Ok so to anwser @Ari ’s question about how to be able to put our color pencil illustrations on a digital format so the colors don’t get dull.
I’ll try to make this simple because I have a lot to say about this :)
So there are a lot of factor, if you use a phone or a scanner and the lighting. In my case, i know my phone is not super hi-res, so for social medias it’s not that bad but I wouldn’t put that on my portfolio. On my phone I simply boost the saturation and contrast settings and it usually works fine. Sometimes it doesn’t and I feel it’s mostly a situation of bad lighting and I have to use a different lamps. The warm and cold tonals of the lamp affects the colors so boosting them with saturation sometimes looks too weird.
Otherwise, I use a scanner at 300dpi, when my image is finished and will be added to my portfolio. then i use photoshop and clean up the dust at the same time. The scanner will be more precise for rendering the colors and most of the times, I only have to remove dust without having to change the saturation or contrasts. So now comes the wierd part. Some Colors won’t « scan well » such as vivid red and blue. The reds are most of the time too saturated as the blues are too dull. I developed some habits to use more grays in my palettes and it helps a lot for the red and I would say that, overall, using more ocher colors helps to get the the contrasts at the right places. For exemple, if you want an area to be very saturated, use only one color. On the contrary on it’s surroundings mix the colors with gray and ocher colors. The color contrast will be easier to pickup by the computer or phone too.
Last thing, the paper surface and technique will also influence the digital rendering. For exemple, I often use what I call Mylar paper (a polyester film). This is a super fun medium if you can try it, but, it does funny things when scanned Especially at a low res definition. It something’s looks as if it was super pixelated but in reality it’s a matter of wax deposits… I don’t get this problem on grainy paper tho :)
What about you people? What are your tips for posting online?