How To Paint Realistic Skin Tones Digitally In Photoshop For Portraits

How To Paint Realistic Skin Tones Digitally In Photoshop For Portraits – Mainly, to paint the skin it is necessary to know where and how the light originates, resulting in shadows, which together with the properties of the skin and color are essential to paint the skin. If you want to give it texture, it’s easy. There are countless brushes that have these qualities, but even if they have that function, they will not do the painting for you, you have to do it based on your knowledge. For that you have to know the basics. You can’t start running before you know how to walk.

I hope this tutorial explains more about this realism technique and is not too long and boring. Let’s get started.

How To Paint Realistic Skin Tones Digitally In Photoshop For Portraits

(Ouch!!! Sorry if it’s a bit long. This tutorial is meant to highlight the most important things, but everything is important.)

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Lights and shadows give volume to the drawing, while we paint the skin we create volumes that shape the body in the drawing, knowing this it is important to know the basics.

Although lights and shadows are also used for flat drawings, they do not add much depth, but when it comes to 3D drawings, proper application of lights and shadows is necessary to give a three-dimensional feel on the 2D plane. More than anything, it is important to give the impression that the images jump into reality; We achieve this by using the play of shadows and lights.

(Explanatory visual gif) Watching a circle turn into a sphere in a 2D environment makes me wonder if life is like that, we just don’t notice it because of the way our brain processes information. No? =͟͟͞͞( ✌ °∀° ) ☛

Light allows us to see contours, shapes and colors, in this sense we will have: direct light, reflected light.

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Direct Light: Comes from a light source with its own light energy such as sunlight, light bulbs, flashlights, etc.

Reflected Light: Also called indirect light, it is a type of light that comes from a body that does not contain light itself, but rather receives it from others because the light reflects it.

As for the shadows, remember that they are responsible for giving volume to the painting. They are divided into: own, reflective and predictive. Below is a brief description:

Own shadow: This means that it is the area where light cannot reach directly, it is the shadow area, and the color is usually darker.

Skin Color Swatches By Deviantnep On Deviantart

Projected Shadow: It is the shadow that is reflected on the surface where the object is located. This shadow has the characteristic that the part farthest from the object is diffuse and the part close to it is dark and hard.

Reflected Shadow: It is the shadow that one object projects on another object, that is, between those objects that are neighbors and are produced under reflected light. This is best understood by placing an object of a different color. The light that the secondary object reflects from the primary object will be proportional to its own color. All objects, including skin, reflect their color (explained below).

To shade the drawing it is important to know the elements that we must reflect. For this there are two types of lighting: natural and artificial. These lights are related to the quality of the skin, which is explained later.

Natural Light: It is the light reflected by the sun or the moon. Since the light source is very far away, it travels parallel in a straight line. It is projected at an angle of 45º onto the object and has the same shape and extension as the illuminated object.

Portrait Painting: How To Paint Skin Tone

Artificial Light: It is the electric light projected by electric lamps, lanterns, candles or light bulbs and spreads in both direct and radial directions. The projection onto the subject is not an angular projection and has a large, thin shape onto the subject.

With the above already in our memory we can now learn to paint the skin. I will use a sphere to explain it.

The first thing we have to do is determine where the light will come from, to know where the shadows will be as a result and thus apply the composition of lights and shadows described above. Then apply the base color. Once this is applied, let’s create a “New Layer” in “Flatten Layer Below” mode. In this layer you are going to apply small green and red dots with an airbrush at low opacity. Use the Blur tool to blur them. This is to simulate the internal processes of the skin, which I explain below. This step is optional.

Above we will create another layer in the “Flatten to Layer Below” mode and change the Blending Mode to “Multiply”. This is where we will apply shadows with the same base color. Because you are in multiply mode, the base color will now appear darker. You don’t need to set the layer to multiply, you can do it yourself by choosing a darker color, but it’s easier that way. Once the shadow is applied, we’ll apply the highlights to a smooth layer above it in “Attach to Layer Below” mode and blend everything together evenly. Using the information in the first section, if you know where the light is coming from, you know where the shadows are.

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After finishing the above, it is time to set the brightness of the direct light, place it in the point of greatest light using the airbrush. Use light colors. If you think it’s too bright, lower the opacity of the layer.

Next, add another layer in the “Flatten Layer Below” mode where I will place the pore texture (the texture is explained in a few sections below). To do this, take a brush that has a grainy texture, apply the texture all over the sphere using a medium-sized, dark brown brush. I lowered the opacity of the layer so that the holes are not as visible.

As a final step, place a layer in “Flatten Layer Below” mode and change its “Layer Mode” to “Overlay.” On this layer I applied a saturated orange color with an airbrush that rests on the border of lights and shadows. I blurred it a little. To give it realism, there is usually a small saturation line if we look at the limits of lights and shadows.

Ready, now we know how to paint the skin!!! If you notice, the teachings explained in the section on lights and shadows were followed.

How To Paint Skin Tones In Photoshop Using Just 4 Colors (with Exercise!)

Color theory allows us to extract colors from non-human skin. Unfortunately I am not going to explain all the color theory because it would be a very long explanation, but I am going to tell you the main things you can do in Clip Studio in terms of lighting.

First, you should consider the average local skin tone. This color is defined as the areas where shadows, midtones, highlights or highlights remain unchanged. Simply put, this is what we call a person’s “skin color”, i.e. black, white and brown.

Secondly, it is important not to resort to white or black to obtain a gradient scale because the result is grayish, not natural. It is best to select the colors diagonally, delineating the center and the curve as shown below. The first is a bad example and the other is acceptable.

Human skin has many colors, from dark brown to almost white. So the question is what values ​​should I use to achieve realistic and correct skin? Well, here you have a magical and simple technique: an eyedropper and a reference.

Skin Texture Tutorial By Aameeyur On Deviantart

To get a realistic skin tone, nothing is easier than clicking a photo. So, take high-quality images, references. Look for extreme values ​​when sampling: look for the brightest and darkest points. have good tone under the hair or under the chin; Bright areas can be found on the cheeks, nose and forehead; Find another place to try the medium tone.

A color map is a table with different gradients or random colors. You can find this clip in the Studio Store.

To have a map in Clip Studio it is very easy to go to the store, download the map you want, go to Content, download it, take the map and drag it to the color palette. Ready, enjoy the map. Below I put a GIF with the process.

The skin reflects the colors. If you take a luminous object and place it close to the skin, it will reflect the color of the object. This is explained at the beginning of the tutorial where it talks about reflected shadows. The colors of the environment are constantly reflected on our skin, which is why when it comes to painting the skin, understanding ambient light becomes an important factor. Include adjacent colors to add realism to your work.

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This is an example of ambient colors. The skin is in a purple environment, so the skin gets a small shade of the color of the environment next to it, in this case the background, which is the closest environment. If you look at the example below, you’ll notice how the sphere on the left doesn’t blend into the background.