Tell me! -Digital art questions.

[Tal Blaiser]

Hollo! I'm tal and I'm pleased to meet you.

I've been doing some digital art recently, about 7 months now. I used Adobe Photoshop CS, 7... The main thing I use is the Pen-tool, round brush & eraser and mouse for my illustrations.

Okay my main problem now is, my PC always freezes when I reach about 200 layers with pen-tool, and when I rasterize it[to combine those layers], the color somewhat becomes blurry and low in quality? is there other programs to perform it? or what is the PC system requirement for me to use 100-1000 or more layers in a single illustrations.

Sample of my recent work is on my signature, I also have my DA gallery http://tal-blaiser.deviantart.com/

Thank you in advance.  

[k a w a i i blood]

[well do not use so many layers, also maybe just instead of rasterizing, just...
use the option 'put together visible layers' or whatever it's called? it'd save the quality of image <3 .]

 

[Tal Blaiser]

k a w a i i blood

[well do not use so many layers, also maybe just instead of rasterizing, just...
use the option 'put together visible layers' or whatever it's called? it'd save the quality of image <3 .]

Hollo and Thank you!

That is very important for me 3nodding I'm sorry, I didn't quite get it, how can you combine or where can I see the command/option of joining the visible layers? I use CTRL+E to combine rasterized layer what is the command for that? sweatdrop

I'm sorry I'm not that fully literate with photoshop[adobe] yet... is there a tutorial?  

[Leo Valios]

Tal Blaiser

k a w a i i blood

[well do not use so many layers, also maybe just instead of rasterizing, just...
use the option 'put together visible layers' or whatever it's called? it'd save the quality of image <3 .]

Hollo and Thank you!

That is very important for me 3nodding I'm sorry, I didn't quite get it, how can you combine or where can I see the command/option of joining the visible layers? I use CTRL+E to combine rasterized layer what is the command for that? sweatdrop

I'm sorry I'm not that fully literate with photoshop[adobe] yet... is there a tutorial?

If Kawaii was talking about the merge visible command, then it's very simple. Open the layer menu and look towards the bottom. Merge down and Merge visible should be there. The shortcut key is Shift+Ctrl+E  

[Tal Blaiser]

Leo Valios

Tal Blaiser

k a w a i i blood

[well do not use so many layers, also maybe just instead of rasterizing, just...
use the option 'put together visible layers' or whatever it's called? it'd save the quality of image <3 .]

Hollo and Thank you!

That is very important for me 3nodding I'm sorry, I didn't quite get it, how can you combine or where can I see the command/option of joining the visible layers? I use CTRL+E to combine rasterized layer what is the command for that? sweatdrop

I'm sorry I'm not that fully literate with photoshop[adobe] yet... is there a tutorial?

If Kawaii was talking about the merge visible command, then it's very simple. Open the layer menu and look towards the bottom. Merge down and Merge visible should be there. The shortcut key is Shift+Ctrl+E

Hollo!

So sorry for the late reply, thank you for the info biggrin  

[Anetra_Pendragon]

The pen tool - that is the "psuedo-vector" tool in Photoshop, right? To be honest, I wouldn't... use it. You've got one foot in the pool, and one foot out right now. Photoshop is a bitmap-based program. Trying to do vectors in it will be taxing, because it wasn't made to do that.
When you're rasterizing(or whatever the word was) it, you're converting it out of a vector format and into the bitmaps that Photoshop works in - that is, you're making it actually work based on pixels.
So, where before you had a perfect circle, now you've got a bunch of squares that, when you zoom out, are going to look vaguely circle-like. But, at the end of the day, those little squares will always be faking it.

I said you've got one foot in the pool and one foot out. What I'd advise doing is getting a vector-based program. Macromedia(Adobe) Freehand is the only real "hardcore" (I say this jokingly) vector-based program I've used, and it was ... it was good for what it was, that is, a vector program. Some people use Adobe Illustrator. I've never tried it, so I can't compare it with Freehand, but personally...

Personally I use Flash. Flash is my one true love. I highly recomment giving Flash a try. It has that same pen tool, and was actually .. designed to work with it, but it also has a .. basically, a brush tool that you can use, and then you can take your brush strokes and edit them using the pen tool. That is, your brush stoke, each one, is made up of all those little pentool "vectors", that you can play around with to edit the shape.

You'll probably only want to switch to the brush tool if you get a tablet though, becase you'll be able to do the whole pressure-sensitive stroke thing to draw out your lines, and then edit the points after to make everything smooth and flush. heart



Edit: And then you can export your image out of flash as a high-resolution PNG and colour it in Photoshop if you so choose.  

[Julia Pegasus]

Adobe Illustrator is a good program, and its interface holds much resemblance with Photoshop - which is a big help to us who are used to it biggrin I Corel Draw is also good, but it's a bit difficult handling its 'pen tool' at first.
I have never used Flash, so I can't give any opinions about it. ^^

I am guessing you use vectors to do the linework, and then color it all in PS... So, in the end, you'll need only the rasterized lines anyway. That said, I don't think there's much need to work in an all-vector program, actually.