So, a lot of people use the smudge tool to blend things. The main issue with using this tool for blending, is that you tend to lose sharp edges as well as a wide range of values.
Here are some general Smudge Tool Tips:
1) Don’t use the smudge tool for large areas! This will only make everything mushy.
Instead, use large soft brushes at low opacity to build up dark areas or draw in dark “shapes” for shadows and use the Gaussian Blur filter to soften them.
2) Never ever ever use the smudge tool on full strength. This actually works more like the “liquify” filter, and can really mess up your drawing while making everything a big mushy mess.
You can however, use this to your advantage if you want, as I show in one of the steps below.
3) Always make sure you are leaving some edges crisp while smudging
4) Draw back in darker areas and highlight areas to keep a broad range of values
Here’s a little walkthrough using the smudge tool:
- Starting Image : I created this by using the marque tool to draw a circle selection, creating a new layer, filling the circle with a color. I locked the transparency of that layer and used large soft brushes on low opacity to build up the dark areas. I could make a mini tutorial on this step all by itself.
- 1) Draw dark line for crease on new layer. Hard brush, pen pressure set to size
- 2) Using a soft brush, carfully smudge either side of the line selectively leaving some areas more smudged than others
- 3) Select your darkest shadow color. With a sharp brush set to size, draw back in the dark areas. Carefully smudge in the ends of the stroke to blend. Carefully blend in other areas that are drawing attention to themselves. DO NOT over smudge or you’ll have to repeat this step.
- 4) Select your highlight color. With a soft brush with a low opacity and flow, softly brush in the highlights around the edges
- 5) Using a hard smudge tool set at around 80-90%, pinch in edges around the crease selectively to make a “pucker” effect. This of course is totally optional!
- 6) Select a bright highlight color With a hard brush set to size, trace in edges seletively to pop them out
- 7) Using a soft brush with medium strength (50-60%), carefully smudge only the outer edges of the highlights, keeping the inner edges crisp
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With the darkest shadow color in your palette, go back one more time in some of the dark areas. At this point you should have an idea of which areas require the darkest darks, which parts of the crease are the deepest etc. Resist the urge to smudge these! Leave them alone! It’s hard to see in this image, but I added a label where I added this additional color.
The end!