Do you want to try a different method of executing painties? Take a gander at my tutorial! You may find this coloring style better for your own needs, or maybe just learn something about photoshop you didn’t know before. 

(I’m reposting this here because the original forum was deleted)

This is the coloring method I typically use on Furvilla painties and wanted to share it. Essentially I like a lot of control over my colors, and found a (relatively) simply way to get the results I want without the use of unpredictable blending.

STEP 1: Setting up the file 

A. Open your grayscale paintie base in Photoshop (or your preferred program). Right click your image in the layers window and duplicate it. This will be your shading layer.

B. Add a blank layer in between them, like so. This will be where all your coloring will go.

C. Right click and convert this blank layer into a clipping mask. It MUST be above your original image. What this clipping mask does is uses the source layer below as an alpha mask. This will be further explained later.

D. Your layers should look like this. 

STEP 2: Preparing the shading

Go into your shading layer. Turn off the visibility of your other layers so you can see what is properly happening. In your menu go to Adjustments> Levels and this window will pop up. What we are doing is setting the image so that instead of gray the lightest areas of the image are white, and easier to work with. All you should be moving is this little white tick over to where the graph begins to grow.

STEP 3: Prepping for Color

A. Turn back on visibility for all layers. I suggest you set your shading layer to multiply, but you may use any blending mode you prefer. 

B. With the paint bucket tool just fill in any base color you want.

STEP 4: Coloring and Additional Tips

A. Here I’m just breaking down how you will mostly be coloring your image. This will be your flat colors, commonly referred to as the ‘albedo.’ You can add as many layers as you want using any blending mode you want, granted they are all clipped to the original layer. I’ve turned off the shading layer here.

B. The great thing about clipping masks is preserves all of your image, and you can essentially draw ‘outside the lines’. I’ve turned off the clipping mask for my coloring layers and you can see how they are no longer confined to the transparency from the layer below.

Step 5: Adding Color To Your Shading

With the shadows turned on, you can see my character is just plain ugly. Not vibrant at all. This is because my shadows are all based in blacks, unlike realistic shadows which have much more lighting and color. 

There are multiple methods of changing this depending on your style. The easiest would be to lock the transparency on this layer and fill it in with a solid color of your choice, but I have a bit of a different way, using a Gradient Map.

A. In your layers window is an icon that allows you to create a separate adjustment layers. Click it and select Gradient Map.

B. Double click the gradient in the bar to change it.

Gradient maps work where the left end represents the blackest tones, where the right side represents the whitest. Click anywhere on the gradient to add a new color. This is the gradient I created and the affected image.

When you want to see what your shadows will properly look like right click and turn the gradient map layer into a clipping mask. You should be able to see your colors properly again.

Here’s an example of different ways you can color your shadows to change how the character appears. In both of these the color layer is just a light cream flood fill, but the shadows have completely different tones.

STEP 6: The Shiny Stuff

It should be noted that so far everything in your color layer is below the shadow layer, so all color is essentially darkened. If you want to create highlights or other light effects you have to create a layer above everything else. Make sure it is clipped to your shadow layer, as to have correct transparency. 

CONGRATS YOU DID IT!