Aids for improving values

demotlj

One of the first and most valuable lessons I learned at SVS was the importance of values: get your values right and even if your color choices are funky, the composition might just work. I am certainly not where I want to be yet in terms of having a good value structure in my composition but I thought I would share some of the things I have learned in the past couple of years that I use to assist me in my value studies. These tips are probably old hat to many on this forum but it took me a while to discover some of these things so for beginners or amateurs like me, I thought they might save someone some learning time.

When I am working digitally, I create a layer on top of everything else, fill it with black, and set the blend mode to "Hue." When this layer is on, everything beneath it changes to monochrome. By toggling the layer on and off, I can constantly check to see if my values are working. (I learned this from Simona Ceccarelli when she was on the forum.)
I mostly work traditionally in watercolors -- no toggling layers available -- so I have a red filter from an old SLR camera that I hold up periodically over my painting to essentially do the same thing. The filter makes the painting monochrome allowing me to check my values. (I think you can do the same thing with red cellophane.)
I hold that same red filter over paint swatches as well to check their values. One of the most memorable SVS lessons I watched showed how a red swatch and green swatch became indistinguishable when changed to monochrome because their values were the same. I also learned that certain pigments have a limited value range; no matter how much pigment you add to yellow, for example, it will never be more than a medium value. The red filter helps me remember this!

Finally, my most recent extremely helpful tool is an an app called See Values which shows the value range of a photo. I use this on reference photos or I take pictures of my own work (or export it if working digitally) to check it. This app goes a step further than changing things to monochrome -- after it changes your photo to monochrome, it allows you to read the exact percentages of each value in the photo or you can convert the photo to 2, 3, or 4 values to really see a simplified value structure. This really clarifies things for me even more and helps me to get the values right.

I hope this is helpful to someone. I'm also sure I have more to learn and would love it If anyone has other tips to share.

Lisa Clark

@demotlj these are amazing tips! Thank you for taking the time to share. Something I accidentally did recently in trying to stop myself using my phone so much is making my phone monochrome. It unintentionally has forced me to take pictures focused only on value and I love it! What great daily practice! It has also definitely had an impact on how much I use my phone which I really did not think would work. I also recently watched a black and white film which @Jake-Parker has talked about on the podcast in the past. That has been illuminating as well.

demotlj

@Lisa-Clark I knew the trick about stripping the iPhone of color but never thought about it affecting the camera as well. That’s a great practice and I’m definitely going to start doing it. Thanks.

Rebecca Jensen

@demotlj A red filter for analog work! Such an awesome tip, thanks for sharing!