Still Life Digital Painting (study)

[Helios]

Thanks for the run down so far Sam - really interesting to see how your techniques differ vastly from mine, for one thing! Probably because we use different software, I guess.

I'm a little lost already though - again different software and different versions of PS are mostly to blame I think. The filled selection template you've set up - I don't understand why. What is this for exactly? Just being careful with lines, or...?

 

[IamSam]

The filled selection template you've set up - I don't understand why. What is this for exactly? Just being careful with lines, or...?

No problem, let me try to explain.

You can paint inside a selection.......



Then, if you reverse the selection, you can paint (so to speak) outside the same selection.



So...........If I make a template (or save) of that selection, then I can preserve that EXACT selection for later use. When I want to recall that selection, I simply Cmd/Cntrl + Click on the thumbnail.

How does this apply to the apple painting?

When I have a structure within the painting that has what I call internal boundaries and clear delineation, then I want an exact and consistent selection that I can recall at anytime.

Such as......


Painting inside the selection...



Or painting outside the selection...



So the template will sit forever in the bottom layers, turned off. It only serves as a means to recall an exact selection. By doing this, I don't have to re-make the selection over and again.......you never can make the same matching selection twice.

 

[Helios]

Ahaaa! I completely get it now - the stupid thing is I actually did know all of that, but just reading it I couldn't visualise the steps taken within PS, or put it all together into a process, so it seemed like some technique that was new and unheard of to me.

My strange brain thanks you for the clarification!

 

[IamSam]

OK.

Now it's just about the painting. I can tell you that I used only one brush for this entire painting except for the texturing, and it was a soft round brush with the following settings............





I did make some minor setting changes but , really, that was all I used.

I used my outlines and template and just went to work.



Here I added a layer for the texturing.
The texture brush. looks like this......

And the texture layer....

I converted the texture layer to a SO and added a slight motion blur.






Here I started adding the highlight...

 

[Pipsmom]

Poetry in motion following your steps

 

[Helios]

Did you use the texture brush for the highlight rather than the soft brush?

 

[IamSam]

Did you use the texture brush for the highlight rather than the soft brush?

Yes. I used the texturing brush for most of it and then the soft round to brighten it out.

I was going to add that to my previous post and forgot about it.

 

[IamSam]

Next I needed to add the yellowish specks.

I sampled the color from the original reference image and I used the same soft brush to paint with.

I created a new layer above the painting layer and below the reference layer.

I turned on the reference layer and set up a grid.


I lowered the opacity of the reference layer and started matching the specks.


I continued this process until I painted all the yellowish specks.


The specks were too bright and hard edged. I converted the specks layer to a smart object and added a Gaussian blur and Motion blur smart filters.


I then added layer mask to the specks layer with a gradient to lighten the specks in the lower right side.