Hey, gotten your latest copy of Photoshop?

First off, if you're serious about computer coloring for a living, get Photoshop. Even the limited edition that ships with some scanners would be preferable to pretty much any other graphics program out there (though Paintshop Pro 5 and 6 have made some note-worthy advances). Also, there are a number of important differences between the ever increasing versions or "upgrades" of Photoshop ("versions" are major revisions of software a company releases regulary). Among some of the major ones have been: version 2.5 - allowed people to use numerous channels to help when isolating sections of their images. version 3.0 - the first to support "layers".

Version 4.0 changed a lot of the quick-keys to match similar features in Adobe's other software products like Adobe Illustrator (quick-keys allow you to change your tools by hitting one key on the keyboard... learning these will speed your work tremendously), and 4.0 also added "actions" or "scripting" which allows you to record a number of complicated operations and then play them back at any time with the press of a button.

Version 5.0 changed a number of its assigned quick-keys again (an event long-time users hate), but added a major new feature which allows users to roll-back their work to an earlier point they can specify (basically a super-undo). As of this writing, there's already a version 5.5 that updates Photoshop with a number of internet specific graphics features.

Each major version update raises the bar in more ways than just the ones mentioned here, and undoubtably there will be more updates that will push the mainstream state-of-the-art in computer image editing software ever further.

About These Tutorials...

For the purposes of keeping things simple, the following text will only cover version 5.0.

Also, we're going to assume you've already been playing around with Photoshop, and don't need the basic stuff re-explained to you. So, to sum up... you know what layers are, selections, brushes, palettes, etc, etc...

If you don't, the quickest easiest way to clear that up is to hit the F1 key in Windows, or choose "Help Contents..." from the Help menu on the Macintosh, while in Photoshop. People always forget about online help, but remember it's always there, just like that... manual... thingie.

Transparency and Line Art

Now for something more meatier. One of the things that most people starting out have problems with, is learning how to color line art. They'll use the fill-bucket (big mistake), turn their brushes to "multiply", and paint directly on top of the line art (useful, but not open to experimentation later), or any number of things.

Two good ways of setting up line art to be colored are:

#1. Set the line art on its own "layer", and set that layer's "blending mode" to "multiply". This can be found at the top of the layer palette.

#2. If you can afford this memory-wise, try using a little known handful of plug-ins called the "Transparency Suite". This group of Photoshop plug-ins are based off of a feature Adobe added a while back called the Filter Factory. This "Filter Factory" allows people to make their own plug-ins to do certain image effects in Phothshop that would be otherwise impossible. On the Photoshop CD, Adobe makes these special plug-ins available in the "Goodies" folder (and they've been there for more than a few versions).

Once made available to Photoshop, these plug-ins allow you to do things like:

• Edit Transparency... - Allows you to adjust the opacity of a selected image area relative to its current levels of opacity. This allows you to make objects more or less transparent relative to where they already are.
• Luminosity -> Opacity - Transform the lighter tones in a selection to lesser degrees of opacity. White becomes completely transparent, neutral gray would be 50% transparent, and black would be completely opaque. You know what that means for line art right?
• Opacity -> Luminosity - Transform anything in the selection that's not 100% transparent to 100% opaque.
• Set Transparency... - Allows you to adjust the global opacity of a selected image area. Unlike "Edit Transparency", this option makes everything selected NOT transparent at all, and then lets you adjust the transparency from there.

The reason why this is even desirable, is that once you've made line art truly "See-Thru", you can do nice tricks, like coloring the lines without a second thought (ex: making an ice monster's outlines "blue", or the onlines on a raging fire "bright red"). It's also easier to make characters generally more bright and friendly. For example:

Step #1	Step #2
Here is the original artwork prior to coloring. Meet the happy hunter. What I was shooting for with this picture was the goofy, Disney-esque safari-going traveler.	Here, I've divided the Photoshop file up into layers, and have added a good amount of color to the image. It's worth noting that the picture as shown above is reduced in size compared to what I'm actually coloring, aprox. 16% of actual size.
Step #3	Step #4
Now, the coloring is "okay", but I still don't think it's light and "fun" enough for our clients target audience. Enter the Transparency Suite. I'm showing a gradient from white to checkerboards here to demonstrate the difference between what the line art layer looked like before, and after the Luminosity -> Opactiy plug-in is applied (--when all the other color layers are shut off. Checkerboards represent full-transparency).	After applying Luminosity->Opacity (from the Transparency Suite) on the line art layer, I turn on "Preserve Transparency" for that layer, and apply color to the lines easily. The final image is much closer to the animation cel-look I wanted.

Well. That's all I have to say on some starting tips. Familiarize yourself with transparency and what that means. When you click on options like "preserve transparency", that literally means... don't change the level of transparency ANYWHERE on this layer as I draw. Even the eraser which usually erases things (making them transparent) will only color things the color of the current background color if this option is on, so remember when you have it on, or you'll go nuts wondering what's wrong!

Don't forget to checkout the web sites list below
for other interesting Photoshop related tips:

• Adobe.com Photoshop Tips & Technique
    General Photoshop tips direct from Adobe
• Designs by Mark Photoshop Tips
     Photoshop Tips from basic to advanced by Mark Monciardini
• Digital Mastery Companion site to the published book
     Photoshop Tips, Tutorials, Resoures, Interviews, and Q & A.
• NAPP National Photoshop Users Community
     National Association of Photoshop Professionals