That one critique about my color palette made me redo everything

Last month someone on a forum pointed out all my shadows were just black with lowered opacity, and I didn't even realize I was doing it. I spent 3 days learning to use complementary colors for shadows instead and suddenly my portraits had way more depth. Has anyone else had a single piece of feedback that forced them to completely rework their workflow?

2 comments

2 Comments

daniel_walker28d ago

Nah I dunno, I feel like people make this out to be some huge revelation but it's not always that deep. Like yeah sure using black shadows can be lazy but sometimes it works fine depending on your style or the lighting. I've done both and honestly half the time I can't even tell the difference when I look at it a day later. Plus not everyone has the time to spend 3 days reworking their whole process over one forum comment. If your portraits looked flat it might have been something else entirely like your values being off or bad reference photos.

wilson.sam28d ago

Wait, "black with lowered opacity"? That's literally what I've been doing for years. I never even thought about using colors for shadows. So you just pick a darker version of the main color instead of black? That actually makes so much sense. I'm tempted to try this tonight and see if it fixes my flat looking faces.