Originally, comics were colored by cutting out films of various densities in the appropriate shapes to be used in producing color-separated printing plates.
[3] More recently, colorists have worked in transparent media such as watercolors or airbrush, which is then photographed, allowing more subtle and painterly effects.
Although other companies at the time were experimenting with computers, Oliff and his crew were the first to blend the color guide artist with the separator.
Finally, in the mid-1990s, Digital Chameleon's facility with Adobe Photoshop helped make that program the industry standard.
Before the use of computers, artists would often use the pen or brush to put in detailed shading effects; now the artist is more likely to leave the drawing open and leave it to the colorist to insert shading through variation in color tones or through adding a layer of translucent black.