Hello,

I been really focusing on doing some cloth painting in photoshop for post work. The hardest thing for me is figuring out where the folds should be and how many or how less folds there should be.(most the time looks like I need an iron).

Anyways just finished up this little piece not exactly what I was going for but how often does that really happen. I wanted the cloth to appear my stretch and folds a bit tighter but if some one that reads this does a lot of cloth painting in post work give me an honest thoughts one my progress.

Thank you

Thats a great start buddy.....there are many ways to create a folded looking cloth in PS.  The simplest way is by using the gradient tool with a B&W gradient.  Just make an image 500 x 500pix then fill it with a colour of your choice and add your gradient.  Its then just a matter of changing the layer properties to get the look you want. Personally, I prefer to use my own technique which involves the Pen Tool.....Its a bit long winded but the results are cool.

Anyway, this is what I knocked up for you....once you have your gradient folds you can manipulate them by using the warp tool or whatever else you want to use to drape the whole thing around your model. Don't forget cloth is generally a very soft medium this must be reflected in your work to make it look realistic.

The cloth on your model has way to many pronounced folds maybe just one or two would work!

Thanks for the tips and advice I will try your technique as well. LOL told ya most the time my folds look like she needs an iron and and ironing board :).

One issue I have though with creating few folds like you suggested is the flat area with no folds how do I handle that to make it fit the image and look real not just a painted blob? The technique I been using basically I paint the shape of the cloth in a grey then use my brush tool set the brush to mutiply with a low setting for dark areas and screen same setting for the higher/highligted areas.

So If i was going to do just 1 or 2 folds on a piece of cloth does brush size matter to make the unfolded areas not look so bad? Meaning just create big folds with a big brush?

I would say that brush size and opacity is key in obtaining a degree of realism.....If you look at the back of your part of your draped image I would suggest maybe just a suggestion of a fold is needed.  Where the cloth meets her arms I would say more discreet folds would look better. It looks as though you are combining your cloth images to make a finished article.....thats fine but, you will need to make sure your folds match each other.

Try this, make your shawl and position it where you want.  Then take the BURN tool and set it to HIGHLIGHTS, drop the OPACITY of the burn tool to make softer folds and increase it to make harsher folds. Also, make sure you have your brush set at the softest point.

My image shows the type of effect you may be looking for?

Yeah pretty much that is it. But one question I guess you used the burn tool to make the darker areas did you use the dodge tool at all in that last example. Also is it wise when doing it this method to smudge the dark areas and highlighted areas to blend them a bit where they meet?

Your spot on buddy....yep, I did use the DODGE tool....just forgot to mention it,lol.
Well I guess you could try the SMUDGE method or maybe even some GAUSSIAN blur. I think its all about trial and error and of course some patience along the way...hehe.

Maybe make several pieces overall and then fit them together to achieve your goal???

Do you paint it all on the same layer? 

I personally find it a whole lot easier to paint the base color on one layer, the shadows on a second layer and the highlights on a third one.  The layer's blend mode for the shadows I set to multiply or color burn and the layer's blend mode for the highlights I set to color dodge.  It's much easier this way to adjust if you find you've made your shadows too strong or your highlights too bright.

So first I paint the base color, once it's done I select it with the magic wand, create a new layer for the shadows,  paint those in  inside the selection with a darker color, smudge if necessary and proceed the same way for the highlights only with a lighter color. 

If you find your shadows or highlights too strong, then with the eraser's opacity set to a low percentage (like 30%) and a soft brush, you can erase a bit of it which is less of a pain then trying to dodge or burn and smudge and paint all on the same layer to soften them to get it all to look right.

And try to find a reference of the draping you want to do, if you can't find one, well ask a friend to take the same pose and place a scarf on him/her the same way you would want it on your image and take a photo,  don't try to paint by memory because you're pretty sure you know what such a piece of cloth should look like, most of the time, we think we remember correctly but we don't really...  This way you will know exactly where there should be folds, where the shadows and highlights are.  References are friends!  ;)

strauss, if you've got a greyscale version of that, it might work as a displacement map in poser,
as I noticed that's a poser figure.