Adjusting the Colour using Adobe Photoshop/ Illustrator

Skill

Learning how to add colour and tone to one of my illustrations using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

Approach to Learning

First of all Matt showed everyone in a group tutorial how he added colour to his illustrations. I forgot to take notes so I watched tutorials on line, borrowed an Adobe manual and asked Kate (who is Vis. Com Yr 1), for help as she has been using the Adobe suit for years.

Process Notes

Key Tips from the Learning Process

1. The pencil lines of the original image were too faint so they did not scan. I went around all the drawings with a black fine liner.
2. Shading can make an image look more "alive". Kate told me that if I change the opacity on the paintbrush tool you can gradually build up the shading instead of persistently changing she shade from the palette.
3. It is quicker to scan the image into Adobe Illustrator, live trace it, then place it into a new Adobe document. This also means you can adjust the size of the image while "placing".

The original image, just scanned in-

The image "live traced" in Illustrator-

The image without shading-

Overall...

I took me a while to grasp the process but found it a very useful exercise. I still think I have more to learn about Photoshop, but generally feel more confident and have realised that if I am struggling there are many ways I can find help. The only thing that would have made the process easier is if I had used a graphics tablet as it would have made the shading more accurate.