Is there a better technique with putting light in my sketches with photoshop?

Question

When i color my pictures, say I draw a person, I give it a grand skin color, and for shading, i pic a focal point where the light is coming from, and i put the shading on the opposite side of the body or where the dark spots should be. The way I do this is by basically putting a nice line of a darker shade of the skin color along the sides, while i then trace the edge of the person with even a darker shade.

though, when i put lighting.. i pretty much just take a white brush and sort of throw it where the light is coming from... which sometimes looks a tad alright.. though is there a better technique in doing this?

Basically, just how do I put lighting in my sketches and have it look amazing?

Answer 1

Try using the dodge tool with varying opacity.

Answer 2

You can experiment with the filter Render>Lighting effects.  This allows you to add light to particular areas to make it directional, or a spotlight. Plus, you can change how bright / dark and the intensity of the light.

Thanks for reading!

Answer 3

there are a lot techniques with photoshop but you have to play a little to discover them

I'll tell you what I use

Go to

* Filters - distort - diffuse glow and you can change the amount of glow

or

*Render - Lens flare or lighting effects

and then if you use layer go to

Layer - Layer style and choose anything you want and you can see them by clicking the tick