One of the tricks to digital painting is that illusive “illusion of depth” that you get from physical media. I’m not talking “visual depth”, but actual depth when paint is on a canvas, particularly oil paint. Why this is so difficult is the simple nature of digital medium, since it is simply pixels on a screen. So, no matter how many layers of pixels you have on an image, it still has the same “depth” to it, physically. But what if you could give it the “illusion of depth” that you get with a nice, thick, layered on paint oil painting? There is a way—the following attempts to teach you this trick:

First thing you need to know is that this is a process, rather than some simple settings. We will be first establishing a “style” for a layer, and then we will be, using an action assignment, collapsing the layer each time we want to “layer” on a new level of paint.

In order to create our “depth” desired, we will be using a combination of “bevel and emboss” and a drop shadow. This is how we make our brush strokes appear to be physically raised from the canvas, according to the amount of paint applied. You could, in fact, create more than one layer “style” to emulate various levels of paint application&dmash;from thick to thin.

So let’s get to it:

Step 1: Create your style

The “style” is applied to the layer. So first, let’s set up our canvas properly. Create a new document. Decide on your canvas size and resolution; it’s up to you. Now, make sure your first layer is called “background”. This layer needs to be locked, so that you have a base to work from. You can tell, when it has a “padlock” icon next to the name, like fig. 1-1.

If it doesn’t, you can still lock it yourself. Locate the list of menu icons in the layers palette that looks like this:
. . . and click on the “padlock” icon. Now, it’s ready.

Next, create a new layer (found at the bottom of the “Layers” palette). Click it to make a new layer. Now, to the right of the layer’s name, double-click in order to pull up the “Layer Style” (below) menu box. Here’s where we will establish our brushstroke’s style to make the effect of “paint thickness”.

On the left, you see various attributes which you can give a layer. We are going to use the “bevel and emboss” and the “drop shadow” attributes to create our “thick paint” effect. One thing to note on these, is that clicking the “checkbox” will activate the attribute, but in order to modify an attribute’s values, you have to select the name, so that it is highlighted, in order to make changes.

So let’s do that . . .

First, highlight “bevel and emboss”. Highlighting it will simultaneously both select it’s checkbox and pull up the information for that attribute.

Note: you can play with these values to get the desired effect; the settings that I am about to set forward are just an example.

Set the “style” to “inner bevel”
Set the technique to “smooth”
Set the depth to around “51%”
Set the direction to “up”
Set the size to “1″
In the “Shading” section, the angle us up to you. Mine, just so happened to be set at 120, with an altitude of 30.
All the other settings can be left on the defaults. You can refer to my above screenshot, if you like.

Now, do the same for the “drop shadow” attribute, following the settings in the following screenshot:

Finally, it’s time to assign our “style”. To do this, click the “New Style” button in the “Layer Style” menu box. This will pull up a dialogue box, asking you to give it a name. Name it something that you will recognize later, and click “OK” to save. Your style is ready to use in the next step.

Step 2: Create an Action

Creating an action is essentially creating a “macro”. If you don’t know what a macro is, it is a series of events combined into one action or “event”. Put simply, we will do a series of actions and record them, to be played in combination later, rather than going back through each event when we want to repeat the effect.

Start by pulling up the “actions” window. This can be found under the menu “Window” > “Actions”. Once this palette is visible, go back and make sure that your “Layers” palette has: 1) A background layer, 2) A new emtpy layer above that, and 3) The layer with our “style” above that. Refer to the image below:

Time to create our action: In the “Actions” palette, look for the icon in the top right corner. When the dropdown menu appears, select the second option, “new action”. This will then pull up a menu that will allow you to name your action. Again, give it a name that you will recognize, and also assign a function key to this action, from the “Function key” dropdown. I, personally assign “F1″. Then click “Record”. Once you hit record, any action that you take is recorded, so make sure that you don’t do this until you’re sure that you’re ready. Below lists the actions that you will take:

1. Make sure that the “styled” layer is selected and then “Merge Layer” (apple + e, on the mac)
2. Create a new layer to replace the old one
3. Add the layer style you created in step one, to this new layer. To do this, make sure that the layer is selected. Double-click next to the name of the layer to pull up the “Layer Style” menu again. Highlight the very first attribute, “Styles”. Now find your style and click it. Now close the “Layer Style” menu, by clicking “OK”.
4. In the “Actions” palette, click the little square in the bottom to stop recording your action

So what did we just do? Well, we created an action that would apply a new level of paint each time we hit the “F1″ key, or whatever function key you assigned to the action. Time to paint.

Step 3: Our “Action” in action

Select the brush tool. Give your brush whatever settings you like and begin painting away. The first thing that you will notice, is that your brush stroke now looks “raised”. This is what our layer “style” did. Second, you will notice that each brush stroke blends in to the other, without any added level of “depth”. To create another “level” of depth, hit your assigned function key (Example: F1) every now and then to create a new “layer” of depth. As you continue to repeat this process as you go along, your painting will begin to look like it has physical “height” or “depth” to it, rather than the typical “flat” look of a normal digital painting.

Paint on my little Van Gogh, paint on!

Hope this was helpful ; )