Calling All Artists! (Help?)

[Lumi]

So here's the deal:

I'm getting the art bug, and it's making me want to finally start digital drawing and (re-learning) coloring. Any of you other artistic folk know much about Painter as a program? I was keen to try out OpenCanvas, but the developers have shut off purchase access to all non-Japanese consumers as of last month (dammit!).

I do have a tablet; it's a few years old, but basically totally unused to date, beyond to see that it indeed works. ^^;

Seriously, I need a software update. Only editing program I have is a positively ancient (circa 1999) version of Paintshop Pro. YUCK. (Suffice to say, I'll be hunting down tutorials like a madwoman as soon as I find my program of choice in this digital world...)

Any ideas? ^.^ I figure this would be the place to ask, since we have quite a bit of 'local talent' here in the ol' Ancient Land...

[koa]

Well I dunno how much weight my advice holds as I'm not the best by any stretch of the word, but Photoshop seems to be the most widely supported program, and is the one I use for all my work. I use the CS2 version and that gets me by on what I need done, though versions as old as 7 work just as fine.

I also know nothing about a tablet, but I come to find that most tablets come with Photoshop even and so there's lots of support for them.

[Gamemusicfreak]

I don't have Painter yet, or a tablet. Usually what I do is pencil and ink by hand and use Photoshop Elements 6 for coloring. I'm sorry I can't offer any insight.

[Lumi]

Hey, it's more than I knew before.

The only thing that doesn't have me instantly turning to photoshop is that last I looked, it was horridly expensive (my tablet didn't come with it) and er... It seems pretty complex, too. Can anybody speak toward it or its attendant programs for the overall learning curve involved?

[Ashurei]

I use PS7 and like koa said, it works fine even today. Photoshop is easier to work with than Paintshop Pro, I think. Not to mention there are a metric ton of tutorials on the internets that will show you how to achieve various effects and what it is all the of the nitty-gritty optins do. But for basic use like coloring and drawing, working with layers and achieveing simple effects - that stuff you can figure out easy just by tinkering around.

To give you perspective on what I mean by easy - I made these for a graphic design project back in highschool - completely from scratch. Doing this is *simple*. And there are ALOT of really good tutorials for stuff like this and everything else you can think of that are very easy to follow. Can't recommend photoshop enough.

img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/Tsukasa7/Planet.jpg
img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/Tsukasa7/Complete.jpg

[Yakra]

Actually I use Photoshop too~! (CS3!) :'D ...Whenever I 'attempt' to make an digital pieces that is. Which is not very often. Once in two years or something, actually. XDDD

But it actually does the job for me, and I've seen some very lovely pieces that have come out from Photoshop. (O mi god, Ashurei! O___O Wow!)

*insert me own last pathetic attempt at painting with Photoshop~ (Ye've seen it anyways. :'D)*


OpenCanvas though, I suppose is actually really designed for painting, so perhaps that might be better. I've heard lots of lovely things about it. :'D (I've also heard good things about this program called... SAI?)

Oh! But! I also heard that after 2010 all english language support for OpenCanvas shall be terminated. No clue why.


I think I mentioned it before too, when somebody here needed Photoshop, but if ye ever need any of these programs and they be too expensive for ye, ye could always give me a poke? :'D The.... er.... copies here are much cheaper~

[Red Hairdo]

kiyuki can help. xD I'm sure he can. xD

He does lots of amazing digital drawings. ~

[Lumi]

Aug 17, 2009 10:07:44 GMT -5 Yakra said:

Actually I use Photoshop too~! (CS3!) :'D ...Whenever I 'attempt' to make an digital pieces that is. Which is not very often. Once in two years or something, actually. XDDD

But it actually does the job for me, and I've seen some very lovely pieces that have come out from Photoshop. (O mi god, Ashurei! O___O Wow!)

*insert me own last pathetic attempt at painting with Photoshop~ (Ye've seen it anyways. :'D)*


OpenCanvas though, I suppose is actually really designed for painting, so perhaps that might be better. I've heard lots of lovely things about it. :'D (I've also heard good things about this program called... SAI?)

Oh! But! I also heard that after 2010 all english language support for OpenCanvas shall be terminated. No clue why.


I think I mentioned it before too, when somebody here needed Photoshop, but if ye ever need any of these programs and they be too expensive for ye, ye could always give me a poke? :'D The.... er.... copies here are much cheaper~

You are the sweetest person ever, Yakra. XD

And yeah, I read about OpenCanvas' English support and such basically being taken away entirely soon, which bites. I really liked the look of stuff that came out of that program, alas. :\

I've also seen mention of "SAI" on places like pixiv, but I have absolutely no idea what that program is. Seems like it's another Japanese product, perhaps...

Still, seems everybody here does indeed vouch for Photoshop, so perhaps I'll give it a whirl.

A-SHU-RE-I! You never showed me stuffs like that! Why!? You artistical astronomy person, you! Those are so pretty.

[Ashurei]

OH man, I tried using GIMP.
Hard to get used to after using the ol' Photoshops. I couldn't figure that out for the life of me, haha.

A-SHU-RE-I! You never showed me stuffs like that! Why!? You artistical astronomy person, you! Those are so pretty.

You never asked? (DONT HURT ME)
I dunno! Probably because I haven't used photoshops to make anything fun in forever and never think about it. D:

Thankee to you and Yakra for compliments though, haha. Even on 4 year old stuff! ^_^

I should totally try to make something again... someday. I'll just stick to the sticky note doodling you got me hooked on for now. (aahhhh, work leisure~)

[Lumi]

Well, those look pretty durn neat to me.

Hehe, sticky note doodling is so very fun. Although lately my desk calendar sees more use as a drawing pad than anything; I'm running a bit low on sticky notes at work. >_>

[Mutagene]

I also recommend GIMP; I started with it and used it for about 2 years before I switched to Photoshop. It's maybe not quite as flexible, but it's still very good, especially for freeware.

[fuyuko816]

I would say that Paint Tool SAI is somewhere between Painter and Photoshop simplified. Or Paint-powered-up-version.
And painting feels somewhat like in traditional medium.

I really loved it. It is awesome for sketches and fast painting.
Plus that you can save in .psd format with layer data, you can rotate the canvas as you wish etc.

You can download it from this website:
www.systemax.jp/ja/sai/

The program isn't free, but there are cracks on the web.
Search for "ペイントツールSAIのクラック".
(I don't know if I can post this here...)

I usually use Photoshop for works (CS version) and I'm fighting with the pen tool right now. I mean I do have the patience to ink anything in traditional medium, but almost none to do it on Photoshop, plus sketchy feels so nice to my eyes (-A-)'

[Lumi]

So SAI is a program all its own. I've seen the end results of using it on pixiv, and they're always quite pretty. It sounds like it could be easy enough, if it's intuitive like traditional mediums. I might have to give it a try. Thanks!!

Still gotta see about Photoshop at some point, I suppose-- but I may get my chance in the coming months for other purposes anyway...

(I don't think it's a good idea to post info on cracks, but hey. ^.^;; You didn't actually LINK to any, so... )

[Incog Neato]

Aug 17, 2009 0:45:54 GMT -5 Lumi said:

The only thing that doesn't have me instantly turning to photoshop is that last I looked, it was horridly expensive (my tablet didn't come with it) and er... o_O It seems pretty complex, too. Can anybody speak toward it or its attendant programs for the overall learning curve involved?

Who said anything about needing to BUY Photoshop? XD *cough cough* *pokes Yakra* *........ pokes self*

I've pretty much only used PS for most of my colouring and sometimes even line art. I've fiddled a bit around with Painter too but I can't remember what version it was. All I remember was that it either had no layers option like PS or that if it did, it sucked.

It was great for emulating different kinds of media though like water colours, pens, markers, etc.

Honestly, when I was hanging out with me artsy friends, all they ever used was either Photoshop and/or Painter. :/