Hello, and welcome back. This is learn to color comp books one on one recommended materials. The first thing you're going to need, obviously, is a computer. And I just jotted down some of the typical recommendations that you would need in order to be able to use Photoshop. Basically, you would want like a two gigahertz or faster processor with 64 bit support, which I think most modern computers have already. And I think pretty much all Macs do.
I don't know about PCs. You know, you want a relatively recent operating system. You want to make sure though, if you're going to be purchasing software that it works with the operating system you have you're going to want no less than two gigabytes of RAM. I've read that eight gigabytes is optimal for Photoshop. If you have more, I think you're fine. Then.
And you also want, this is mostly for installation, but you're going to want at least 3.2 gigabytes of available hard disk space. And of course, that's going to depend again on what your version of Photoshop you're using. But I'm going to show you what I'm currently using it and I'm actually using well you can tell I'm using a Mac, I'm actually using a MacBook Pro. Se and you see I have a 2.9 gigahertz internal Core i seven processor. I have eight gigabytes of memory I'm using this is Mavericks os 10 point 9.5. c. Yeah, that's, that's basically what I'm using so you can see comparison. You don't really need anything fancy unless you want to.
I mean, if you want to get really serious about it, you can get you know An awesome machine. But, you know, I wouldn't try and break the bank at, you know, at this point, especially if you're just giving this coloring thing a try. All right, again software I said, really, all I'm gonna be using is Photoshop as the primary thing I use to color comic books. There's a various, you could use various versions. Again, make sure though, if you're going to purchase a version of Photoshop, if you don't already have it, make sure that what you get works with what operating system you have. I know some versions like earlier versions of Photoshop don't work with like more recent Mac operating systems.
So you definitely want to make sure you check that out before you buy something. I'm using Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 2014 as I'm recording these and I just wanted to show you These are relative because this, this one goes on a subscription basis. So it's a little bit more affordable, especially if you just want to give it a try, because this is the plan I'm under right here, which gets you the latest version of Photoshop. And that's just 999 a month. You know, pretty affordable. Especially, like I said, if you're just giving this a try, then you could subscribe and try it for a few months.
And if you decide like, Oh, this isn't for me, I'm not going to be using Photoshop anymore because I'm no longer interested in trying to color or whatever, I hope you keep going. But you know, if you decide it's not for you, then you can get a try for a few months. And you know, say you try for three months and then decides not for you. You can unsubscribe and you've only spent, you know, a little under $30. So yeah, so if you don't already have Photoshop Creative Cloud might be something to investigate and one of the also Requirements if you're going to use credit cloud and I think some of the later versions of Creative Suite as you would need internet in order to activate it. Okay, again, a display.
That's another thing you're gonna need is something to look at. You know, of course, like I said, I'm using a MacBook, even though I for this current MacBook, I'm using an external display, which I'll get into in a little bit. But I used to use the first MacBook I actually use for working was an old 2008 MacBook 15 inch Pro, and I just use the built in display for that one. I was able to calibrate it. But the thing, the thing, the only thing I really want to emphasize for when you get display for me, you know the people are more picky, but for me, just make sure it's comfortable. Because you're going to be staring at it for hours at a time.
So you want to make sure It's comfortable, because something I discovered once I, you know, once my last CRT monitor, you know, the big bulky ones was my last CRT monitor died. And then I started getting more modern displays is that I've discovered that I'm photo sensitive, and there are certain displays that are just so bright that working on an image for a few minutes will make me nauseous and I'll be nauseous for the rest of the day. And I need a display that I can set at a brightness low enough where it doesn't make me nauseous. I remember one of the first, you know, modern displays I tried to get because I knew some of the colors that used them was an apple cinema display. But that one is just so bright. It made me nauseous.
I couldn't, I couldn't adjust it to a point where it was comfortable on my eyes, and I had to send it back. So you know, it's difficult to determine which displays are Going to be comfortable for you without trying them. But, you know, try to do a little bit of research and you know, find out what you can adjust properly. And yeah, like right here I said, one that can be easily calibrated for both accuracy and comfort because you do want to have a relatively accurate colors to calibrate for your display, which I'll get into in a little bit. Alright, so the next thing you would need is basically digital drawing tools. And you can use a mouse, I don't recommend it.
I will say when I first started coloring professionally, I did actually use a mouse. I don't know how I did it. I think you probably could get away with it on this course with just doing a simple cut and grad technique. But the problem with a mouse though, is You won't be able to take advantage of the pressure sensitive tools in Photoshop so that's why I you know recommend getting some sort of Wakeham tablet if you don't have it Wakeham Huawei calm I've heard it pronounced both ways. I'm not sure which one's official but might be way calm. It sounds better but yeah, so I'm gonna go back to the internet here and show you a wacky way comm store.
Here's a few different tablets that are available and you can see their various prices. I've heard people using the bamboo one just to start off with something affordable as you can see, it's $40 looking at it, I'm not sure how well that would work. Then there's the Intuos pen, pen and touch. I would just go with the pen because I don't know if you really need the the Touch Tools. The touch I think is making And more like, like a phone or something where you can put your fingers on it zoom in and stuff might be handy but I don't know if it's really necessary for the price. This one actually looks like it's still $80 hold on pen and touch.
Okay, pen touches $200. So yeah, for the for the touch you get, you have to pay quite a bit more as the medium though, let's put the small, small as 100 Yeah, this is probably this is probably more the equivalent of actually my first tablet which was just a small little thing. No real flares but you know that this might be a good one to start with. But like I said, I probably would just get the one with the pen. I don't know how I'd mess with the touch if you know unless you want it. Next would be I was the Intuos Pro Different sizes here.
Nice thing with this one is it's got the hotkeys and the sliders, which are you know, once you start using those, you'll know you won't want to use anything else. So that's the next step up. The one I'm actually using is a Cintiq though is one they don't make anymore. It's a Cintiq 12 w x it looks like the closest to that is the 13. HD. Yeah, pen only that's $800.
This one's nice because this takes place or this takes care of both your digital drawing tools and your display because they're all in one. Which is nice and you can if you want to splurge more money, you can get a larger one. They have a 22 HD as a currency that's getting price here. But again, these hotkeys aren't the And yeah then well, that's the 22 HD. There you go then they have the this looks like the largest one they have available. The 27 q HD looks fancy, pretty large and almost being so one of those but again, I'm just worried that with the size, I don't know how comfortable it is, would be to look at.
I like to try one out before I got one but again, that's something you can try if you really are feeling spicy, and want to spend the money on that but, but like I said, there's a lot of different options, a lot of different price ranges, whatever you're most comfortable with. Back to this, okay, then, some optional things only needs like You might want a scanner. If you actually want to scan artwork you have your own. I'm not really going to be getting into scanning on this course. But that's just something. If you do your own artwork and you want to color it, a scanner probably would be a useful thing to have.
Nothing I was mentioning, calibrating your display. Now, you can basically on Mac here, go to your settings, go to displays color, and see there's a calibrate button and that you can do that. I'm not going to go through it right now because I don't want to mess with my settings. But you go through that and basically eyeball it, it gives you a bunch of visual test to calibrate it, and you can get a pretty good approximation that way. If you want to get more accurate, you can get a monitor calibration device, which I actually have one of those. So like I said when I calibrate a display, to get it to where it's accurate Since uh you know I am photosensitive I need to actually reduce the brightness a bit even from that but I it gives me an enclosed ballpark and then I just add more to where it's comfortable for me.
And you know the colors still print well printout I expect so like I said it's not completely important to get to calibrate your monitor or your or your display. You don't have to get too strict with it but if you want to get something more you can get a spider I actually have a spider three elite This is the next generation I believe a spider five is about to come out. And there's several different packages you can get this their official site at spider dot data color.com didn't look like they actually had prices but I looked on Amazon and you can see a spider four Pro is 116 A spider for elite is like 250. Or it looks like the cheapest one is the spider for Express, which is 100. And basically, you can see what it looks like this little device. It basically works with software that it comes with and it hangs on the top of your monitor.
And as a sensor and your you know, the software will go through all these stages. And it and you basically you adjust your monitor and it's sent and it will sense when it's in within the correct parameters of being accurate. And once you're done, you have a pretty accurate calibration so you know that the colors you're seeing on screen will be close to what they would be in print. Alright, and then come back to that. All right, my what my last optional thing you could is a smudge guard. Again, not not required, but this is a nice little thing.
I use it every day. But this is their official website, smudge guard calm. And also if you you know if you draw traditionally to this might be something here because as you can see, you know it is to get pencil smudges on there. Basically it's this little glove that protects the side of your hand and weren't working with a tablet. I don't know about you, especially during the summer. My hands, especially when I'm working do my hands have a tendency to get slightly clamming and of course and that causes extra frictionless sliding across the cross your tablet.
And it gets in the way so this just makes it so you can smoothly slide across your tablet and actually see the show guy using a Wacom Cintiq and it just yeah, it just makes it easier to work. So that's That's all the things that you'll need the basic things you'll need to get to the course and also a few things you might want to consider. And so, after that, we actually start getting into using Photoshop. I'll see you next time.