[Tinusch]

I'm curious as to how Dhabih smudges out the black outlines on his pics. When I do it, either the black lines are still visible or it all just gets too blurry. Is there some trick to it? What kind of brush do you use? I use a very small smudge brush on 50% pressure. Is this right? Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

[Muzman]

30% is better.
anyway, wouldn't the lines be on a separate layer? or a are you a Painter type o' guy?

[paul999]

man using the 30% pressure smudge brush to get the outlines out is so time consuming..I wish there is a faster way

[Affected]

Well there is, as Muzman said, leave the outline on a different layer. It's all about planning, you see...

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Affected
http://affected.cjb.net

[Lemur-X]

Umm. Call me retarded for not knowing this. But does Painter have a layers function?

--Lemur-X "Thinking Gorgonzola, when it's clearly Brie time baby!"

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Enter the Lemur......

[n8]

ur retarded...lol...actually i have no idea...i must be too..hahaha...i actually finally got my wacom intuos 6x8 today and dun a nice dragon pic in painter in around 15 mins....twas grooovy...would be nice f i knew how to use it abit better

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N8

[Affected]

Depends... Painter 6 has layers, or so I'm told. The earlier versions have 'floaters'. Ugh.

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Affected
http://affected.cjb.net

[Tinusch]

Muzman -
I use Photoshop. The thing is, I need the outline and the color to be on the same layer. This is probably the biggest problem I have ever had with Photoshop. I've read countless tutorials, but this is one thing I still cannot understand: How can you color in an outline if you're in a separate layer? If you use the paintbrush, then it gets out of the lines and ends up looking really sloppy and messy, and if you use the fill tool, then it just fills the entire layer. What am I doing wrong? Is there some secret I don't know about?

[Sc00p]

Tinusch:

Make sure PRESERVE TRANSPERANCY is checked ON for that particular layer (photoshop). You'll be able to paint "in the lines" of any shape you have on a layer.

Example: if i have a new transparent layer, with nothing but a circle on it...and try to paint on it, i will go outside the lines. If i check preserve transparency however, it will only let me paint on the circle, nothing else (hence preserving the transparency around the circle, since it wont let you make new pixels around it).

Preserve transparency is a godsend once you understand what it does, and it's great for changing the color of text even after it's rendered, or great for adding gradients/shading to shapes with the airbrush and not go outside the shape.

If you have any questions about it, let me know

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Rene Antunes
www.nytro.org
[email protected]

[Ben]

I don't know if this will help, but it could...

Anyway, try to have a sketch on the bottom layer (the background), then put a layer over it, and have it a "MULTIPLY" layer. If for some reason you can't find where to switch to a multiply layer, just go to that layer's options by right clicking on the layer's tab thingy and going to "Layer Options", then change it's "mode" from "Normal" to "multiply".

Now, what this will do is allow you to use the pencil, paintbrush, airbruch, or whatever, and colour in the sketch manually, and if you by anychance go over a line by accident, it will keep the black background with out ruining your picture, or making it look "sloppy" or "messy".

I don't know if you understande what it does, so just try it and check back here if you have any problems, and let me know how it turns out.

Who knows, you may have already tried this, I don't know. Just remember, even here, using the FILL TOOL will fill up the whole image, only this time, the sketch will still be visible.

On more thing, I have never tried using this with colour sketches, only black and white ones. But you can give that a try too if that's what you want.

Oh also, you can check out Dhabih's tutorial where he breifly talks about this.

Like I said, you may have already tried this though.

SCOOP: I will try that PRESERVE TRANSPERANCY thing too, I never tried that before.

Cya, all.

-BEN

[imdaking]

If you want to smudge the black lines... make 2 layers, one for black lines and another with your color on it... you can move the lines layer to the top set the color layer to multiply, then if you'd like to smudge the black lines you can set an option in the smudge tool to "Use all layers" or something like that, is that what your trying to do??

[Loki]

The smudge tool in PS is paaaaiiiinfully slow - don't know why though, because in other packages, like Matador, e.g., which we used to run on 100Mhz machines, smudge was as fast as a paintstroke ... my trick is the following:

Make some extra brushes especially for smudging - and give them HUGE spacing values, between 150-200 depending on the brush size. That speeds things up. Don't use 'em for painting though, because all you'll get is d o t s s s s
you can download my brushfile from my webpage (http://vigilante.net/~loki) in the digital illustration section ... there are already some smudgee-brushees in there and the other are tweaked for speed too - give it a try

sayonara!

[daz199]

The best way i found is not too have many edges in the first place. You shouldn't have completely black edges, and only make as much as you need, because its hard to smudge over after. I made this pic with just a few lines i drew in pencil and scanned in. Then i chnged the brightness/contrast so they would be faint.
http://www1.50megs.com/daz199/baldguy.jpg
(copy/paste the link into your adress bar)

[DarkVVulf]

Link doesn't work- 50megs gives me that irritating nag.

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darkvvulf.da.ru

[Edge]

Daz, your web hosting service is mad picky. Get a html page with the pic on it so we can see it. I'm interested in what you're trying to show.

[Tinusch]

That's the thing with that 50Megs service... You have to copy the link and paste it into the browser manually. It's a pain, but hey, it works every time. Anyway, that bald dude is awesome... But it has those blurry edges, which is the one side effect that results from smudging. I don't understand how Dhabih makes his edges so clear and sharp.

[derPunkt]

Jesus Christ ppl, will you stop smudging for gods sake. Who learned you that crap.
Anyways, if you want to fill something except the lines but you still need to have the shape those lines represent, do this.
When you have the sketch ready (I supposed its inked, if not, DO IT! OR better yet don't scan draw directly on computer). Then ajdust the levels/curves so you get a clean B/W pic. Then use the MAGIC WAND with a setting of 160 and click on ALL the white areas (holding shift ofcourse). Now, with selections still active, open a new layer and then fill each section with the base colour you want.
Ok, hope it helps, come by to www.3dpalette.com/peaeye
derPunkt