Painting Fabric and Folds in Photoshop
This short video shows a simplified approach to painting fabric in Adobe Photoshop, using a blue dress as the subject. It was painted with a graphics tablet and basic Photoshop brushes. There is no voiceover; the video is meant to show the progression so you can see how the folds are built up.
What you see
The piece moves through three clear stages. First a flat blue silhouette of the dress. Then broad soft shading that marks where the body pushes the fabric out and where it falls into shadow. Finally the folds: long vertical creases down the skirt, tighter wrinkles at the waist and shoulders, and sharper highlights along the ridges of the fabric. The colour stays within one blue, with only the value changing, which is what keeps the fabric reading as a single material.
What to take from it
Fabric is mostly about value, not colour. Block the silhouette, decide the light direction, place the big shadow masses, and only then draw the fold lines, with highlights last. For a narrated walkthrough of a similar process, see the “Painting a Portrait in Adobe Photoshop” tutorial on this site.
This is a speed painting showing the steps, not a narrated tutorial.
