Okay, it’s close enough to October 15th. Go get your Rainbow Brush!

Click HERE and get it.

Have Fun and send me some paintings done with it!

Marilyn

Here is a quickie for today. We already talked about EQUALIZE, but there is another way to “pop” those brushstrokes easily and quickly. When your painting is done in Corel Painter X, go to EFFECTS>FOCUS>SHARPEN. Raise the value above the default of 3.0 and click okay. Again, to finalize and tweak it, go to EDIT>FADE and fade the sharpening to taste. This is a great way to have your brushstrokes stand out. Most go to Photoshop to sharpen after they leave Painter and mistakenly they use USM (unsharpmask) over the entire image. A better way to control the sharpening is to use NIK Sharpener. The reason I love this plugin so much is that it is on a layer, creates a mask and I can paint the sharpening in where I need it instead of applying to the entire image. Gives me complete control. And anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Control!! Okay…now go Sharpen and Control your paintings!!

Okay, I have a goodie for you all but it involves visiting my good friend Photoshop Mama’s site. I decided to do this like this, so you will go over and take a look at all her educational and also FREE materials. We have been using her actions for Photoshop for a while we are in LOVE with them! So I wanted to share the info with you. The best way to get my FREE SAMPLER SET OF SHOLIN PAINTER BRUSHES is there.

At Photoshop Mamas page, scroll to the bottom of the page and look on the left side for the Freebie!

If you want to get the full set of brushes and the tutorials for portrait painting…then you need to go HERE.

Volume 3 tutorials are all about portrait painting and include my full set of Portrait Painting Brushes and 90 minutes of movies and also movies about how to use each and every brush.

If you are a Digital Painting Forum member, you get a discount on the tutorials…log into the forum to purchase instead of purchasing on the site.

Enjoy all!!

One of the biggest complaints I heard from my students is that their digital painting does not show the brushstrokes and look painterly when it’s printed. There is an easy little trick to control this and “pop” the brushstrokes.

Step One:

Here is a group brushstrokes painted with my Mar Soft Sarg settings. It looks a little dull and flat.

Step Two:

Go to EFFECTS>TONAL CONTROL>EQUALIZE

Step 3:

See the Equalize box comes up and has sliders in it. See the difference in the color and brushstrokes?

Step 4:

The black and white sliders and the brightness slider can be moved to taste.

Step 5:

If you have done too much to the painting, don’t go back to redo it. Instead go to EDIT>FADE

Step 6:

Edit>Fade brings up the percentage slider of how MUCH to fade the effect just applied. If you put it to 100% the effect would be totally removed. Watch the box for the preview of how much you want to fade the effect. Once it’s where you want it, click OK.

Step 7:

Now compare this to the first painting we started with. The brushstrokes are stronger and have more contrast and if you check out their “edges” there is a much stronger painterly feel to the brushwork.

This was a simple Sholin Painter Quick Tip! Hope you liked it. Comments are welcome!