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Smudging is really easy... just takes some practice. Some folks asked me to tell how I do smudge painting and I thought the answer really belonged here, under techniques.
But they are scattered around, so I'll attempt to put the details together here in one place. To smudge paint in PS, here's what you do.
Working on a duplicate of the Background choose the Smudge tool and a brush with some "bite" to it, such as dry brush, spatter, stipple, etc. If you want a smoother look, use one like charcoal or chalk.
I set the brush size in the 30-40 pxl range for the most part, using smaller diameters for more delicate areas such as along edges.
I seldom use the "normal" setting, though sometimes go over areas with low opacity on normal to blend in speckles. Usually I use a brush opacity of 65% - 85% and set the brush mode to lighten or darken, depending on the area I'm painting.
I often use both in succession on the same area. Separating the lights and darks gives a less smeary effect in the end and sharper hairs, etc., though on large flat areas it tends to leave white or black specks, which can be touched up with the opposite setting or a bit of normal.
Do background first, then large center areas, followed by a narrow brush to define edges, then brush in hairs, whether human or mane! For large areas with little detail, you can "scrub" the brush...this works great if you are using lighten and darken modes instead of normal. Scrub in a back and forth motion, changing direction as the picture itself changes direction, following the main outlines of the pic.
Eyes: On people, use a small brush for eyes, of course, alternating between lighten and darken settings for different parts of eye. Put eyelashes on by drawing dark eyeliner with a tiny brush, then smudge brush out in a curve from the dark line with tiny brush set to darken or normal mode. Remember to reduce brush opacity to keep the lashes looking natural. You can use the smudge brush for this on any photo touch up... not just when smudge painting a picture. Here is a pic where I added eyelashes to someone who didn't have any at all! [url]
Save the hair areas for last. Don't scrub on hair, but pull smoothly and quickly to follow the shape of the hair. This is the fun part! Keep your undo button handy... some strokes will go astray!
After smudging the whole picture, I adjusted levels and color, then used a fuzzy burn tool set to shadows on areas I wanted to accent more as "lines", such as grooves between hair smudges where contrast wasn't sufficient. Then I used a fuzzy dodge tool set to highlights over the areas I wanted to bring out and accent, again to increase contrast locally to define hair etc.
As a final touch, I recommend unsharp mask to bring out the texture of the strokes in hair etc, but I do the sharpening on a second layer, so I can erase away the parts I don't want to be so sharp, using a large low-medium opacity eraser.
Each picture is different. Sometimes you want a hard look, sometimes a soft look... basically sharpening is good for tweaking.
To sum up, use lighten and darken brush modes, brush opacities between 65-85%, and keep the undo button handy to correct as you go. And save snapshots of your work from time to time, since history gets filled up very quickly when you are making individual brush strokes!
Phyllis
But they are scattered around, so I'll attempt to put the details together here in one place. To smudge paint in PS, here's what you do.
Working on a duplicate of the Background choose the Smudge tool and a brush with some "bite" to it, such as dry brush, spatter, stipple, etc. If you want a smoother look, use one like charcoal or chalk.
I set the brush size in the 30-40 pxl range for the most part, using smaller diameters for more delicate areas such as along edges.
I seldom use the "normal" setting, though sometimes go over areas with low opacity on normal to blend in speckles. Usually I use a brush opacity of 65% - 85% and set the brush mode to lighten or darken, depending on the area I'm painting.
I often use both in succession on the same area. Separating the lights and darks gives a less smeary effect in the end and sharper hairs, etc., though on large flat areas it tends to leave white or black specks, which can be touched up with the opposite setting or a bit of normal.
Do background first, then large center areas, followed by a narrow brush to define edges, then brush in hairs, whether human or mane! For large areas with little detail, you can "scrub" the brush...this works great if you are using lighten and darken modes instead of normal. Scrub in a back and forth motion, changing direction as the picture itself changes direction, following the main outlines of the pic.
Eyes: On people, use a small brush for eyes, of course, alternating between lighten and darken settings for different parts of eye. Put eyelashes on by drawing dark eyeliner with a tiny brush, then smudge brush out in a curve from the dark line with tiny brush set to darken or normal mode. Remember to reduce brush opacity to keep the lashes looking natural. You can use the smudge brush for this on any photo touch up... not just when smudge painting a picture. Here is a pic where I added eyelashes to someone who didn't have any at all! [url]
Save the hair areas for last. Don't scrub on hair, but pull smoothly and quickly to follow the shape of the hair. This is the fun part! Keep your undo button handy... some strokes will go astray!
After smudging the whole picture, I adjusted levels and color, then used a fuzzy burn tool set to shadows on areas I wanted to accent more as "lines", such as grooves between hair smudges where contrast wasn't sufficient. Then I used a fuzzy dodge tool set to highlights over the areas I wanted to bring out and accent, again to increase contrast locally to define hair etc.
As a final touch, I recommend unsharp mask to bring out the texture of the strokes in hair etc, but I do the sharpening on a second layer, so I can erase away the parts I don't want to be so sharp, using a large low-medium opacity eraser.
Each picture is different. Sometimes you want a hard look, sometimes a soft look... basically sharpening is good for tweaking.
To sum up, use lighten and darken brush modes, brush opacities between 65-85%, and keep the undo button handy to correct as you go. And save snapshots of your work from time to time, since history gets filled up very quickly when you are making individual brush strokes!
Phyllis
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