Photoshop VS Sketchbook pro using Wacom

[Daniel]

well, you better try some other brushes in PS and also play with your Wacom SetUp Program to change presure sensivity. I know that it is possible to get nice brushstrokes (from one pixel up to...) with PS.

Sketchbook is a nice little tool! The bigest Con is IMHO the lack of shortcuts.
Even OpenCanvas (version 1) is good enough for simple sketches, you only hava a couple of tools there, very similiar to sketchbook.

PS is completly different, don't try to compare it witch Skecthbook, you simple can not!

You better compare PS and Painter and PaintshopPro...

I lik Sketchbook very much, but have stoped using it since there was (still is?) a bug with dual monitor systems.

Regards, Daniel

[hesido]

hi you all. I bought a wacom tablet yesterday and played with it for a while.
I have noticed something weird and don't know if you also have that annoying problem. I drew couple of strokes in Alias Sketchbook pro, it feels really good. It has clear and nice transition of strokes with opacity and pressure sensitive turned on. It's very smooth and easy to control. The main thing is it is very stable to draw. But I also tried the same thing in PS with the same settings(I tried to make the same at least, in Sketchbook it's very simple to set up, there is not so many settings and all preset.). However the strokes behave unstable and weird. The pressure sensitive seems to be numb than in Sketchbook. Why??? The end of a stroke hasn't been ended up smoothly and pointed as you can see in the images I attached. I think it has nothing to do with Wacom. PS ist just not to good for drawing I guess. Please feel free to add comments. thank you.

I can understand you so well.

Alias SketchPro is much faster in tracking your strokes, esp. if you have a lower end machine, the difference is obvious. Those little glitches seen in your photoshop tryout (there are even ones you haven't marked but are problematic) isn't your fault, it is because photoshop is not handling the tablet input as fast as it should be, at least on my machine that is the case. Here is a burn test I did for the "Photoshop cs8, the slowest photoshop ever?" thread..

http://www.hesido.com/display/cgtalk/paintburntest.png
These are ultra fast strokes and you see how Photoshop mis-interpolates my strokes (smoothing is on). Sketchbook pro not only gets the pressure right like in your example, but also the direction change is interpreted much better (better seen in my example, but there is a few places in your example with this problem, slightly less tho)

But I should remind you that turning off info and history panel increases the responsiveness of PhotoshopCS8 dramatically. (Still, SketchPro feels like you are really drawing sth on a piece of paper.) I believe Adobe, being number one, and still they are, have been a bit lazy doing optimizing for painting, but they concentrated much on Photography manipulation tools after version 7 (The paint engine update in Photoshop7 was a much needed and a nice one, but since then, they have not added new things, let alone making it faster)

[ranbby]

Thank you all for informing.
hesido: you are fabulous in helping me! thanks for such a nice contribution. I finally found somebody that understands me:) Yes I can see really well in your examples with the problem of PS strokes. PS definetly needs to improve their responsiviness of tablet input device since they have been the number one. There are so many painters drawing in ps and probably have the same problem like we do. It is just not something that Adobe can neglict! My conclusion is my wacom and pc and everything are alright except for PScs2 itself!
Do you know if you can set up wacom tablet property in ps? I haven't found nothing. Maybe there's no such thing in ps. I think I may go to Painter instead of freehand-drawing in ps.

[frog]

What you've noticed (and Hesido too) is that Photoshop is only so-so for tablet drawing. I'm really not sure why that is but I noticed it long ago. Sketchbook and Painter are much better where line quality is important, although Photoshop is still good for sketching and painting I would never use it when I need nice clean lines.

I wrote a comparison of the three packages you might find interesting:

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/lines.htm

[hesido]

frog: Excellent article! Tho, you can omit the "I am not sure why" part, because it is all about the sampling rate (worse for slower machines) and interpolation routines that is letting it down. But maybe a programmer from photoshop would better tell..

rannby: I don't know how to fix it, but frog's article says it all :)

[Daniel]

sorry I can't admit that PS is slower than other tools (painter, sketchbook).
But i also have to say that i never do such long penstrokes (like shown on the examples above). Even if there is a litle lag inside ps, you wonn't notice if you sketch. Sure, it's important if you wanna ink, but you also could use the path tool for inking. Don't you ink slow and not fast like shown in the test above? So there should no problem at all.

just my two cents.

[hesido]

sorry I can't admit that PS is slower than other tools (painter, sketchbook).
But i also have to say that i never do such long penstrokes (like shown on the examples above). Even if there is a litle lag inside ps, you wonn't notice if you sketch. Sure, it's important if you wanna ink, but you also could use the path tool for inking. Don't you ink slow and not fast like shown in the test above? So there should no problem at all.

just my two cents.

Of course this doesn't mean people can't do masterpieces with photoshop, but it is just that those other apps feel much more natural, especially sketchbook pro.

[xeNusion]

well i tried to reproduce your "problem" with ps7 and all what i can say is that it works fine here (even on a 4000x3000 canvas).

[Lick]

I notice when I turn on the rulers. The 'pick-up rate' gets very jumpy and sometimes lags for a second.

[ranbby]

frog: thanks alot for that article that definetly explaines everything.

xeNusion: are you sure??? try to do some fast strokes , you will notice some weird penstrokes.

overall I like Sketchbook best if I wanna draw something with clean lines only with pen or pencil that gives you a really good and realistic strokes. PS is not that comfortable but I'll use it to achieve some nice pics :) Yes, you're right Daniel, I don't need to draw so fast and so long lines. I am just curious and found this issue to share.

something I think in opposite way like you all think. PScs2 is TOO fast for causing those troubles, by using I noticed that the cursor moves noticeably quicker than in Painter or Sketchbook, so that the strokes react too quickly. I'm not sure if I'm right in this way of thinking:)

[YourDaftPunk]

Deep Paint 2.0 is free right now http://www.download.com/Deep-Paint/3000-2191_4-10398243.html?tag=lst-0-1

Its brush engine doesn't seem to exhibit the artifacts that Photoshop does. Has anyone used it outside 3D work for sketching?

[Lick]

something I think in opposite way like you all think. PScs2 is TOO fast for causing those troubles, by using I noticed that the cursor moves noticeably quicker than in Painter or Sketchbook, so that the strokes react too quickly. I'm not sure if I'm right in this way of thinking:)

Hmm.. From the above examples, I'd say it's because Sketchbook doesn't 100% directly handle the input, but kinda 'vectorize' it with points. Where Photoshop actually takes every point as it is. ;)

[Saven]

I have noticed same problem with PS. :cry:
ScetchBook is very simple, but it produces smooth and accurate brush strokes with nice pen pressure control.:arteest:
Also I have tried to compare PS and Painter. And what I like in Painter is smooooooth brush strokes (same as SB do). Quick lines done in PS looks broken.:cry::cry::cry:

[hesido]

Hmm.. From the above examples, I'd say it's because Sketchbook doesn't 100% directly handle the input, but kinda 'vectorize' it with points. Where Photoshop actually takes every point as it is. ;)

I don't know where you get that idea from, but you are wrong.

Do you mean I am somehow "able" to 90 degree changes and add a curve to the end of the straight lines? That is an impossibility when doing fast strokes. Photoshop DOES interpolate strokes much like everybody else out there, and it does a bad job at that (try turning "smooth" off and see what I mean).

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