A critique about my color saturation changed everything

Someone in a feedback thread told me my digital paintings looked like a candy store threw up on them. I dialed my saturation back by 30% on the last piece and suddenly shadows and skin tones looked way more natural. Has anyone else had to unlearn bad habits from tutorials?

3 comments

3 Comments

morganl7114d ago

You know, I used to be all about cranking the saturation until colors popped like fireworks. Figured that's what made digital art look good. But then I tried toning it down on a portrait of my granddaughter and realized the skin tones actually looked like skin, not plastic. The grass in the background went from screaming neon to something you could almost believe was real. It took me way too long to unlearn that bad habit, but seeing the difference in shadows alone was enough to convert me.

sanchez.ivan14d ago

Makes you wonder what else we're overdoing without realizing it, right?

nathan_kim14d ago

Yeah I was the same way, oversaturating everything until I saw a muted piece and realized I was wrong.