CGTalk - Smooth strokes?

Datameister

12-05-2006, 05:14 AM

Hey there. I'm having real trouble achieving smooth gradations in Painter IX using the digital airbrush variant. I end up with blotchy strokes, and no amount of brush tweaking or technique experimentation has been able to change that. I'm spoiled by Photoshop's soft round brush, which I rarely use, by the way--but it's good for smooth blends. The digital airbrush in Painter IX just seems to invariably produce streaky, blotchy results that require blending after the fact. (I have the exact same problem with the Glow FX variant, btw.)

As far as I can tell, the reason the strokes are so much blotchier in Painter than in Photoshop is the fact that opacity is calculated for each individual dab, not for the entire stroke continuously. (If I'm not mistaken, what Painter calls "Opacity" is what Photoshop calls "Flow.") But I don't know how to fix this.

Anyway, any words of advice about achieving smoother masses of tone would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Tirjasdyn

12-05-2006, 10:47 PM

This might be silly question...but what are you using to paint? A mouse? A tabelt?

And if a tablet...what kind?

I ask because I down graded to a graphire a bit ago and got those results your asking about...drove me nuts and no amount of brush adjusting fixed it. Then I just got an intous3 for the b-day and it was like magic with smooth strokes.

I could be wrong, but I thought I'd mention it.

Datameister

12-06-2006, 01:39 AM

I'm using an Intuos3 4x5 that operates flawlessly, as far as I can tell.

The problem seems to be with the program itself--IMO, it should always be possible to adjust the opacity continuously, rather than dab-by-dab. Photoshop doesn't have a problem with it...you'd think that Painter, which exists solely for the creation of digital art, would be able to as well.

I've attached two examples of this problem. Photoshop is on the left; Painter is on the right. I don't see how the stuff on the right could be more useful than the stuff on the left. Notice the ugly banding that occurs in the Painter strokes; this can be somewhat resolved by lowering the spacing, but then it's impossible to reduce the opacity by pressing more lightly. Different dabs all have the same problem.

Has anyone found a fix for this? It's rather annoying, and I'd rather not switch programs in the middle of a painting.

RetroTorque

12-06-2006, 07:03 AM

In painter 9 the digital airbrush tool got a little wonky. It works okay on the canvas, but on layers it gets that banding. They did release a fix in version 9.1 and 9.5, but it still isn't perfect.

But even in older versions painter's digital airbrush tool never really compared to photoshop's. So if you really want a super smooth airbrush tool, you'll still have to use photoshop.

Painter does have a great set of blending tools, so if you don't want to switch programs in the middle of a painting, check them out. I use the grainy water, just add water, and grainy artist oil blender all the time and can get any blend I want with them, from super smooth to sharp to a dry brush look.

Terro

12-06-2006, 08:12 PM

I get the sma eproblem using 9.5 but I get a grainy airbrush. As adviced by the other repies, I now just bled my airbrushes to achieve the desired look. It's a little hassle but painter has so many up sides that I can deal with this one down side.

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