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Painting techniques

The world's top digital painters reveal invaluable industry theories, techniques and inspiration to help you hone your digital painting skills and improve as an artist…

The world's top digital painters reveal invaluable industry theories, techniques and inspiration to help you hone your digital painting skills and improve as an artist…

Every artist has their own ways of approaching Photoshop painting. Our experts reveal some of their tricks

The most important thing to remember when you're painting in Photoshop is that it's not all that different to painting on a real canvas with a real brush. You still need to think about the composition, color, and texture, and choose and tweak your tools to achieve your desire effect. So don't get caught up in the whizz-bang power that Photoshop has, instead focus on the hard work and talent required to bring a great image to fruition.

01: Try different techniques

"I try to vary my painting techniques now and then to teach myself new approaches. I'll hard-brush only where I ‘carve' the forms without a sketch to guide me, and use Photobashing where painting and careful composing of photos go hand in hand. I also sometimes use line art first and then do washes of paint on top in order to build the painting up.” Bjorn Hurri

02: Work on texture

"I think it is quite important to paint at least a suggestion of texture in your work because you can use that to your advantage. Controlling how different materials deal with the Specular one can significantly impact your final look.” Bjorn Hurri

Ian McQue describes himself as being quite traditional in his painting approach
©Ian McQue

03: Elbow grease

"I tend to paint a lot from scratch, so when textures are involved it is usually handcrafted textures where I've tried to apply textures and separate or join areas using different techniques to achieve a specific look.” Bjorn Hurri

04: Fast fade

"Using fade filters in the Edit menu is very handy!” Bjorn Hurri

05: Texture to highlight

"A random square shape on your image can be transformed into a beautiful rock with only some scratches and rough shadows. Often textures are something I use in lighter spaces to highlight the material and its characteristics. When I work with photographs on videogames I always use the final lighting to break my textures because I don't want them everywhere, it's really noisy and you can lose sense of the image.” Xavier Etchepare

Arresting silhouettes are something that interests Ian McQue
©Ian McQue

06: Texture to differentiate

"I apply realistic textures on main elements and have more graphic ones on secondary elements.” Xavier Etchepare

07: Texture to guide

"Texture can help move the viewer's eyes through a composition and also help keep their eyes glued to a certain area, depending on the focus you create.” Wes Burt

08: Texture for realism

"Texturing is important if you want to achieve a realistic or plausible design and illustration, but is not essential if you simply want to create a mood and composition.” Raphael Lacoste

Texture is hugely important in Ian McQue's work
©Ian McQue

09: Bring the real world in

"I'm quite traditional in my approach, and always try to replicate the same sort of techniques I would use if I were using paint on canvas. I feel this is more honest than relying heavily on the shortcuts you can find in Photoshop.” Ian McQue

10: Be hard-edged

"I use the Lasso tool a lot for creating hard edges, it's very important in describing interesting silhouettes.” Ian McQue

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