1. Overlay/greyscale->color method

This method is good for artists that draws in more semi realistic or realistic art styles.

Overlay is a tool that sort of "washes" the greyscale with the color layer or the color you choose. It adds color to the greyscale while maintaining the shading and dept.

You can find this tool like here:

Like said above, the overlay function "overlays" the color on top of the grey scale, keeping the shading and dept like this:

So if you were to start from this:

You can use the overlay layer to add color like this:

Benefits of overlay:

1. It makes the shading of the painting/portrait more accurate as you can clearly see the dept of the shading and how deep each section should be.

2. You dont need to think about what color to choose for each shading section because that is already on in the base layer or the greyscale painting.

Tips for using overlay:

1. Choose a darker shade then usual as the color doesnt show up the same on the overlay layer. Try with multiple colors to see which is best.

2. Always mark the colors you're using in a normal layer so you can get it again if you lose it.( this is because the colors don't show up the same in the overlay layer.

2. Paint bucket/ fill

This tool is useful for any type of art style.

 

What the paint bucket tool does is to fill in large and small spaces for the base layer of the art. For ex:

Line work:

you can find it here:

paint bucket/fill:

Tips for using paint bucket:

make sure each line is connected to each other, as the tool wont worl if the lines arn't connected.

3. Tonal correction

The tonal correction tools that includes:

Brightness& contrast

Hue, saturation, luminosity

Level correction

tone curve

color balance

gradiant map

All of these functions help to edit already laid out colors to better fit the drawing's mood. We were talk more in dept about these functions now.

3.1. Brightness & contrast

Contrast is REALLY useful when coloring with the overlay function. When drawing with grey scale and converting it to color using the overlay function, you can find that the usually okay shading color might be too light.

Contrast is very useful for situations like this. The contrast makes the whiter parts of the painting whiter and dark parts darker like this:

 

Brightness is similar to contrast, but you can brighten a piece of art without changing the contrast or dulling it

Tips for using these tools:

Brightness and contrast is best when used together; when making the contrast higher, turn the brightness lower, as if the contrast alone is too high, some parts of the drawing might not show up

3.2. Hue, saturation, luminosity

Hue, saturation, and luminosity is one of the most useful tool when coloring things digitally.

Hue changes the color scheme the painting is in, so if you want to quickly change something that you colored, its really easy to do!

The hue function changes the color scheme of the whole art piece or certain parts of it. This is great if you've already colored the hair or eyes or any part of you art and wish to change it.

Saturation is really good if you think that your painting is too dull or bland, which makes it really good for illustration drawings.

You can also play around with the other many functions that clip studio paint has to offer which can be found here:

4. Tone curve/editing colors

I put tone curve in a different section as I think that it is one of the most important tools when coloring and editing colors.

Tone curve has all the functions in the tonal correction area, which mean you can edit brightness, contrast, saturation, and bits of hue and A LOT of other stuff.

The most basic way to use it is to edit basic saturation and contrast and such. The easy way to see the graph is like this:

This is the most easy way of seeing the tone curve.

But there are way mreo that the tone curve function can do ohter this like:

You can also use it to give really cool colors to clothing or other cool objects!

This can be achieved by making the painting's color opposite or negative value/ color which you can do by doing this:

Also, you can change the tone of the drawing with this funtion as well but using this "button":

This function adds the tone of whatever you choose, red, green, or blue. This is espcacially helpful for coloring or editing the tone of skin, as you have to make sure its balance. This function is espacially useful and good as you can edit each graph of each color all at once for ex:

All in all I think the tone curve function is one of the most important and useful funtion when coloring.

4. Adding highlights/color dodge

The color dodge function is really useful for adding highlight, thus giving more detail to your drawing. It's like adding a splash of the summer sun on your painting.

It can be found here:

To use this function, simply use a light yellow or any color that you want(has to be a light or pastel version of that color) and add highlights to the part you want like this:

5. Conclusion

I think that these functions are really useful and fun for color so go apply them to your drawings now!