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Information for Digital artists
My Equipment
computer- iMac with 1 GB DDR SDRAM; OS X 10.5.8
programs- Photoshop CS; Painter IX (Painter to paint and Photoshop to edit)
hardware- Wacom Intuos3 tablet, Lacie Porsche external hard drive, Canoscan LiDE 500F scanner, Epson Stylus Photo R1800 printer
General
• My work typically has at least 2 layers: an upper black line layer, a color layer. I add more layers as necessary for more complex paintings.
• I save my work in psd (Photoshop’s native format), RGB color. The Painter program recognizes this format, so it is easy to switch back and forth between the two programs.
• In Painter you can select many types of paper with different textures; I use Basic Paper, which gives a subtle texture for brushes that have a grain.
• Wacom now sells these really cool tablets that allow you to paint directly onto the screen (unlike mine, where I draw on the tablet and the corresponding line appears on my Mac). Someday I aspire to earn enough to be able to afford one of the new tablets, but for now the old fashioned tablet works fine.
Painter IX Brush Controls
To use painter effectively, it is necessary to become familiar with the various brush controls. This can take some time, but is worth the effort as you will be able to create exactly the brushes you need. Here are some settings that I frequently adjust to suit my particular needs:
Size- Controls how big the brush is; my most common adjustment.
Grain (Digital Water Color only)- Controls how much of the paper grain shows through. A grain setting of 100% gives a textured look, good for fabric, while a setting of 0% gives a smooth look, good for metal or skin.
Diffusion (Digital Water Color only)- Controls how much digital watercolor spreads out. I set this to 0 for a sharp edge, or higher for a more diffuse, blended look.
Color Variability- Controls color variation of applied paint. There are four choices for adjusting color variability: in HSV, in RGB, from Color Set, or from Gradient, but I typically use the HSV adjustment, which allows me to vary the hue, saturation, and value of applied paint. I frequently adjust the hue and saturation variability between 0 (for uniform pigment) and 10 (for subtle color variation), but leave the value variability at 0. I always keep the Color expression at none, so that color variation is not affected by how I hold my stylus or other factors.
Minimum Size/Size Expression- Controls how much the brush stroke varies in width; a size expression of none gives a uniform width.
Spacing/Bristle- Sometimes, it is necessary to adjust the spacing or bristle settings to compensate for changes in brush size.
Opacity, Resaturation & Bleed- Control opacity, color replenishment, and interaction with underlying color, respectively; I adjust these settings as necessary.
Random/Jitter- A jitter above 0 randomizes placement of brush strokes.
My Brush Library
The brushes I use are listed in the Table below; click here for PDF. Many are default Painter brushes copied to my Brush Library, although I often change the name of default brushes to better reflect the brush’s use and so that the brushes appear in a logical order in my library (brushes are listed alphabetically); names of parent brushes are listed in the table. My brushes are divided into three categories: Digital Watercolor Brushes, Non-watercolor brushes, and Paint Modifiers.
Digital Watercolor Brushes- Digital Watercolor Brushes are variants of Painter brushes that apply paint that remains “wet” until the artist dries it using the Dry Digital Watercolor command. Newly applied wet Digital Watercolor paint can blend with existing wet paint, but not dry paint. My digital watercolor variants include brushes with various bristle textures, a smooth wash brush, and two sponges. I also have two special effect brushes: WC Bubbles, which applies a circular, thick-edged spatter, and WC Reverse Salt, which applies a random spatter of color.
Non Digital Watercolor Brushes- In addition to my Digital watercolor brushes, I use 3 non-watercolor brushes: the Scratchboard Tool for my black ink line, a colored pencil to apply intense color, and an airbrush spray for a glittery effect.
Paint Modifiers- Paint Modifiers do not apply paint, but modify existing paint. My brush library has wet and dry versions of each modifier.
Painter IX Things I learned the hard way
• Naming conventions for default Painter brushes can be perplexing. For example, none of the blenders in the Blender brush category apply paint (instead, they modify existing paint, as you might expect); but three of the four blenders in the Digital Watercolor brush category DO apply paint. So, to avoid stress, make your own library and rename your favorite brushes in a manner logical to you.
• The Wet Fringe feature for Digital Watercolor brushes produces a ring of darker pigment around the edge of wet paint, similar to the wet fringe sometimes observed using traditional watercolor media. The Wet Fringe can be varied from 0, for no fringe, to 100%, for an intense fringe. This can be a nice effect, but it is important to realize that if you change the wet fringe setting, the change will be applied to all wet paint that has been previously applied, on all layers, and that this change can be applied simply selecting a new brush with a different wet fringe setting. Thus, if you wish to change the wet fringe setting, you should first dry all paint that you don’t want this setting applied to. It is also a good idea to become familiar with the wet fringe setting for each Digital Watercolor brush you use. I rarely use the wet fringe effect, and only one of the brushes in my library, WC Bubbles, has a Wet Fringe setting above 0.
• My wet eraser sometimes leaves behind a white halo. I haven't figured out how to prevent this, but the halo can be erased with a dry eraser after drying the digital watercolor layer.
• If you save your file in psd format and close it, the paint will be dry during the next painting session; paint can be kept wet during different painting sessions, but only if the file is saved in RIFF (native Painter) format.