One request from me in the upcoming Patch, would be the ability to add multiple vanishing points to the PERSPECTIVE GRID. Even the addition of Two-Point Perspective would be better than what’s there.
If you could snap to the active Perspective Grid I’d be in heaven.
Actually, I have it set to increase in increments of five. It takes (testing it out) one and 1/2 seconds to go from five to one hundred. I find that VERY acceptable.
I did, in fact, try increasing the step size to 5. It’s a little bit better, but still not as fast as the Ctrl-Alt method. (for me, alas. Usability being a issue that is totally subjective from one person to another :D) But To get accurate brush size from 1-5 I have to back into preferences. I really like the ‘[’ and ‘]’ for minute adjustments once the ‘bulk’ shape of the brush has been set.
Never used 9, but I also want to the opacity option as mentioned, i.e. to have opacity increase only on each stroke, not each time the brush passes over existing pigment. But - IMPORTANT - this absolutely should not replace the existing opacity settings, it should be an added option. To replace the existing opacity settings, which emulate natural media, would render the whole package useless for me.
Let me see if I understand you guys…
You want that “clean wash” that Ryan Church does in his DVDs. Sort of like a marker when you see no marker strokes. BUT you don’t want that clean tone disturbed if you paint over it with the same brush. You just want the SAME tone until you decide to “dry the watercolor.”
Like this?
The different orange values are achived by drying the watercolor and aplying the same tone over the top.
Go to the Brush Controls menu and Modify the existing “Digital Water Color” - “New Simple Water” brush variant by changing the “Spacing” to 13-14% and changing the “Minimum Spacing” to .5 The factory variant is fine for me but when I want that extra clean wash I modify the factory default.
I thought this would be a cool feature also. But guess what! On the Painter 9 CD they have some Splatter Brushes! I never noticed until now.
These are actualy very expresive and completely random. I think if we modified it we might be able to get the feature you and I were wanting.
Once again! Painter doesnt have the PS flow option. Dont try to find some extra-cool substitute to even replace it in 10%. U will not find it! Thats why a lot of users dont move to the Painter, thats why matte painters always uses PS (and pls dont ask why). If you have different statment, make a new thread, this is a wishlist thread, not discussion place about who is liking some options more, and way how he works, because he thinks its cool.
I am little afraid about future of this patch, specially about release date or even fact of releasing it…
Cheers
actually you’re right, however the fill bucket doesen’t work untill you have initially filled the layer mask using the Effects->Fill option (which I didn’t even consider originally as the original paint bucket didn’t work). this is a bug (as a layer mask should contain some color fill data).
I’m not sure where you find a command named “create layer mask from selection”. I think you might be talking about Alpha Channels (that can be created by saving selections) not Layer Masks.
In any case, that’s exactly what Painter IX, Painter 8, and earlier version Alpha Channels or User Masks do.
They mask the area around the selection to protect it from being affected by painting or Effects menu options. That’s the default behavior and unless the Alpha Channel or User Mask is inverted, or the loaded selection is inverted, or another Drawing Mode icon is chosen, only the unmasked area will be affected.
Mask = hide or protect
Hide = Layer Masks
Protect = Alpha Channels or in earlier versions, User Masks
here i was incorrectly making an assumption. what i was looking at was Layers->Create Mask from Transparency. I had assumed there would be a method of taking the selection and turning it into the layer mask (as it is possible in photoshop).
please do start to believe that I do know at least some aspects of painter reasonably well… i have been using it since version 3 (and do at least know somewhat about masks, alphas etc). the lack of these features still bugs me. there should be a Create Mask from Selection option, I don’t want to have to fill either the mask or the layer first. it shoudl also be possible to pick up a layers transparency directly using shortcuts and the layers/channels palettes as you can do in photoshop, not via contextual menus. these are basic masking functions (and masking needs improvement in painter in so very many ways).
mdme_sadie,
I understand you want Painter to work like Photoshop and it doesn’t hurt to ask for changes. In the meantime, however, there are ways to do all the things you mention.
If the Layer is transparent, by default, its new Layer Mask is white. I don’t have any trouble at all using the Paint Bucket tool to fill a Layer Mask.
[img]http://www.pixelalley.com/cgtalk/lyr_msk_fill_with_pnt_bkt_tool.jpg[/img]
here i was incorrectly making an assumption. what i was looking at was Layers->Create Mask from Transparency. I had assumed there would be a method of taking the selection and turning it into the layer mask (as it is possible in photoshop).
If a Layer is entirely transparent and the Create Layer Mask from Transparency command is used, the Layer Mask will be entirely black. If there’s only a selection (i.e. marching ants) with no color inside or outside the selection, the resulting Layer Mask will still be entirely black. The Create Layer Mask from Transparency command is usually used when there’s some color on the Layer and some transparent area.
There are a couple of ways to create a Layer Mask based on a selection, though they may not be the same as Photoshop’s method.
Here’s the easiest way I know of unless you already have an Alpha Channel based on that selection in which case you could duplicate that Alpha Channel to the Layer Mask:
1. Created a new Layer.
2. Make a selection.
3. Create a Layer Mask.
4. Click the Layer Mask thumbnail.
5. Invert the selection (or leave the selection as is to mask the inside of the selection rather than the surrounding area.)
6. Click inside the selection using the Paint Bucket tool.
please do start to believe that I do know at least some aspects of painter reasonably well… i have been using it since version 3 (and do at least know somewhat about masks, alphas etc). the lack of these features still bugs me. there should be a Create Mask from Selection option, I don’t want to have to fill either the mask or the layer first. it shoudl also be possible to pick up a layers transparency directly using shortcuts and the layers/channels palettes as you can do in photoshop, not via contextual menus. these are basic masking functions (and masking needs improvement in painter in so very many ways).
It really doesn’t matter what I believe. The point is to share information that will help people use Painter easily and efficiently. If my responses seem a bit basic it’s because first, I don’t know how much else people know when they ask questions. Second, other people who may not know Painter as well as you do also read these threads.
For quick ways to invoke menu commands:
Use Edit > Preferences > Customize Keys to set up your own keyboard shortcuts for things like Layer > Create Layer Mask from Transparency or other commands.
and/or....
Create a Custom Palette and add main menu and palette menu commands as a buttons.i’m sorry, but something is either wrong with my install, or there is a bug in painter.
make a new document
make a new layer
click the make new layer mask button
select the layer mask
make a selection
use the fill tool (pick any color at all).
try and fill the selection.
nothing at all happens.
this is a bug. the layer mask is not transparent after all, only the layer is.
in order to be able to use the bucket i have to go to Effets->Fill and then only after that i am able to fill the layer mask.
on the create layer from transparency. i know how it works, i posted that i incorrectly made an assumption. the assumption was that it was create layer from selection.
as posted before the fill tool paintbucket tool does not work.
thankyou for posting about the keyboard shortcuts, in this instance I was already aware of this information, however it’s really nothing to do with my needs for bug fixes/improvements.
a solution to the create layer mask from selection issue would be to make a script and put it on a custom palette. it’s temporary, and not very elegant, and changes the color for you when you really don’t want it to, but it does work. i’d prefer if Corel would make it an option at the bottom of the layers palette as it is in Photoshop, especially after much of the fuss over the interface changes put in place by Corel to bring Painter more into line with the Photoshop environment in V8.
The single biggest thing I would like is a fix for this save bug where the file repoens with the lower third or so tinted some other color and the darkest values reversed to white.
This was a common event in early version of Painter. It pretty much went away in 7 and 8, and now it seems to be back with a vengeance.
It sounds like you’re doing exactly what I did but I have a couple of questions:
When you selected the Layer Mask did it have a highlight around it? It should if it’s really selected.
After you used the Paint Bucket tool to fill the selection, did you click the Layer Mask again? If not, try it. I have to do that to make the thumbnail display the change and show the selection was actually filled.
this is a bug. the layer mask is not transparent after all, only the layer is.
The Layer Mask would not be transparent, even if the Layer was transparent. It would be white, following the steps you and I outlined.
in order to be able to use the bucket i have to go to Effets->Fill and then only after that i am able to fill the layer mask.
After you check the two things I asked about, let me know. I can’t think of anything else that could be causing this problem and maybe it’ll be time to write to Rick Champagne about it. Check those two things first, though. Sometimes it’s something so little it’s easy to overlook or just not think of it.
on the create layer from transparency. i know how it works, i posted that i incorrectly made an assumption. the assumption was that it was create layer from selection.
as posted before the fill tool paintbucket tool does not work.
thankyou for posting about the keyboard shortcuts, in this instance I was already aware of this information, however it’s really nothing to do with my needs for bug fixes/improvements.
a solution to the create layer mask from selection issue would be to make a script and put it on a custom palette. it’s temporary, and not very elegant, and changes the color for you when you really don’t want it to, but it does work. i’d prefer if Corel would make it an option at the bottom of the layers palette as it is in Photoshop, especially after much of the fuss over the interface changes put in place by Corel to bring Painter more into line with the Photoshop environment in V8.
That would be nice, I agree.
That certainly is odd. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an empty new Layer Mask. They’re either white or black or a combination thereof.
Oh well…
Well a lot have been said, but I would really like the following options, in order to get a more personal layout…
The mixer pallette should be able to resize, right now it’s way too small for my taste.
The custom toolbars should be much more flexible, you should be able to have 'em in any size and also be able to add the icons/variants without Painter sorting them in a special way. And it should also be possible to give all custom variants a name under their icon, so it’s more easy to navigate between the variants.
For instance make a custom toolbar and call it “Blenders” then add perhaps 5 different blenders and give them all unique names under the small icon “Smooth blender”, “Rough blender” etc. …
Okay, to begin with, i would like for the Brush Increment [ and ], to have numbers like 0.1 , 0.2 etc… (don’t remember what it’s called) 'cause now, if i try changing it to such a number it says: Illegal Numeric format… I’m just asking to add the possibility to add ONE number after the, uuuh, number… you know like 20.5 or 3.2 not like 1.351 or 99.009810…
oooh, and then i also have to agree with some people that are talking about being able to move the palettes outside the main window! And the flow option… maybe it could be so that one can choose between using ‘normal’ painter opacity, and ‘photoshop’ opacity and flow!! And it would also be good if one could change the viewing mode in the customized palettes, (for brushes etc…) so one can se stroke or how the brush looks, and maybe make it easier to edit custom palettes, like removing things from them! honestly, i have no idea if this is possible currently, maybe someone could tell me how if it is? 'cause i accidently added a brush in the wrong spot on a palette and i’m not allowed to move it again… neither am i allowed to delete it… or rather i dont know how… :sad:
Now i’ve been using the Painter IX trial for about a day and it rocks! I’m gonna buy the retail next week! Then look forward to the upcoming patch(es)… 
see ya!
Hi ogar555,
We can edit Custom Palettes easily. To learn how, read the following:
Painter IX Help > Help Topics > Contents tab > A Workspace Tour
On the right panel, click Custom Palettes.
On the next page, scroll down to the section named “Modifying Custom Palettes” and the sub sections named “To rearrange the layout in a custom palette” and “To delete an item from a custom palette”.
It’d be good to read that whole page as it’ll answer questions that will probably come up later.
I’d like to see painter support transparency.
Infact, I’m fairly sure the reason why painter cannot reproduce the much coveted effect you get by altering photoshops brush opacity settings is because painter doesn’t seem to support true transparency.
If you want an example (at least with painter 8, I don’t have 9), create a layer above your canvas and start using a blending brush. Unlike photoshop where you will merely spread any paints you have on that layer around, you will actually pick up white, regardless of what the layer underneath happens to be. Of course, you can change the layer to pick up the underlying color, but that presents problems as well, as you will start ‘erasing’ the above layer as you are constantly sampling from the layer underneath.
Infact, you would be able to reproduce that markery effect in painter perfectly by altering the ‘well’ settings. The only problem is, since painter does not support real transparency, it picks color from the pixels where you begin your stroke and permanantly blends your primary color with it.
Of course, I know you’d never see that kind of enchancement in a mere patch. Software makers love to milk every cent they can out of the consumer, especially since making such drastic changes would actually require real effort. maybe in Painter X.
In Painter IX, when the following tools are active:
Brush
Rectangular Selection
Oval Selection
Lasso
Crop
Selection Adjuster
Dropper
Paint Bucket
Magnifier
Hold down the Ctrl/Command+Shift keys to temporarily activate the Layer Adjuster tool and move objects around.
- to be albe to flatten impasto without saving it to other format than rif
We can do that in Painter IX and it takes just a few seconds. Do this the first time on a copy of your image in case you miss a step:
Close the Eye icons for any items (i.e. Shapes, Text Layers) you don’t want flattened, then use File > Clone.
If the working image Canvas has Impasto on it, select the Canvas and lift it to a Layer, then drag it to the bottom of the Layers list.
Hold down the Shift key and highlight the lifted Canvas and any other Layers that were included in the Clone, then close the Group’s Eye icon and Lock the Group.
Copy the Clone and paste it onto your working image as a single Layer that retains the appearance of Impasto lighting and depth.
Once you’re sure you won’t need the Grouped Layers anymore, just delete the Group.
