Photoshop: dark grey + dark grey = light grey?

Rabbid_Cheeze

I'm doing some simple shading tests in Photoshop and am noticing a problem. If I lay down a dark color (close to, but not completley black) and mix it with white strokes, then alt+eyedrop to get the mid-shade, when I paint using it the color that comes out will always appear lighter then the mid-shade I used the eye dropper to get. So strokes will only make things lighter, never darker, unless I'm using solid black as my paint color.

I'm not very familiar with Photoshop yet, so maybe this is just a setting I'm missing? Or maybe I'm just failing at the fundamentals :poly124:

Michael Knubben

Hmm, can't say I ever came across that problem. So did you take a screenshot and compare the eyedropped colour and what you're painting? Otherwise it could simply be that your eye is being tricked by the surrounding colours.

CheeseOnToast

Make sure your eyedropper is set to sample only one pixel. I can be set to take an average sample from a 9x9 area, for example.

Rabbid_Cheeze

I just figured out what the problem was. It seems the eyedropper picks up the visible colors instead of the colors on the selected layer, which is useful in most cases but not in this one...So can the eye dropper be set to only pick up the colors from the selected layer, or perhaps their is an Isolate Layer function?

CheeseOnToast

Short answer : yes.

Slightly longer answer : Select the eyedropper tool, then make sure that the two drop-down menus are set to "point sample" and "current layer".

Rabbid_Cheeze

Well I have it set to Point Sample, but I don't see a second drop down menu or anything that says "current layer". Is that a cs4 feature maybe, as I'm on cs3? Suppose I should have mentioned that before...

CheeseOnToast

I'm on CS4 here, so I can't help you with that I'm afraid. Might be worth checking preferences just in case there's a hidden option somewhere.

Michael Knubben

No, I think the layer-specific options to a lot of tools were added in cs4, I'm afraid.

Ghostscape

if you ctrl-alt click on the layer visibility icon it will hide all layers but that one. If you do it again it will restore your previous layer visibility. Just don't start fucking with other layers or it loses your layer visibility.

Michael Knubben

Ghostscape: Yeah, I tend to fuck that up every now and again, and then you'd better hope you remember which layers were originally hidden!

Rabbid_Cheeze

Thanks Ghostscape. Now just need to figure out hot to set it to a hotkey.

pior

Pea : easy answer to hat, never hide layers!! Use opacity = 0 instead. Also it helps in the case of someone else ever opening your file. Imagine the scenario when the person opens your psd, wants to check how you did something ... hides all the layers except one in particular ... then puts EVERYTHING back to visible, and somehow saves your file. Youre screwed

Michael Knubben

Pior: ... but why the hell would they do that? Also, setting layers to 0% is fine and all that, but you can't tell at a glance which ones are turned off. I just colour every layer I turn off but might want to user later on red (right-click on the eye, choose your colour)

Workflow win!
France loses!

edit: also, 'somehow' checks out my file, saves it, checks it back in AND deletes history?

France MINUS TOO POINTS

pior

Who needs unused layers anyways. Just delete that emo layer group if you dont use it!
MOUHAHAHAHAHAHAH

CheeseOnToast

Or be an anal mofo like me, and name EVERY layer with something meaningful.

edit : and I dont mean things like "what is beauty", or stuff like that.

Michael Knubben

Beauty is named layers.

Ghostscape

named layers are weak.

named, hyper-complex layer sets are awesome. Diffuse->Metal->Rust->Scratch->patina->Base. Masks on every one. This way I can adjust anything and copy/paste layers as needed. Plus it means each layer inside each set is usually fairly self evident