12-03-2014, 12:55 AM
Ah I understand now. If time constraints are an issue then go for it!
As for your question, that's actually one of the drawbacks of colour picking, and, in your case, adding in other colours.
For one thing, in your reference there is no solid black. Often times the thing that will look black will just be whatever the darkest colour in your picture is. You've added dark outlines in black to your work which changes the colour relationships slightly, and so it will be harder for you to get that black feeling. Adding in extra colours that aren't in the original also slightly changes that. But i don't think that's why its not there yet
The colour picker is pretty inaccurate most of the time. If you select the eyedropper tool ("I" if you haven't changed your shortcuts), there's a drop down menu on on the top bar that tells you how it picks colour. It either takes it one pixel at a time, or takes an average; neither are accurate because in a photograph, colours are not pure but made up of many different coloured dots, and also because the average of the pixels around the eyedropper isn't necessarily the same as how you perceive that colour. It's called optical mixing if you want to read up on it more. Photoshop works in pixels, which are pure colours, so you'll never match the photo 100%, especially if its lower res.
Speaking of photos, these days they're very rarely shot "as is". They're often manipulated to achieve a certain effect, which is fine, but I think part of the reason you're confused about that dark purple as a black is because of that. It's pretty difficult to get those colours in real life, if not impossible. And in my opinion it becomes pretty hard to paint that, even from reference, if you're still trying to think of it in terms of classic colour theory.
With all that said, since you're picking straight off the photograph, there's some things you can do to make it more accurate. You have the general feeling down which is good, but you're missing some saturation and a lot of the little gradients that make the colours feel the way do right now. If it's not working right, go ahead and paste the section you're trying to get right onto your work. Not to use it in the final, but to compare it and have it literally right beside it see what you're missing.
Here's what I mean. See how the saturation is off, mostly in the warm colours? Also see how the light from the lamps gradates from pure white, quickly into yellow, and then red-orange? I also did the inverse, and pasted your characters into the photograph so I could see what was wrong with the colours you picked. All I did was play with the levels a bit until it looked closer, so really what that meant was your colours and colour temperatures were fine on them, but the values and the saturation were a bit off. You can still treat this as a learning experience, especially if it's not going the way you want it to!
![[Image: 263g0no.jpg]](http://i61.tinypic.com/263g0no.jpg)
As for your question, that's actually one of the drawbacks of colour picking, and, in your case, adding in other colours.
For one thing, in your reference there is no solid black. Often times the thing that will look black will just be whatever the darkest colour in your picture is. You've added dark outlines in black to your work which changes the colour relationships slightly, and so it will be harder for you to get that black feeling. Adding in extra colours that aren't in the original also slightly changes that. But i don't think that's why its not there yet
The colour picker is pretty inaccurate most of the time. If you select the eyedropper tool ("I" if you haven't changed your shortcuts), there's a drop down menu on on the top bar that tells you how it picks colour. It either takes it one pixel at a time, or takes an average; neither are accurate because in a photograph, colours are not pure but made up of many different coloured dots, and also because the average of the pixels around the eyedropper isn't necessarily the same as how you perceive that colour. It's called optical mixing if you want to read up on it more. Photoshop works in pixels, which are pure colours, so you'll never match the photo 100%, especially if its lower res.
Speaking of photos, these days they're very rarely shot "as is". They're often manipulated to achieve a certain effect, which is fine, but I think part of the reason you're confused about that dark purple as a black is because of that. It's pretty difficult to get those colours in real life, if not impossible. And in my opinion it becomes pretty hard to paint that, even from reference, if you're still trying to think of it in terms of classic colour theory.
With all that said, since you're picking straight off the photograph, there's some things you can do to make it more accurate. You have the general feeling down which is good, but you're missing some saturation and a lot of the little gradients that make the colours feel the way do right now. If it's not working right, go ahead and paste the section you're trying to get right onto your work. Not to use it in the final, but to compare it and have it literally right beside it see what you're missing.
Here's what I mean. See how the saturation is off, mostly in the warm colours? Also see how the light from the lamps gradates from pure white, quickly into yellow, and then red-orange? I also did the inverse, and pasted your characters into the photograph so I could see what was wrong with the colours you picked. All I did was play with the levels a bit until it looked closer, so really what that meant was your colours and colour temperatures were fine on them, but the values and the saturation were a bit off. You can still treat this as a learning experience, especially if it's not going the way you want it to!