing black and whiteCtrl + Z : it go one step back, you can use it easily to make your drawing becoming colored again after using the shortcut of black and white.   If you want a more accessible black and white mode, you can just put a mask layer and create a layer in the panel for black and white.   

 Use the multiply mode to handle colors : 

Pose your flat colours on your drawing and create a new layer of multiply  You can easily draw the shadow, be smart when you do it, this workflow technic speed up the process by avoiding you to draw directly the highlight. You draw shadow + midtone by blending and then you just use the eraser tool to create some contrast beetween light zone and dark ones.  

 Use the gaussian blur when you want to create a focal point : 

When you want to create a focal point, instead of doing a whole paint over on your artwork. Use the gaussian blur. go to filter --- blur --- gaussian blur. Use it on your whole artwork by merging everything as i showed you with the shortcut. Then, erase the part you want to be a focal point with an eraser of 70 percent opacity. If you have an artwork with many focal point, adjust the opacity of your eraser according to your needs. This technic is a time saver if you want to change the focal point. The only disadvantage is that you can't use it many time otherwise your details will go away fastly.  

 Change quickly the colors of your painting : 

Use overlay and color mode, when they are combined you can easily change the color and keep your values almost the same.  

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