tonal value

[jump11]

When you have found a picture
you like from a phto and converted into grayscale
do you copy the colours on the grayscale phto
if not please explain what to do.? aso how do you make sure
the tones are right painting from your imaganation?
from paul

[Gigalot]

You can try AKVIS Coloriage plugin for Photoshop.

[Yellow Ogre]

I hope I understood your correction correctly: How do you get from a photo to a gray scale painting .

I am old-fashioned.

I have Golden neutral acrylic gray #2 to #8, #2 being very dark. Plus Black and white.

I have a grayscale template painted on the edge of a piece of stiff white cardboard with the above paints.

I hold the cardboard against the photocopy to determine the grayscale number, then use that on the painting. If its between two grays, I mix that.
Generally, I draw the outline in chalk, then rough-in the grayscale paint from darkest to lightest with a limited amount of mixing, then go back and fine tune until I get the B&W copy quality I am looking for. Then I layer the colors over this. The fancy word for this is grisaiile

It is important to get the right lightness to the photocopy - I like to err on the side of lighter.

The Golden greys will acquire a brownish tinge if too much water is used.

[Patrick1]

Originally Posted by jump11

When you have found a picture
you like from a phto and converted into grayscale
do you copy the colours on the grayscale phto
if not please explain what to do.?

I think you're asking if you do the finished painting with the same values as the reference photo that has been converted to greyscale. If you like the value structure in the ref photo, then yes you could make your values the same or very similar. Personally, though, I like to tweak values - perhaps pushing the very darkest parts of the reference to the darkest I can get with paints, lightening the lightest parts to white, expanding some values to give more structure, compressing other areas to simplify and reduce detail (like distant areas).

aso how do you make sure
the tones are right painting from your imaganation?

Painting from imagination is, IMO, more difficult, but the same color & compositional principles apply. It's good to do a rough preliminary sketch to work out color & composition. Don't be shy about making adjustments - especially in value structure...that is so important.

Observe color in the world, paint, analyse your work (what you've done well and not-well), repeat as often as possible.

[Gigalot]

Picasso redraw his paintings 50 times to achieve the desired result.. Therefore, hi was called a genius!