[suleman]

I had this post in another thread, but i guess that ones pretty much finished so ill ask my question in a new thread and just quote the original uh.. post:

"I just recently aquired paiter 7, and i got a problem, but since there was already a painter 7 thread i thought it'd be better to just post my question in here instead of getting flamed :X.
I'm pretty well aquainted with the interface now, so im moving on to learning the basics of 'coloring'...ya know. And its kinda hard.

I tried using the tutorial at cyberphobia, who uses painter 6; he says that the waterbrush system is different between these two. tutorial=http://www.arnistotle.com/painter.htm

So far ive seen that there isnt a simple water brush.. so i guess they just changed the name to simple wet or whatever it was... and whenever i go from 'dark to light' like he says the colors just get darker.

So what i need are either some settings... i think, a new tutorial, or just a few words to help me get started... please

I did notice the tutorials already posted, but those werent exactly what i had in mind... i want something more comic book related so i dont have to use my brain too much, and can just jump in.. or something.

thanks"

[Jin]

suleman,

Painter 7 Water Color technology is completely new and very different from earlier version Water Colors. Though Painter 4, 5, and 6 default brush libraries are installed with Painter 7 and we can load them and use the other brush categories' variants, the Water Color brushes for these earlier versions won't work the same in Painter 7.

A lot of us have tried to create custom Water Color variants to mimic what the earlier version Simple Water variant does, we've not been able to do it, only come closer.

The best of these attempts by Painter users are Matt's "Old Watercolor Brush", and Terrie's "tlb-sw647" (tlb, Terrie's initials - sw647, Simple Water 6 for Painter 7). Matt and Terrie were kind enough to contribute them to the collection of Painter 7 custom Water Color brushes, downloadable on my site at:
http://www.pixelalley.com/Painter7/painter7-water-color-brushes.html

If you want smooth color with no buildup when painting over existing strokes, try the new Painter 7 Tinting brushes' Soft Grainy Round variant. Adjust the settings as shown in my image above. Paint with steady pressure as, when pressure is lifted, the brush stroke is less opaque (and.. if you continue to paint with light pressure, never lifting the pen off your tablet, the brush can also be used to blend).

The Tinting brushes were created by Painter Developer John Derry in response to our howling over losing the earlier version Water Colors and were included in the Painter 7 Update.

(If you haven't installed the Painter 7 Update, I suggest that you do. There are some bug fixes, the new Tinting brushes, and a couple of new Effects options, and I think the Pick Up Underlying Color checkbox was added to the Layers section as well.)

Here's a sample image comparing the Painter 6 Water Colors' Simple Water variant, the Painter 7 Water Colors' Simple Round Wash variant, and the Painter 7 Tinting's Soft Grainy Round variant. I used the same color for the Painter 6 Simple Water and Painter 7 Simple Round Wash variant brush strokes. Notice the huge difference in color! With the Painter 7 Tinting's Soft Grainy Round variant, I had to change the color to get it to match the Painter 6 Simple Water variant's brush stroke. I also made some other setting adjustments to make the Tinting's Soft Grainy Round variant come closer to matching the Painter 6 Simple Water's brush strokes.



If you want a watercolor look, after painting with the Tinting variants on the Canvas, from the Layers section menu, you can choose Lift Canvas to Water Color Layer, select a Water Color variant and Paper texture, then from the Layers section menu, choose Wet Entire Water Color Layer.

Depending on the Water Color variant and Paper chosen, the effect can vary widely, so if you decide to try this, first do some experimenting on a copy of one of your existing images.

This technique can be used no matter what brushes you paint with on the Canvas and it allows you to paint smooth washes, which are somewhere between very difficult and nearly impossible to do with Painter 7 Water Colors.

Of course the images in the tutorial you mentioned are not full size so it's pretty hard to see detail, even the larger version at the end of the tutorial (a link to it) but they look as if they could easily have been done using other brushes. I don't see much evidence of Water Color in them, probably because the Simple Water brush is fairly simple.. fancy that!

Any brush variant for which the Subcategory has the word "Grainy" in it will interact with the current Paper texture. (In Painter, "Grain" refers to Paper texture.) More or less texture can be had by adjusting the Grain slider in either the Brush Controls palette's General section or in the Controls:Brushes palette. Also, in the Art Materials palette's Papers section, the Paper's Scale, Contrast, and Brightness sliders can be adjusted and the Directional Grain and Invert Paper boxes checked or unchecked. Experiment to see how these settings work.

Back to the tutorial:

If you want to do all of your work in Painter, you can create your line work from scratch on a Layer. If it's scanned line work, and not solid enough, use Effects > Tonal Control > Brightness/Contrast then move the Contrast slider all the way to the right and the Brightness slider all the way to the left. That will beef up your lines and minimize the amount of touch-up needed, if any. Now, if the line work is beefed up enough, use Select > Auto Select, Using: Image Luminance, then click inside the selection with the Layer Adjuster tool to lift the line work to a Layer with a transparent background. After checking the Layers section's Preserve Transparency box, you can pick any color and use Ctrl/Command+F to Fill and change the line work's color.

For the background, create a New Layer, click the New Layer's name in the Layers list, then drag it below the line work Layer and either paint it or Fill if the desired effect is smooth color. (Or, you can paint on the Canvas. I just like to keep the Canvas clear for whatever may come up, and do my work on Layers instead.)

Paper texture can easily be added to a smooth background by selecting a Paper, then using Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture Using: Paper and playing with the other settings 'til it looks right (in the Preview window). Another way is to paint the texture in using the Photo's Add Grain Brush variant, for a more natural look. This variant tends to be pretty exaggerated, so lower brush Opacity way down to almost nothing, lower the Paper Contrast and maybe the Scale too, and paint with a light touch. You can further enhance the light touch effect by first resetting your Brush Tracking and using more pressure than you normally would while painting on the Brush Tracking tablet. You can reset it later, using your normal pressure, when you don't need so much pressure control (Edit > Preferences > Brush Tracking).

In the tutorial, since the combined line work and background show the line work to be a lot darker than it is in the blue sketch, I'm guessing the artist had his blue line work on a Layer above the background and applied Blending Mode Darken. In Painter, this would be Composite Method Gel to get the same effect.

For Painter 6 or earlier version users who want to pick colors with the Dropper tool while painting on the invisible Wet Layer, an easier way to do it is to use File > Clone. This gives you a dry, flattened copy of your image and you can update the Clone every so often by using File > Clone again. The Clone can be minimized at the bottom of your Painter screen to keep it out of the way, or just closed completely since it's so easy to do File > Clone. I have the Clone, Zoom to Fit, and Close commands in a custom palette so all it takes is three clicks and my screen is clear again.

The two other brushes the tutorial author/artist mentions, the Brushes' Smeary Round and Round Camelhair variants, are available in Painter 7.


If you want to just jump in an begin to work without spending a lot of time learning, then Painter 7 Water Color brushes are probably not going to be your cup of tea, even if they do some really neat things. They can be a royal pain and it's only because I'm stubborn that I haven't given up on them. A couple of artists have done some nice work with them, but they are the first to admit it takes a lot of time and practice to learn how to use them.

Anyway..

Hope this helps somehow or other!

[suleman]

Thanks for the in depth reply! I really appreciate it, didn't expect something so thought out... but thanks again.

[Jin]

suleman,

You're welcome. I always write a lot.. too much some folks say.. but figure it's better to say things the person already knows than to hesitate and leave out things he needs to know.

Lots to learn about Painter, no matter how long you've used it.