Two Windows for the same picture in Painter?

[symantix]

Quick Painter Question:

In Photoshop, you can have two windows for the same image. This is useful because you can zoom in with one window and pay attention to detail, while you can still maintain a birds-eye view of the entire image in the other window.

Is this possible in Painter? If so, how?

[sandman]

On the Mac, I use a magnifying utility called 'Coloristic', which basically creates a floating, re-sizable window showing the area around the cursor at magnifications of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 times.

If you are using a PC, you could try searching Version Tracker for similar magnifying utilities. It is important that the magnifying window updates in real time though (ie. does not lag behind your brush stroke).

You could also periodically take a snapshot of your image using File menu> Clone, and then zoom in and out in the clone image view. Unfortunately the clone image will not update as you continue painting on your main canvas.

David

[symantix]

Does it give a true magnification? Or does it just magnify the pixels on the screen?

Not exactly the solution I'm looking for, but if there's nothing else I can do, it may work...thanks for the tip.

[sandman]

Originally posted by symantix
Does it give a true magnification? Or does it just magnify the pixels on the screen?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. As far as I can tell, the pixels are magnified. Below is a screen shot (ignore the 'color chip' window, as this was a suggestion I made to Corel, and not a feature of Coloristic).

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.gell/pics/Coloristic_Demo.jpg

NB. I just realised that there is a Windows version of Coloristic too;

http://www.bubblepop.com/coloristic/index.html

David

[symantix]

That's what I was afraid of...if you're just magnifying the screen pixels, then you're not necessarily getting the true resolution of the document...it's going to look pixelly and low-res no matter what...

When you zoom in on a 300dpi, 8x10 document in painter, your zooming in on the true resolution...it doesn't look pixelly...rather, it's very crisp until you start zooming in past the 100% mark...

With this tool you're suggesting, if that document was zoomed out to 25%, and you magnified an area, it wouldn't actually zoom it in to 100%, it would just blow up the pixels that are currently existing on the screen...not good.

Thanks for trying though.

[sandman]

Ah! thank you for explaining. Yes it is the pixels which are magnified. A 4x magnification of a 300 ppi image at 25% does give a pixellated effect :(

David

[tayete]

Well, the Info window in Painter 8 shows you a reduced view of your picture that actualices in real time.
But you cannot choose the zoom ratio in it...

[HardCoil]

Thanks for the tip ! Painter is funny like that. There are so many obviously useful and simple things (like resizing that info window) you can't do in painter.