Digital art certainly involves less cleaning than oil paints, but there is no reason why traditional techniques can’t be applied using new technological mediums. Transform your paintings from grayscale to color and save buckets of time hand-painting pesky thumbnails with these simple adjustment tools in Procreate.
How to Use the Color Balance Tool on Grayscale Art
Painting in grayscale is a perfect, quick way to block in details, shading, and depth in both traditional and digital artwork. Using shades of gray saves time and energy, especially when it comes to sketching, mapping out a storyboard, or creating multiple thumbnail designs for later development.
For centuries, artists have used underpainting and grisaille techniques to create works of art that begin their lives in grayscale. One quick way this effect can be accomplished in Procreate is by using theColor Balancetool, located at the top left of theAdjustmentsdrop-down menu.
After selecting this tool, you can drag the sliders below to adjust the color balance. To switch between editing theShadows,Midtones,andHighlightsof your artwork, select thesunicon at the bottom right.
RGB (red, green, blue) refers to the color representation system in digital imagery. This mode is used for any type of on-screen display—ideal for digital art. These three colors combined in various intensities can reproduce a much broader array of colors that we then see on our TV, computer, and phone screens.
This handy acronym is not to be confused with CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key/black), which is the color space for printed materials. Just remember that RGB is best for digital displays, whilst CMYK is preferable for printed media.
Procreate’s Color Balance tool utilizes RGB values in order to adjust the overall image’s display.Shadowsadjustments will affect the darkest parts of the image,Midtonesrefers to the middle tones, andHighlightsedits will alter the brightest areas of your painting.
Sliding one color dial to the end of the scale will overpower that selected part of the image. For example, sliding theHighlightsadjustment to the end of theRedscale will cause the lighter parts of your image to be colored red.
When you’re looking for a quick way to add a splash of color to specific areas of your artwork, Color Balance is the right tool for you. If you’re still new to digital art and want to give this tool a shot, see these tips ongetting started in Procreate.
How to Use the Gradient Map for Quick Color Presets
Another quick and easy way to experiment with added color in Procreate is by using ready-made presets. you’re able to access these by selecting theGradient Maptool in theAdjustmentsmenu.
Then you can scroll through Procreate’s basic preset library. Selecting a preset will automatically apply it to the layer you’re working on. If you only want a specific section colorized, make sure you have selected the right layer to work on first.
These presets can be further edited and refined to prioritize certain colors or shading styles. You can adjust each preset by dragging the sliders across the gradient scale, which will create more or less contrast between different hues, depending on the extremes between your chosen color values.
This method of adding color to grayscale art is perfect for testing out new color swatches and quickly developing thumbnails for conceptual work. There are so manyways to color in Procreate, but these adjustment shortcuts will save you brainstorming time when it comes to choosing color palettes and having to paint them one brushstroke at a time.
Easily Paint in Color From Grayscale
These two quick methods of adding color to a grayscale piece are perfect for quick-fire painting practice, concept thumbnails, and early development sketches. Additional detail and refinements are best done by hand, but a little extra help choosing and editing color palettes is ideal for those exciting early stages of painting.
