Woke up at 2am and couldn’t fall back asleep so I made a tutorial on the Photoshop techniques I use most frequently. Starting with the sketch:
adjustment layers: specifically the hue/saturation slider in this case, allows you to color correct quickly
lasso tool: for sharp edges!
alpha lock: useful for painting within a pre-defined area (especially useful when painting characters)
x (hotkey) : toggle between foreground + background colors- let’s you easily blend between 2 colors
ctrl/cmd click : quickly change current active layer. Especially useful if you’re burdened with too many layers (or just very disorganized)
clipping mask: similar to alpha lock, but can add details without changing/ painting directly on the previous layer. I often use them to test out + apply gradients.
layer styles: I didn’t use any in this image, but the possibilities for layer styles endless, from simply adding a quick outline (useful for die cut demarcations when making stickers!) to creating more seemingly complex appearances. Here’s a gif of Nick Carver using layer styles (a combo of drop shadows + inner shadows) to quickly make the illusion of snow but with simple strokes.
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