Postwork Tips (Formerly: Using Photoshop Brushes (like those by Deviney) in Postwork)

Joe.Cotter · January 2016

Here's a Phlearn tutorial on How to Create Facial Hair in Photoshop that also covers creating a custom brush for doing said function, so not only do we get the concept of creating facial hair, we also get a better understanding of brushes in general in Photoshop (or related image editing program like GIMP.)

IceDragonArt · January 2016

MDO2010 said:

Gedd said:

Btw, if you notice I'm pulling many from Phlearn there's a reason. They have some great tutorials and a lot of them, so I recommend that people take the time to check out their site and even consider buying some of their product if it's appropriate to your needs. It is the large amount of tutorials that can be challenging though, so I am picking out specific ones to highlight specific aspects of post work related to 3D. As I go, I should be posting from other sources also, but Phlearn is one of my goto's for postwork tutorials.

I second this - even though they focus on photography and photo retouching, almost all of the things they teach in their 100's of free YouTube videos can be applied to any digital art as well. If you like the style of them, the paid tutorials are the same but they go into way more detail and spend a lot of time discussing the thought process and why's of what they do. I bought a couple of their effects videos and they are fantastic (plus they came with a tutorial on using the pen tool, which would almost have been worth the price by itself - over a decade using Photoshop and I never knew how useful that one tool could be!). They have pretty regular sales too.

Also @Gedd - thank you so much for that link to the Aaron Blaise video - it was really interesting and I lost a big chunk of a day watching his other videos.

Sadly, the elements photo shop does not include the pen tool. However, its not worth an additional $600 for just one or two tools. The pen tool is almost worth it though.

IceDragonArt · January 2016

Gedd said:

Here's an interesting tutorial on Turning Day Into A Rainy Night that covers not only what's mentioned in the title but adding a motion blur and using the info panel for placing effects, along with a couple other tricks. One of the benefits of doing these types of effects in post is that the render time to do all of this in the render engine goes up drastically. Another is that the exact amount of each aspect of the effect can be tweaked individually to allow us to fine tune a given effect, which doing in render would make that level of fine tuning impractical. A third reason is that we can expand our perspective to allow us to consider basic shots that can be repurposed to a variety of images.

All of this adds up to an expansion of our ability to visualize possibilities and see the artisitic potential inside of something that in itself might be so-so. This vision for me is at the heart of what it is to be artistic. Which leads us to another point. People who believe postwork is cheating are potentially stifling their very growth as an artist as they are focusing on the wrong things, technique vs the end result. To be artistic is to create. We develop our technical skills to allow us to be more creative, not to be bound by them.

I have a hard time understaning people's aversion to post work. For me, its the end result that matters and postwork is simply another tool to achieve what I want. I try and make the render the best that I possilbly can and then, if necessary, use other tools to achieve what I want.

Joe.Cotter · January 2016

Ice Dragon Art said:

Sadly, the elements photo shop does not include the pen tool. However, its not worth an additional $600 for just one or two tools. The pen tool is almost worth it though.

Gimp has a pen tool but it's called the Path Tool. Many of the techniques shown in Photoshop tutorials can be accomplished in Gimp with some modifications. I post Photoshop tutorials both because it happens to be the tool I use and because their are much more sophisticated tutorials for Photoshop on average vs Gimp. If I used Gimp (regularly... I have some,) I would still look to Photoshop tutorials (as well as Gimp) and look to see what/how to retrofit the techniques.

Jay Jay_1264499 · January 2016

Yeah I agree Gedd regarding post work. I used to try and do everything in either Daz or Vue and become increasingly frustrated with my end results not being anywhere near to what I saw in my mind's eye. I think aversion to post work could also stem from Photoshop being fairly daunting at first and that question of 'where do I start'. Phlearn tutorials are a great source of learning fun and the other tutorials you've posted have been a great source of info. Great forum topic by the way and exactly what the Art Studio section needs.

Joe.Cotter · January 2016

A lot of tutorials and discussions around postwork are focused on adding special effects such as godrays, fog, rain, or other computationally expensive effects to an image both to save render time and to allow adjustment of the effects (tweaking) without having to re-render. However, a significant aspect of postwork's focus is in compositing parts from various sources together into a single image/video. In this second aspect, the idea of color grading becomes very important for getting the various parts to integrate into a whole that looks like it all naturally belongs together to make up a single image/film. Color grading has also expanded to create artistic effects of it's own. For these reasons, it is well worth the time to do some research into color grading. Here's a clip on what is most relevant for this audience from Wikipedia's entry on color grading:

Some of the main functions of electronic (digital) color grading:

    Reproduce accurately what was shot

    Compensate for variations in the material (i.e., film errors, white balance, varying lighting conditions)

    Optimize transfer for use of special effects

    Establish a desired 'look'

    Enhance and/or alter the mood of a scene — the visual equivalent to the musical accompaniment of a film; compare also film tinting

Note that some of these functions are contrary to others; for example, color grading is often done to ensure that the recorded colors match those of the set design, whereas in music videos, the goal may instead be to establish a stylized look.

Traditionally, color grading was done towards technical goals. For example, in the film Marianne, grading was used so that night scenes could be filmed more cheaply in daylight. Secondary color correction was originally used to establish color continuity, however the trend today is increasingly moving towards creative goals, such as improving the aesthetics of an image, establishing stylized looks, and setting the mood of a scene through color. Due to this trend, some colorists suggest the phrase "color enhancement" over "color correction".

Primary and secondary color correction

Primary color correction affects the whole image by utilizing control over intensities of red, green, blue, gamma (mid tones), shadows (blacks) and highlights (whites) of the entire frame. Secondary correction is based on the same types of processing used for Chroma Keying to isolate a range of hue, saturation and brightness values to bring about alterations in hue, saturation and luminance only in that range, while having a minimal or usually no effect on the remainder of the color spectrum.[1] Using digital grading, objects and color ranges within a scene can be isolated with precision and adjusted. Color tints can be manipulated and visual treatments pushed to extremes not physically possible with laboratory processing. With these advancements, the color correction process has become increasingly similar to well-established digital painting techniques, ushering forth a new era of digital cinematography.

Traditionally, color grading was done towards technical goals. For example, in the film Marianne, grading was used so that night scenes could be filmed more cheaply in daylight. Secondary color correction was originally used to establish color continuity, however the trend today is increasingly moving towards creative goals, such as improving the aesthetics of an image, establishing stylized looks, and setting the mood of a scene through color. Due to this trend, some colorists suggest the phrase "color enhancement" over "color correction".

Knittingmommy · January 2016

Here's an interesting tutorial on Turning Day Into A Rainy Night that covers not only what's mentioned in the title but adding a motion blur and using the info panel for placing effects, along with a couple other tricks. One of the benefits of doing these types of effects in post is that the render time to do all of this in the render engine goes up drastically. Another is that the exact amount of each aspect of the effect can be tweaked individually to allow us to fine tune a given effect, which doing in render would make that level of fine tuning impractical. A third reason is that we can expand our perspective to allow us to consider basic shots that can be repurposed to a variety of images.

Finally got a chance to sit down and watch this. I learned a LOT! Thanks for the link as I hadn't come across this yet. Now to just try and transfer all of that knowledge to Gimp.

Gedd said:

Ice Dragon Art said:

Sadly, the elements photo shop does not include the pen tool. However, its not worth an additional $600 for just one or two tools. The pen tool is almost worth it though.

Gimp has a pen tool but it's called the Path Tool. Many of the techniques shown in Photoshop tutorials can be accomplished in Gimp with some modifications. I post Photoshop tutorials both because it happens to be the tool I use and because their are much more sophisticated tutorials for Photoshop on average vs Gimp. If I used Gimp (regularly... I have some,) I would still look to Photoshop tutorials (as well as Gimp) and look to see what/how to retrofit the techniques.

I use Gimp and I have found that it is quite easy to take most things I've learned in a Photoshop tutorials and figure out how to do them in Gimp. One advantage to using the PS tutorials is that a lot of the people making the tutorials don't always assume you know what you are doing before watching their tutorials. I've found that a lot of Gimp tutorials are made by people who seem to assume because you are using Gimp, you already know the basics which isn't usually true. I have followed a Gimp tutorial on more than one occasion where I'm following fine and then they do something that they think I should already know how to do and skip the instructions for a really basic, but important part of the process. I've usually found the answer to what I'm missing in PS tutorial. Not all Gimp tutorials are like this, but enough that if I find a tutorial that has a part that stumps me, I'll usually go find a PS tutorial for the same thing and the answer is usually in that one. You have no idea how long it took me how to figure out how to use layers simply because every tutorial assumed I should already know how to use layers. I was so proud of myself when I finally figured out how they worked and how to use them intelligently.

IceDragonArt · January 2016

For some reason, I found Photoshop far easier to learn than gimp Gimp still leaves me scratching my head. I am considering upgrading to the $10 a month deal because a couple of the tools that I am missing in elements are tools that I would probably use a lot. But I may give Gimp another go first because I do understand far more now than I did when I first tried it.

Oso3D · January 2016

What I like about GIMP is that it's streamlined. Launching GIMP takes about 10 seconds. Launching Photoshop takes CONSIDERABLY longer, and I find, at least on my machine, it is sluggish.

I tried Photoshop for about 2 days before giving up and getting a refund.

Yeah, there are some things GIMP doesn't do, which is a shame (like 32 bit images). But hey.

algovincian · January 2016

timmins.william said:

What I like about GIMP is that it's streamlined. Launching GIMP takes about 10 seconds. Launching Photoshop takes CONSIDERABLY longer, and I find, at least on my machine, it is sluggish.

I tried Photoshop for about 2 days before giving up and getting a refund.

Yeah, there are some things GIMP doesn't do, which is a shame (like 32 bit images). But hey.

I still use CS2. It has scripting support, which is what I'm mainly interested in - not all the fancy bells & whistles that newer versions may have. For me, the built-in scripting language, especially when combined with Photoshop's actions (like a macro recorder built in to Photoshop), are incredibly powerful. I couldn't live without it.

- Greg

Jay Jay_1264499 · February 2016

I've recently upgraded to Paintshop Pro as I didn't take to Gimp (I too found PS easier), and I don't agree with Adobe's subscription model. I've found that Paintshop can pretty much do everything Photoshop can do and even a little easier. Moist training translates from Photoshop to Paintshop also. Although I have to concede that Photoshop's refine edge that's built into the Magic Wand is far superior

evilded777 · March 2016

Anyone know how to use PS styles and shapes in Paint Shop Pro?

I have found that my version of PS is too outdated to use shapes... don't like that. I'd rather invest in PSP and relearn the tool I started with a while ago, but I am not sure if it will support some of my workflow and resources.

We need to pump up this thread. Still learning, learning...

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Postwork Tips (Formerly: Using Photoshop Brushes (like those by Deviney) in Postwork)

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