2008-01-07 Jennifer at Col Cacchio -- Colour Version 2008-01-20

2008-01-07 Jennifer at Col Cacchio -- Colour Version 2008-01-20, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

This is the colour version of a doodle I did on the table cover when Jen and I ate at Col'Cacchio in Benmore.

I'm truly amazed that the line work stands up to scrutiny. The linework itself is fine. I'm very happy with the original drawing. What amazes me is that this is actually a very poor photograph of the drawing, taken with my Nokia N91.

It's a 2 megapixel camera. And it's got this habit of taking the picture about 5 seconds after the fake shutter sound plays. And the camera has to be held deadstill for all that time, else it blurs.

I've really loved doing the colouring on this one.

All of it's been done in Photoshop CS2. There are about 25 layers, each one dedicated to different bits and pieces.

The key trick I've learned is to ALT-click on the 'New Layer' icon in the layers palette. Then select 'Overlay' as the layer mode. Then select 'Fill with 50% gray'.

Once the layer has been created, press the 'D' key. This sets the default colour palette to Black and White.

Use a brush set to between 10 and 40% opacity to paint into the grey overlay. Black 'Burns' the pic, making it darker. White 'Dodges', making it lighter.

Use the 'Smear' tool (the pointed finger) to shmoosh things around a bit to neutralise anything you don't like.

Killer tool. Several layers like this will result in kick ass highlights and shadows.