Watercolor Controls and Techniques

#1

I’m a bit curious about the dearth of information about watercolor in Painter. Real watercolor - not digital. I have been researching the subject for over 2 years and have seen only one or two references having anything to do with actually emulating watercolor with Painter. And almost all the books written by all the “experts” seem to ignore the subject completely. Derry has written a bit about WC controls in Painter 8 - that’s it!

I actually took several WC classes so I could understand the subtleties of this medium and apply what I learned to Painter, becoming somewhat proficient in actual WC along the way. But now that I sort of understand WC, why doesn’t anyone talk about it in the context of Painter. Wet edges, granulation, sedimentation, washes, diffusion, mixing colors on paper, dropping in, lifting off, blooms.

Painter, it seems, cannot emulate any of these, or if it can, there are no comprehensive references on the web or anywhere else I’ve looked for “in depth” information and all the published authors skirt the issue of WC in Painter.

Is it because no one is interested in creating fine watercolors in Painter or that the product itself isn’t quite up to par in this area? I would certainly appreciate anyone pointing the way toward a comprehensive reference on the subject.

I have created over 3 dozen watercolor brushes and none of them really emulate a simple #10 round sable brush loaded with wet paint! I can get wet edges, but I don’t see a way to generate sedimentation. How does one produce a smooth blend of strokes (wet-in-wet)? How does one “lift off” color in Painter? How do I “wet out” an area to create a local wash.

Can Painter realistically do any of this. It’s great for other applications: Chalk, pencil, crayon, etc. Watercolor …???

I would really appreciate someone’s insight in this area. Thanks.

The Dog

#2

I think what you’re talking about could be applied to just about all the natural mediums that Painter tries to emulate. Painter tries to essentially mimic the most direct effects of a medium that’s relevant to the digital realm–often they need to discard what aren’t necessary or simply takes way too much computational power to process. Also, doing away with the more technical aspects of a natural medium, they can concentrate on allowing the artist to achieve the intended look without the headache.

I was a hardcore watercolor user for many years in my early professional career, and there are many things about watercolor that I would not want to see emulated in digital form, as there are things I wish Painter could emulate, but will probably cost too much CPU power. The accidental/serendipitous aspect of watercolor is definitely something we don’t exactly have a satisfying digital emulation of yet.

#3

Maya fluids on a 2d plane ?

Seriously I have seen videos of guys doing demos of water color in digital format with the use of any input device… even a brush. And it looks convincing.

Also with the help of masking, stencils and the almighty eraser we could erase out any errant
behavior of the digital equivalent.
Why haven’t any software company seen the merit on getting that thing going commercially ?

#4

I’m still using watercolour for work and would really like to see Painter, or another app, emulate it properly. Reaching a workable compromise between control and happy accident is quite difficult it seems. Although, on first inspection, the watercolour brushes in Painter 11 seem to be improved.

MOXI looked promising.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=59&t=474684

http://visgraph.cse.ust.hk/MoXi/

I don’t know where it’s at just now. Someone told me that Adobe had bought it up!

#5

That is one I was talking about.

Much the same way traditional limitations of - well - most of traditional media have been mitigated or overcome in the digital world water colors too can be done.

now if only they invented tactile feedback and ability to use any input device for touch screen technology it would be awesome…

#6

Hi, I’m the creator of MoXi. I think I should surface and give you some update.

Thanks to joeparis for mentioning MoXi. Yes, Adobe licensed MoXi in 2006. I can’t tell what they are doing with it, though.

I now work for Microsoft in Redmond, WA. I’m still working on digital painting thingy, but I’m afraid I can’t tell much here. All I can say is that if things go well, you will have a very good upgrade on what would be available as painting software. I can assure you that technologically there’s no problem. It’s all just business decision.

Cheers,
Nelson Chu

#7

I wonder if Adobe plans on enlarging PS to include Painter-like brushes, or will they do something similar to Lightroom (a more targeted app for a specific group of users). In any case, the competition will be good for Painter.

#8

Oh boy. I had predicted that Adobe will one day try to match Painter’s natural media emulation and take over Corel market, and I repeatedly warned Corel to beef up their editing/UI/compatibility to match Photoshop, or one day they might see their market share carved away by Adobe in one fell swoop. If this isn’t enough of a wake-up call for Corel then I don’t know what will be.

#9

Given the history of their recent upgrades to Painter, I have a feeling that their sales figures show that the majority of their users are either hobbyists or photographers. Perhaps Corel is correct in saying that PS isn’t a direct competitor to Painter. I really hope Adobe has something to offer. PS with the Painter brush engine would be killer!

#10

Ok , fine , painter can have its hobbyist and photographers market .

sombody fill the gap for us true blue digital artists please

#11

Hello all …

    I really appreciate the comments from Nelson Chu.  His development efforts have illustrated what can be done in this area.  His last comment - 
    
    "It's all just a business decision ..." should ring a bell somewhere in Corel's marketing and business planning department.
    
    Of course, it may be their decision, as others have pointed out on this thread, that they really are targeting the hobbyist and photographer market?
    
    Hobbyist ... fine.  Photographer?   I question that (at this point, why would most even consider Painter for digital editing when you have Pshop at your disposal?  Why would Corel even try to compete in that market?).   Adobe has the photography market covered like white on rice!
    
    Photoshop.  Lightroom.  Camera RAW.  Bridge. DNG.
    
    And the not so subtle notion in Nelson's remarks is that Adobe too is a marketing driven company and they sometimes prematurely release products based on a business cycle and sometimes those products really suck.  CS4 is a good example.  It was sluggish and some "features" didn't work as advertised.   The operative word there is "[i]was[/i]."  Adobe fixed it and put the upgrade on their web site.  FREE!
    
    I am a professional photographer (with a particularly fond affection for watercolor), and when it comes to editing [i]any[/i] photo in [i]any[/i] capacity, Painter is NOT the first application that comes up on my screen.  Or the second ...

    And up until now, when I needed a digital watercolor painting, I jumped into Painter, even as difficult and as frustrating as it is.  And tolerated the crashing and burning along the way only to achieve somewhat mediocre results (partly my problem, I'm sure).
     
     But the results were always somewhat less than I'd expected, especially after reading the glowing reviews of how it's supposed to work, spending untold hours trying to make it work that way, developing brushes and techniques to coax out acceptable results, and having those results come up short of anything I would consider displaying in galleries with which I'm associated.
     
    One of those lessons one learns in life is that you do what your good at doing.  In Adobe's example, they have tweaked an application to do almost anything in the digital editing environment.  And for those with complex digital editing requirements, that's where you turn:  Photoshop.  For those that aren't interested in using channel masks to develop and fine tune a selection or some other complicated routine, they offer Elements.

Maybe Corel tried to take the same route with “Essentials?” But, IMO, in doing so, they haven’t done well with either product and have abandoned their core followers in the process.

    Others have tried and missed the mark:  Microsoft had Impressionist, Hemisphere had Deep Paint, etc.  Nelson Chu has demonstrated it can be done.  Maybe Adobe bought his efforts only to squash the program - I hope not.   Au contraire, I suspect they are polishing up a killer app aimed solely at a market that until now has belonged to Corel.
    
     Corel was once in the enviable position in the digital painting genre of being the application people turned to when they needed a digital painting solution just as Photoshop has become with digital editing.

Maybe Corel shouldn’t try to compete in the digital editing market but instead, focus their efforts and resources on what they do best - Painter. It’s a niche market in which they are a major player. Make it the best it can be (If you build it, they will come).

    I agree with Lunatique ... if Corel wants to retain that enviable position, or any position in the digital marketplace, they need to focus on their core users and deliver an application that does all it says it will do [i]and more[/i].  And if those core users are the professionals in this forum (and others), give us the core product with the functionality you claim and save the glitz and glitter for Essentials; i.e., how many of us have actually used the "Divine Proportion" palette?
    
    Someone at Corel needs to concentrate "real hard" on the spectre of having one of their core markets evaporate before their very eyes before it actually does.  Remember Atari?
    
    With the introduction of P11, maybe it already has.
    
    When the time comes, I'll vote with my dollars.
    
    The Dog
#12

You’d be probably be surprised at the number of photographers who want to turn their photographs into a painterly rendition, but feel that Photoshop’s filters don’t provide enough control or quality, so they turn to Painter for its much-advertised tools for exactly that goal. I think you’d also be surprised at the very possible fact that the number of hobbyist artists who can’t really draw or paint at a professional level, but tries to reach for that “look” anyway by using those same tools. I would think if the market for that kind of toolset wasn’t such a significant chunk of their user base, Corel would not continue to develop and advertise those tools with such gusto.

#13

Then again, if the market was so great why doesn’t Adobe include these tools in PS? With their resources it wouldn’t take long. I don’t know, maybe you’re right, but it’s just so sad that people who want to use Painter for its original designated function are finding their needs are being overlooked in favour of gimmicks and a user-base who will likely never use 0.1% of the package functionality.

All this peripheral stuff should have been included in Essentials or X2 and Painter should be focusing on people who, you know, paint.

#14

Lunatique

   All I was saying in there was that when it comes to strictly digital editing a photograph (selecting, modifying, color correction, curves, etc.), my natural inclination is to use Photoshop.
   
   I believe everyone in here uses Painter for the things you mentioned.  I do.  And yes, Photoshop's "wet media" and other brushes and filters (AHB, Stamping Tool, etc.) designed to do what Painter does fall woefully short in the media emulation department and cannot even come close to Painter.
   
   That is why it is so frustrating and why I said what I said.  Select the market you want to target (which in this instance is digital painting), develop a [i]superb[/i] application, and people will flock to it.  Forget the razzle dazzle and produce a product that does what you claim it does and do it better than any other company can hope to do.  Sales and market share will follow.
   
   We've all watched media giants overwhelm the market:  Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and yes, Adobe ... In some instances with superior products, and in others, with marketing prowlness and hype.
   
   Adobe is the elephant in the room.  And I, like you, believe that if they [i]are[/i] developing an application based on Chu's technologies, it very well might become an insurmountable problem for Corel.  And personally, I wouldn't really like to see that happen.  I like Corel's products (Word Perfect, Corel Draw).  They're great  (I use Corel Draw and it outpaces Illy in almost every area).
   
   I would live to see a White Paper from Corel, outlining their vision for their Painter product and how they plan to migrate it in the future.  And follow that up with a User Forum much like Adobe's, in which they and their users actively participate in the development of their product based on user requirements, input, and resources.

Just some thoughts …

   Ed

PS: Simon Dominic seems to echo precisely what I was trying to say in my previous post and he seems to have said it better with fewer words.

#15

I would guess because a full-blown natural media emulation engine isn’t easy to program and fit into Photoshop’s existing engine, and it appears Adobe is on the move to acquire and R&D that technology (based on Nelson’s post). My prediction is Adobe will either release a Painter-like product, or incorporate natural media emulation into photoshop (or a separate version of Photoshop for people that want those tools).

In my early days of using Painter, and also in my early days of moderating this forum, I used to express the exact same opinions–that we need professional tools, not gimmicks for hobbyists. I got spanked pretty hard for expressing those views by Jinny Brown, and couple that with Corel’s marketing direction in the last few years, it’s not hard to see that the so-called “professionals” who can actually draw and paint at an advanced level are probably not the majority of their user base, even if we are the ones whose endorsement of Painter gives it its image of prestige for “serious artists.” And to be fair, it does seem that Corel tries to cater to both markets, not simply paying the advanced artists lip service and then only develop hobbyist tools. I personally have learned to just ignore the hobbyist tools completely by getting rid of any sign of them in the UI.

In a way, I could see why Corel would put those tools in Painter, instead of only in Essentials. It wouldn’t make sense for someone who wants both the photo-painting tools and the full-blown painting tools to buy two products when they could get it in one–especially when they are the same engine anyway. Well, unless Corel is greedy, which they don’t appear to be. I’ve seen some disgustingly greedy software companies before (particularly audio production companies) and Corel’s not one of them.

I suppose I could summarize my current dispositon as resignation. I simply have learned to accept Painter for what it is, and use it for what I love it for, and not use it for things it cannot do well (Photoshop takes over there). I would describe my workflow as:

Photoshop = my main 2D graphics workstation
Painter = natural media emulation plugin for Photoshop

#16

I’m the type that have a soft spot for the underdogs, so yeah, I wouldn’t want to see Adobe snuff out Corel either. But ultimately I go where the tools deliver the experience I crave and need for my creative vision. Everything else is secondary.

(Funny enough though, Corel pretty much snuffed out Deep paint 2D. Years ago when Right Hemisphere asked me and some others to give them feedback on Deep Paint, we basically told them that compared to Painter, they fell way too short and need to beef up their toolset/customization/UI…etc to match Painter, or they don’t stand a chance. Soon after, Right Hemisphere decided to make Deep Paint 2D free.)

I don’t know if it’s wise for any smaller company to publicly discuss their future plans in detail. When large dominating companies do it, they have the manpower to R&D and market faster than smaller competitions, so giving away their plans isn’t too much of a problem, but for smaller companies it could be shooting themselves in the foot?

#17

I’m the type that have a soft spot for the underdogs, so yeah, I wouldn’t want to see Adobe snuff out Corel either. But ultimately I go where the tools deliver the experience I crave and need for my creative vision. Everything else is secondary.

I suppose that’s why we all loved “Rocky”

Yep, we gravitate to the tools that do the best job in the time allotted. That’s why I’m headed for the art store to pick up a tube of Alizarin Crimson and a 1/2 inch flat.

Lunatique … I really appreciate your insight and background.

Thanks …

The Dog

#18

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