Losing my mind (Re: Opacity)

#37

I think Baron can tell you how frustrated I am when I’m at the Painter Factory forums awaiting a response from Corel. It’s like you’re told to go there as a customer, receive no service and people who don’t understand the issue and its seriousness if you got a deadline to make.

I think the whole idea of redirecting customers to an independent forum for support on their own product is a joke in itself… it’s laughable, Corel’s business tactics and customer support, or there lack of, is severely outdated and primitive, especially when a vast majority of users have the internet, making customer support easier than ever, yet they seem to fail so badly at it.

I’m also really disappointed with the treatment of Corel Sketchpad. Not only is it expensive, but if you got it as part of the package with the intuos4 and tried the download previously, there still isn’t a working solution (for windows users, you can’t instal the program because it’s detecting the trial install). Wacom and Corel are both pointing fingers at each other, and the customer is left in the middle.

Sketchpad is a joke, Corel have just tried to cash in on an increasingly popular sketching software trend (if you will) with the likes of Sketchbook Pro and Art Rage increasing in popularity.

In comparison with the aforementioned packages, Sketchpad is slow, heavy and for a ‘hey get your ideas out quick!’ idealogy completely unusable because it is so laggy. Although, the GUI is quite attractive, shame P11 didn’t have such an attractive one, could have balanced out with the shit they did wrong.

But yeah, Sketchpad just doesn’t offer the same streamlined and simplistic approach to sketching while programs like Art Rage and Sketchbook Pro do.

#38

You mostly hide it pretty well by my standards :wink: but yeah, I see it and share it.

It’s a liberty to fail to offer a key service and shunt support responsibility onto the very users who are experiencing the problems. There’s a thread going on at Painter Factory (as most will know) where people are spending literally days of their time trying to figure out a major bug that stops Painter from loading. And Corel’s input? Nothing whatsoever. And that’s one thread from many.

Corel either don’t realise or don’t care what’s happening to their user-base. I doubt there was anyone as pro-Painter as I was but the fiasco with P11 made me realise that Painter as a product was not bullet-proof and that relying on it - especially for a career - was no longer viable.

This was quite scary because at the time I didn’t know of anything that could replace Painter. Of course, now I do, but I know some people still need Painter and it’s sad to see them receiving no support from Corel. I think the situation is so grave that if Corel release P12 to the same shoddy standards as P11 then that will be the end of Painter. And if the bugs aren’t sorted in 11 then 12 will need to be a rewrite.

When I type something like that I’m always tempted to list the bugs and enhancements that Corel need to address in order to sort this out, otherwise it appears I’m just finding fault without making suggestions. Then I remind myself, what’s the point? I’ve posted them for years and not one has been implemented or specifically acknowledged.

#39

I don’t mind them using the forum for support, but if you’re going to direct us to it. USE IT. Don’t tell us it’s the best place for support and feedback and let tumbleweeds ravage the posts.

Baron, indeed, like I said if it weren’t for that ImagineFX dvd tutorial and even your posts in CA’s Painter 11 thread, I wouldn’t have thought much of Art rage as it seemed too limited at first. Sai Paint is part of my arsenal still giving Manga Studio a few attempts here and there, and Open Canvas has been something I’ve used for a while for sketching things out. I do have Sketchbook though.

Also if you’re looking for the patch online: http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Content/1153321224268?pid=1234450613802

#40

added this video in this post about opacity bug on layer in any Painter version since at least version 6 to current version 11.0.017

Another example of limitation using transparency and layers…

First, nice to see you here because I forgot mentioning again SAI is Windows only. (and sorry for the late reply)

Few words about cross compatibility. My opinion about that is, it is more important the program is able to save a cross compatible file than the program is able to run on only one OS. Mac users (MacIntel) are not left out, MacOS users are.
In a workflow using Photoshop (MacOS workstation) and SAI (Windows workstation), as SAI uses the same powerful layer system than Photoshop (layer mask, clipping mask, groups and composite methods), when you will open your file in SAI or in Photoshop, your file will remain the same. So you don’t need to stop using features available in Photoshop because of limitation inside the program as it is the case using Painter (no clipping mask) or ArtRage (no layer mask, no group, no clipping mask). That’s especially true for people who are using Painter as blending program.

Thanks for the feedback, I just tested enough to see it is a slow process as you said.
Adding more complexity (so more nice stuff to accomplish what we need) must be balanced by an easy way to deal with this complexity and advanced file managers have done a pretty good job in managing many files using flat view (merge temporary all the brushes categories to only one) and real time filter based on tag name.

#41

Hey Hecartha,

After watching a few lynda.com vids it was brought to my attention that in Corel Painter 9? (not quite sure) when the Artist Oils were introduced Corel developers coded the brush to deal with transparency more efficiently, the same was as SAI and as Photoshop, instead of blending with the white, or any other colour infact, of the canvas below the artist oils lay opaque strokes down initially and then graduate into transparency, without canvas interaction :slight_smile:

Just thought I’d bring this to your attention, because I didn’t know it either :slight_smile:

#42

Yes, artist’s oils work exactly like rendered dab type (scratchboard tool uses this dab type) and that’s not what I am pointing. The issue is concerning “only” image based brushes like static bristle, circular, captured (lot of brushes…any brush which can use grain and spacing). It is why I used the scratchboard tool with this paintover in this JPerry’s wip thread

About blending with transparency that is not correct (or almost). Painter is only able to blend color on current layer. But yes, the issue with the white is not anymore an issue. Now if you want to blend color with bottom layer you need to check the ‘Pick Up Underlaying Color’ box which pastes pixels from bottom layer to current layer for blending them. In fact Painter needs a system which is able to blend with transparency as if it was a color.

  But thanks for pointing that :)
#43

Mikael - Thanks for another informative video. Often when it comes to graphics issues, pictures and videos are worth a thousand words.

I was wondering if you could do a video on one of the most annoying problems with Painter, which is the dreaded transparent pixel treated as white pixels during blending on another layer without checking the “pick up underlying colors” box?

IMO, that check box is not a solution and Corel will have to address this issue sooner or later, or else Painter will never be a flexible production tool for demanding professionals that are often asked by clients and employers to keep their images in as many separate layers as possible. With the way Painter works now, I can’t even do something as simple as paint a character and keep the hair on a separate layer in case I need to change the color quickly later. Hair very often requires bristle brushes with some Bleed turned up in order to be feathered to look silky and soft–ESPECAILLY against the background, and as soon as we do that, we run into a brick wall with Painter’s implementation of treating transparent pixels as white pixels. Forcing us to blend with the colors of the underlying layers just doesn’t work–what good is having separate layers for ease and flexibility of a digital workflow if I can’t even keep something like hair cleanly on a separate layer for easy editing later? It is for this very reason that I must rely on Photoshop for serious and demanding production work for clients or projects that require a lot of iterations and changes. Painter only really gets used when I really need to emulate the look of traditional mediums or after specific types of brushwork outside of Photoshop’s capabilities.

#44

Fair point, it’s just that I show Mac users Sai and they are broken hearted, it’s not that you can’t send them the PSD files but they do want to use the program.

Regarding switching workspaces and library… I don’t know if you’ve done this or had fun one with the brush tracker but one of the more fun bugs that was definitely present in X was that “this brush cannot be built” because you forgot to clear the tracker. I don’t mind clearing the tracker but why can’t we disable the tracker in the first place? If I want the option I’ll turn it on, but the brush tracking seems to hurt me more than help.

Also I don’t know if anyone gets this one present in X and 11 switching libraries doesn’t happen. Sometimes you have to tell it to switch up to 3 or more times - that’s also where you get the stupid error with the Tracker that crashes Painter X.

#45

Mikael - Thanks for another informative video. Often when it comes to graphics issues, pictures and videos are worth a thousand words.

I was wondering if you could do a video on one of the most annoying problems with Painter, which is the dreaded transparent pixel treated as white pixels during blending on another layer without checking the “pick up underlying colors” box?

IMO, that check box is not a solution and Corel will have to address this issue sooner or later, or else Painter will never be a flexible production tool for demanding professionals that are often asked by clients and employers to keep their images in as many separate layers as possible. With the way Painter works now, I can’t even do something as simple as paint a character and keep the hair on a separate layer in case I need to change the color quickly later. Hair very often requires bristle brushes with some Bleed turned up in order to be feathered to look silky and soft–ESPECAILLY against the background, and as soon as we do that, we run into a brick wall with Painter’s implementation of treating transparent pixels as white pixels. Forcing us to blend with the colors of the underlying layers just doesn’t work–what good is having separate layers for ease and flexibility of a digital workflow if I can’t even keep something like hair cleanly on a separate layer for easy editing later? It is for this very reason that I must rely on Photoshop for serious and demanding production work for clients or projects that require a lot of iterations and changes. Painter only really gets used when I really need to emulate the look of traditional mediums or after specific types of brushwork outside of Photoshop’s capabilities.

Now that is something Corel should be worrying about, your one of the most well-known Painter illustrators and if you need to go back to Photoshop to do your work, there is something seriously wrong, but once again, Corel doesn’t seem to mind as long as the photo painting pool of customers is happy, needn’t worry about the ones who really use the program.

#46

Well, to be fair, hobbyists and photographers who need to fake the painted look are paying customers too, and if they outnumber the professionals working in the entertainment industry, it makes business sense to please them.

My wife is in the food industry, and based on her experience, you often make a lot more money if you cater to the lower-end customers by making cheap yet tasty food, as opposed to making gourmet food that is expensive and harder to make. Cheap food sells volumes more and a much larger portion of the population can afford it, translating into a lot more foot traffic and cash flow. I’m not saying Painter is like cheap food–I’m just saying that the lower-end customer often are the real money-makers for companies. They aren’t nearly as demanding, and the feature sets needed to please them are far easier to design and produce.

#47

Well, to be fair, hobbyists and photographers who need to fake the painted look are paying customers too, and if they outnumber the professionals working in the entertainment industry, it makes business sense to please them.

This is true, sorry if I came off as if to say the opposite.

I just think, that professionals testimonies and images is what makes people buy a product, I mean, if every professional was working in MSPaint I’m sure not only other professionals, but hobbyists as well would run to MSPaint to emulate the success others have had in it. Just think it’s a slap in the face to loyal professional users to abandon the professional market in-exchange for a perhaps far less loyal hobbyist community, who are just trying to fake what professionals are creating.

sigh I really need to find another word for professional, haha.

My wife is in the food industry, and based on her experience, you often make a lot more money if you cater to the lower-end customers by making cheap yet tasty food, as opposed to making gourmet food that is expensive and harder to make. Cheap food sells volumes more and a much larger portion of the population can afford it, translating into a lot more foot traffic and cash flow. I’m not saying Painter is like cheap food–I’m just saying that the lower-end customer often are the real money-makers for companies. They aren’t nearly as demanding, and the feature sets needed to please them are far easier to design and produce.

This is also true, catering to the middle-man is the way to go financially, but if it wasn’t for the best food critics, and the high-paying customers that visit the high-end restaurant, the restaurant wouldn’t have as good a name as what it would otherwise.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, sure, hobbyists may make up a strong majority of Corel’s consumer base, but they aren’t the ones who are giving Painter the name it has, and they aren’t the ones showcasing the amazing imagery that can originally come out of Painter, it’s the professionals who are in magazines, who are in books, who are on CGCommunities writing tutorials, and the ones that are in interviews that people read and say ‘wow, painter hey’.

This is subjective, not trying to write off hobbyists as complete creative baboons.

#48

I agree with everything you said, and have voiced the same thoughts before in this forum. Testimonials from the high profile professional clients is one of the main strategies of any company, and once a company takes that approach, it must keep the pros satisfied, or eventually the good press will turn into bad press. That in of itself isn’t dangerous if there are no competing products, but as soon as there are competitors and they are going out of their way to satisfy the high profile customers, and those customers are making their switch known publicly, it could all go downhill from there.

You know, I hate to sound negative about Painter because it did/does bring me a lot of joy when it works the way I want it to, and it did play a part in my growth as a digital artist. I mean, I’m the forum leader of Painter forum for a reason, and Corel has appreciated the fact that I produced artworks they are a fan of with Painter and have interviewed me for their official magazine and showcased my work in the splash pages of Painter X. I want to see Painter become what we hope it could one day become, and I try to be fair when I voice my opinions here.

It was painful for me to realize there are glaring problems in Painter that has become a showstopper for me when working on demanding and critical projects, and I’ve voiced those concerns to Corel and also here to other Painter users. The only thing left for me to do is wait and see.

#49

Ok since Hecartha is posting video links, I got my friend’s vid because we got the same problem and are in agreement after I mentioned artrage.

Is anyone else getting this behavior with the Palette knives in Painter 11? It seems they got worse, not better :confused:

#50

Painter treating the white of a canvas as a colour is evident with almost every tool in Painter, oils, knives, and its really irritating, its often impossible to get the colour you’ve picked onto your canvas layer without it picking up a lot of white and polluting the original colour.

I have similar issues, but what is also annoying is when using ‘preserve transperancy’ if you were to brush with light pressure around the perimeter of your pixels it picks up either white or black, despite there being no trace of that colour, this is also true when painting at the edge of the canvas when brushes often pick up a black or white colour when dragging outside to the inside of the canvas. Just general inefficiencies in the brush behaviour I guess… there are workarounds but it is awkward.

ArtRage’s paint functionalities are unmatched, with it’s ability to spread and smudge depending on paint thickness and quantity, its amazing, even moreso when you see the price tag.

#51

The problem with Artrage 2.5 is that it’s very backwards in compatability with other programs, you can’t simply load your layered file with masks and clipping masks and start using the oil brush, before you get to that you have to import (and later export) the PSD, the shortcuts are completely bananas, there’s no live resize brush shortcut, I couldn’t find a shortcut to restore the page rotation, the list goes on, there’s a reason it costs 25 EUR. I would rate AR2.5 as a brush technology showcase rather than a pro orientated graphics program, I do hope they fix this issues for AR3 and make the program what Painter’s wishes to be.

#52

Well, I do understand the problem and limitations with Art Rage, but I’m showing that something broke between Painter X and Painter 11 and not only that, a 25 dollar program is doing something I never thought was possible because Painter was so heavily marketed as the natural media emulator.

I didn’t think it was possible because I just believed Painter crew did it’s best and this type of engine wasn’t possible. When you see a cheap program doing it, either for free or in it’s 25 dollar incarnation, I suppose as a consumer you feel a bit betrayed by Painter’s advertising.

That doesn’t mean I hate Painter, there is still a bit I use it for, though it has become less and less admittedly because I’m finding other programs that either do it right - ie ArtRage’s oil engine, Sai Paint’s blending engine, or do it with more stability. Sai Paint is fast, doesn’t crash…etc…

But back to the palette knives. I am glad I got that video because it does demonstrate that something went wrong. While Painter X did have a bit of the “white” coming in, both settings in Painter X and 11 are the same. Why is one making horrendously ugly white streaky chunks that actually end up erasing the paint. When I move it around it no longer made sense. I could have lived with the Painter X kind of palette knife though I think ArtRage made a lot of sense, but the Painter 11 one is totally useless now.

#53

This problem is already covered with the video “Blending Engine - PaintTool SAI and Painter”.
Are you thinking about something more precise?

I am planing anyway to post another video showing the benefit of a good transparent blending engine using color adjustment, scale/move opposed to the actual limited system because I totally agree with you about your example.

It looks like your friend forgot to configure the brush tracking in Painter 11 because the brush seems to be unable to use the pressure. The palette knife works the same way in my Painter IX.5. I didn’t noticed a difference.

Now here a video about Artist’s Oils

If you want a palette knife close from the one in ArtRage, use those inside Artist’s Oils category.
This kind of Palette knife are Artist’s Oils brush with amount of paint set to o%. Use a flat brush profile with bristling set to O%, it should be better.

Your friend is wrong about the grain also. Hope this video could help

I think an expression control is needed for the ‘amount’ setting anyway.

I hope they will not fix that using a non-standard system like in ArtRage because if you painted directly on canvas and you need to send your image to Photoshop(or anything else) and send back to ArtRage, you can say goodbye to the recognition of your unpainted pixels. All of them will be considered as white paint…

A standard system is just a simple layer and fortunately, ArtRage works as good on layer than on canvas…hum, in fact considering Artist’s Oils only, Painter works exactly like ArtRage with the exception you can also check the box “Pick Up Underlying Color”…huh, what is the need of a canvas layer?

They have done a good job with thick paint. About the rest, I am really reserved.

#54

Wow Hecartha, a lot of things in that demo I didn’t know… still tryna figure out how you got those seemless blends in your colours, cool stuff!

Shame there isn’t a specific palette knife that blends according to the thickness of the paint at hand, the closest to that is the Impasto Palette Knife that seems to add depth with more pressure instead of smearing it.

Is there a reason paint doesn’t blend as well on layers compared to the blending capable on the canvas layer, it seems that when painting on a layer once you’ve used the paint on the brush, that’s it, you can’t smear or blend the paint any further. Also blending seems to be only avaliable at it’s fullest when on the canvas layer.

#55

Hi Hecartha, I actually knew about creating a blending/knife in the Artist’s oils category, but I’m saying the palette knives that come in standard are rather…well broken they’re worse than the previous versions I’ve had. I also tried them in 6, 7, 8, and X. I also did the brush tracking thing and I believe you outlined the problem or someone else did. Changing the brush tracking settings for the palette knives are actually messing up the tracking for the other brushes. It may work better, but now the other brushes are acting up, and it becomes a painn and tedious task to have to redo the tracking since it doesn’t keep tracking for each specific brush.

That is no diss to the demo, you’ve outlined why I actually like the artist’s oils and now that the stray dabs seem to be kept under control, I’ll be using them more…but to a person learning the program, you have do “make” a palette knife (at least one that works like an actual traditional counterpart…as much as you can in Painter), which is counter-intuitive to having the palette knife category in the first place.

It also goes into streamlining the program - why offer brushes that become out of date if you create an engine that does it better? I see palette knives on the drop down menu, that’s exactly what I think they’ll do. If this has been replaced, why even keep the category or keep them around?

Corel should just create a category of “Legacy Brushes” that don’t come in installed automatically but offered as a side. I would also say don’t even drop or slip them into other categories either. For example, finding the Real or Hard media brushes in older legacy categories.

Rather than having to go to the workspace manager, it could also be “Greyed out” and then you click a checkbox on the side to activate- then the arrow on the brush manager can have a “Collapse inactive brushes”.

You guys already talked about the system of smearing paint in Art Rage too, which is why I wish they’d make a “real media” palette knife, grey the rest of the old ones out as legacy.

I hope I’m making sense.

#56

Mickael - Yeah, I meant an example of a real life situation such as feathering hair against the background but needing to keep the hair a clean and separate layer. I find that real life situation examples are always a lot more easier for people to relate to because they drive the point home much better.