Drawing in Photoshop: My Baptism by Fire

XieRH

XieRH

Aspiring Trainer
Member
"Eventually one has to get out of the kiddy sandbox"​


And so begins my Photoshop orientation course. Well to be precise it started yesterday and there was a lot of fumbling about the GUI.

BACKGROUND: Photoshop is a graphics editing program, as are other most other programs in its category. It is primarily designed as such and hence, isn't really an illustrating tool first and foremost (not to me anyway). Alas that's what the industry (and the market) is stuck with so yeah.

I'll be using Adobe Photoshop CS4, a part of the entire CS4 suite I received in late 2009 for "uni work".




Alright :shy:

PHOTOSHOP FIRST HANDS ON

I'm gonna try and draw... Caitlin.

Ok go:
111gux.png

20-FEB-2011-0421hrs GMT
...so several of the things I already disliked about PS start to rear their ugly heads. I've used PS before so I know these things. But now that I'm actually using it to seriously draw, it gets more inconvenient.

The sliding effect when using the move tool with the stylus is a major irritation. If there's a way to disable the inertia/glide I'd really want it to happen. Now.
EDIT: nvm I can master it now. My sister gave me a crash course on how to slide it properly.

Also keyboard shortcuts. I've always imagined PS to be fully capable of everything GIMP can do, and more. Turns out nope. PS's keyboard shortcuts are hideously inflexible.

What I use on Gimp:
Brush: Q
Eraser: W
Zoom In: E
Zoom Out: D
Increase Brush Size: 3
Decrease Brush Size: 2

...and what I have to use on PS
Brush: Q (successful remap)
Eraser: E
Zoom In: Ctrl++
Zoom Out: Ctrl+-
Increase Brush Size: ]
Decrease Brush Size: [

...which basically means I have keyboard shortcuts scattered all over the frickin keyboard. I use the zoom a lot so it's really annoying I can't remap to a single key (because it's a menu key or some other stupid constraint).

Put simply I'm going to take a lot more time to do stuff on PS than on Gimp because of stupid keyboard shortcuts. Now I really wish I had an Intuos so I can just use its built-in keys.

And now on to the good stuff. PS's brush >>>>>>> Gimp's brush. For those who've used Gimp before to do lineart, you'll know that Gimp stinks at capturing high-speed strokes. Instead of curves you'd get something that looks like curves but at closer look, is actually straight lines.

qqqqn.jpg


Stuff like this is why PS costs hundreds of dollars but Gimp is free. Sure the lousy keymap functions is a downer, but at least you don't have to overstroke like mad when you get down to doing your lineart.



Lineart~!
111hry.jpg

20-FEB-2011-0600hrs GMT (I got bored and went to do some housework)

And here's where Photoshop shines above Gimp. It's clean, it's smooth, and it rasterises like oooooooooh yes~ <3
The pic is really zoomed out so it doesnt do justice. At full res it's like this:

111tva.jpg

SUCK ON THAT, GIMP


Establish the colour base...
111rur.jpg

...and ready to CG!


Colouring...
111jlh.jpg

20-FEB-2011-0700hrs GMT




Shading...
111lii.jpg

20-FEB-2011-0755hrs GMT

I'm using pretty much the same techniques I use in Gimp here, with a multiply layer for my shadows. Of course unlike Gimp, PS has clipping masks (as does SAI) saving me about 20 seconds to configure a layer mask which I would do in Gimp.



And finished it after dinner
111mz.jpg





I'll update this post as I progress along. Feel free to comment. It is done. Hm, strangely doesn't look like Caitlin. Needs more loli. Ah well next time.
 
I agree with you on GIMP. The lines do suck. I used to have the program before I got Paint Tool SAI.

SAI is just like PhotoShop in regards... just its so much easier to use in my opinion.
 
Caitlyn's had could use some improvement. It would be more turned, so that less fingers would be shown. Also, you might want to try again on the nose.

Beyond that, good job. It's nice to know that someone else despises the PS shortcuts as much as I do.
 
SAI is just like PhotoShop in regards... just its so much easier to use in my opinion.
Click to expand...

It's missing some functions that I depend on pretty much, like a polygon lasso and the ability to view transparency.

Also my SAI seems to have issues when opening pics with transparency

Another irritating thing in both SAI and Photoshop is the move tool, which requires to press the stylus when Space is held. In Gimp, you just hold down Space and you can immediately pan around. It may not seem like much but it's a huge difference in moving around frequently.

@aggiegwyn
Sketch isn't finalised. In the few minutes that have passed I've already altered some stuff
 
@ XieRH

I had no idea SAI had these issues, Apparently I never noticed them ^^;
 
I also wish PS has a larger colour picker. It's got this tiny userbar-sized colour picker which is annoying to use because you might as well open up the colour-picking window and you can't leave that window open and draw at the same time (unlike Gimp).

For those who care, I'm at the CG-ing stage now.

Ive also (thankfully) found the quick zoom feature of my stylus in PS. It's the button used for pan/scroll.
Ctrl + the button = zoom in
Alt + the button = zoom out

yay~

Oh and smudge tool is TEH LAG... this could spell trouble for me.
 
Its quite nice so far :3

I bet it will look nice in its final form ^^
 
It's actually 99% done. I just need to add highlights, which are pretty minimal.

So anyway, Ctrl+Space (the pan button) and Alt+Space can be used to zoom. Still doesn't beat Gimp's single-keystroke zoom, but at least I can now execute a zoom command with just my left hand and a stylus tap.

I'm starting to despise Photoshop's colour picker. It doesn't seem to have HSV sliders so something as simple as choosing a colour that is slightly brighter (frequently done in shading/highlights) becomes a hassle. EDIT: nvm, I found the sliders. Ahaha~ *slaps self*



EDIT:
111mz.jpg


Well it's done.

Pretty ok for a drawing that is 80% hair. I'll be able to use PS to start practicing my drawing subsequently.
 
Thanks but I prefer to draw my own pics (illustrator) rather than screw around with pics that other people drew (designer). That's the job of you guys.

Also what new skillz all I did was switch to different software.
 
No you do not have screwing rights to my work.


Guys drawing on Photoshop is fun you should all totally do it
aaaauq.png


Im more or less done with this thread really. It's all feedback now.
 
The only real iddue with drawing on PS is that compared to the manga program I recently purchased, it has some extreme tablet sensitivity issues....

It's too slow, and I am too impatient.
 
I detect a very slight slowness, other than that it's fine. Stuff like this just requires my hand-eye coordination to adapt accordingly. It should be fine after a week of use. Photoshop's also got GPU acceleration so it helps a bit there (although the smudge brush still lags on my system :( )

There's also another thing I found: Gimp seems better at drawing straight lines. Hold shift in brush tool, and a preview line immediately connects your cursor to the origin of the line (the last point made on the canvas). In Photoshop there seems to be no preview line. There IS a dedicated line tool, but it has no preview line either.

I keep wondering, am I being unreasonable for not being happy that Photoshop can't do exactly everything that Gimp does? The price tag on photoshop says no, but common sense says there's no jack-of-all-trades image editor (which is why a lot of artists I know adopt a SAI-Photoshop approach in doing their art).

Photoshop is like: The de facto standard... like the iPhone is the de facto smartphone of choice even if it's not necessarily the best out there. IMO it's only good because you don't really have anything else that can fully match up to it, so people are stuck with it, for all its merits and flaws.

Gimp is like: The poor man's PS. Aside from being free and open source it's a somewhat toned down photoshop. Brush and font tools are meh. That's not to say it's useless, as anyone who's ever looked at my DA gallery will see stuff done entirely in Gimp

SAI is like: A linearting tool. Has the fewest bells and whistles so it's still best paired with PS. Its lousy transparency support is a major pain for me.

Paintshop pro is like: ...only used by Xous and probably 5 other humans on Earth

Hm, I should update my tablet driver.
 
It is possible to tweak Photoshop's keyboard shortcuts to your liking, actually--just go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and have fun with it.

Your work so far looks great, though. Your linework and shading already looks better than anything I was able to do Photoshop. Hence why I switched to vectors :p

But yeah, nothing's gonna be perfect for you. Even Illustrator has its weaknesses, and there are things that CorelDRAW and other vector drawing apps could do better. I for one would like to start using Corel a little more, just to get a better feel for what it's like.

I've come to dislike Abobe recently, anyway. It just seems like they aren't even trying to make good software anymore...but that's just me.
 
There are restrictions on what you can edit for keys. Why else was I complaining about it in the first place :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top