Female Goldfinch in PSP7 or 8

I'm hoping to see some migrating or wintering American goldfinches at my feeder this year. This tutorial shows off their spring and summer breeding plumage. You will use my swatch file and the eye dropper tool on each layer of my canvas file to fill the alpha selections.

Sources

You will need my supplies folder, which includes a sample of colors I used, and the canvas itself. When you open the canvas, immediately do a "Save As" and rename the canvas to work on a copy just in case a disaster happens to the original. Supplies are available here. For PSP7 users: lighten/Darken options are under the retouch tool which looks like a hand. The smudge tool is also an option of the Retouch tool.

Why you won't see any specific lighten/darken settings.

The more you repeatedly go over an area with either brush, the darker it gets with darkening and lighter it gets with lightening. If we pretend I give you the exact settings I used, you still won't get the exact same results I got *that* particular time. I get very different results with the same settings on the same day. I suspect those of you uncomfortable with this tool and other similar tools do not trust your own eyes. You will need to trust your own artistic judgement. Once I learned to do that myself, my own retouch tool group work improved to my own eyes. I will give you rough settings: hardness and density less than 50.

You will need to open the canvas file and the color swatch file in whichever version of PSP you will be using.

Selections->load from alpha channel the 01 legs darkest yellow. Set foreground color to the darkest yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges for the legs and beak. Darken a line to make the beak opening. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the legs and the top of the beak. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 02 lower body middle yellow. Set oreground color to the middle yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the election. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 03 thigh middle yellow. Set foreground color to the middle yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 04 under tail white. Set foreground color to white and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 05 tail black. Set foreground color to the black and flood the selection. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 06 uptail darkest yellow. Set foreground color to the darkest yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 07 rump black. Set foreground color to black and flood the selection. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection, if you wish. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 08 back middle yellow. Set foreground color to the middle yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 09 wing1 black. Set foreground color to black and flood the selection. Using the lighten tool, lighten the various black wing areas. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 10 wing2 darkest yellow. Set foreground color to the darkest yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 11 wing3 lightest yellow. Set foreground color to the lightest yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 12 upper body middle yellow. Set foreground color to the middle yellow color and flood the selection. Using the darken tool, darken the outer edges. Using the lighten tool, lighten the middle of the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 13 markings black. Set foreground color to the black and flood the selection. Selections->select none.
Selections->load from alpha channel the 14 markings white. Set foreground color to white and flood the selection. Selections->select none.
Soften, smudge or otherwise make any blending corrections now.
Don't forget to click on the eye layer and reveal the layer.
Merge visible your layers.
Please be considerate and do not send images over 50K to the group! We all thank you.

PSP7 tool icons are from MaMaT's icon tubes.

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