Step8: Finally finished! Other than painting in the remaining leaves and some birds I have done several color and focus-improving adjustments. When I feel I’m done with my image, I always try out Photoshop’s auto color/contrast/tone settings. Sometimes they completely destroy the image and are utterly useless, but now and then they bring something new into it. On this piece, Photoshop made all the shadows dark blue and half the image black. While that was quite useless in itself, duplicating it above the original image and blending them together made a vast improvement to the mood. I also added another color layer with some reds between the two entrances to contrast the blue shadows. Next, I used the gradient tool in its “sphere” setting and made a yellow/white light over the focal point which I then set to overlay. Doing this didn’t necessarily make the image more realistic or better, but it helped in drawing the viewers’ eyes towards the entrance. Then, on to my third most favorite tool in Photoshop: the “smart sharpen” filter. (Filters-> Sharpen-> Smart sharpen) You don’t know how blurry your painting is until you’ve slapped this one on it. Of course, I won’t use it on the entire painting, just around the focal point. This makes the edges sharper and the colors richer, drawing your eyes right to it. Lastly, flip the canvas horizontally to make sure it works both ways. If it doesn’t, something is bound to be off. Regardless, I always wait a day before calling it finished, as you might notice stuff later that you didn’t while painting.
Digital Paint Magazine - October 2010
About the artist I am a 23-year-old illustrator living in Hamar, Norway, who just finished a bachelor in fine arts and computer science degree. Immediately after graduation I founded an art/web/3d/ programming/animation company with some of my friends called Sarepta Studio, where I work for clients all over the world. Contact: orjan.svendsen@sareptastudio.com Web: http://www.sareptastudio.com and http://www.svendsenart.com
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