Painter 11 is good, but Brush problems

[pgd]

First, I want to say I finally updated to Painter 11 on my new Windows 7 64bit system (Painter 9.5 wouldn't work on it).

I was hesitant to do so because of all the problems I'd heard. I must say, however, that so far it's running very well for me. I see no excessive CPU usage as others have mentioned. Also, it seems very stable. It's only crashed once in three days of use.

One thing that I'm finding annoying is that some of my favorite brushes are behaving quite differently than they did in V9.5.

For instance the "Just Add Water" blender tool does not blend nearly as much as before even at 100% opacity.
Also the "Round Camelhair" oil brush doesn't blend into the under layer of oil when I apply a new stroke on top. (I do have "Pick up Underlying Color" checked). By adjusting the opacity it seems to go from almost no pigment being applied to a solid opaque stroke with no transition in between, so there's little or no blend of the brush stroke with the underlying tone.

Has anyone else noticed these changes? I'd sure like to find a way to readjust these brushes to what they were like before. I really enjoyed and got used to the brush behavior before and can't find any other brushes that duplicate them.

I'm wondering if it could be the new Cintiq Windows 7 driver?

I'd appreciate any help,

pg

[Arshes Nei]

I was hesitant to do so because of all the problems I'd heard. I must say, however, that so far it's running very well for me. I see no excessive CPU usage as others have mentioned. Also, it seems very stable. It's only crashed once in three days of use.


Might depend on your setup or CPU - If you are running a quad it's 27-30% - when the tablet touches the pen (if you watch your task manager), if you're running Duo Core its 40-45% or higher. I don't know about Single core machines. When the program is on focus it's about 20% or higher depending again the the CPU (30% on duo)



As for your other issues, sounds more of a painter issue and possibly adjusting your brush tracking may resolve it than your cintiq causing it.

[fes]

Wacom was having problems with one of their latest drivers, tho I believe they've now released a fixed one this week (driver version 6.12-5). You could try that if it's not the one you already have installed.


Try lowering the Resaturation setting in the Well brush settings and see if that helps with the colour pick up.

Have you tried adjusting your brush tracking using a little more pressure than you normally would?

[pgd]

Thanks for the replies.
Fes, you mentioned adjusting brush tracking. I'm unfamiliar with this unless it's in the Cintiq/Wacom utility. I've gone into that and upped the pressure to the next to highest setting. It helps a little but not much.

Are you referring to a brush tracking in Painter? If so, I've never usedit. can you give me some help on using it?

pg

[pgd]

Fes,
Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the new driver from Wacom and it helped immediately. I also found the brush tracking utility in Painter. I remember it now. I believe I used it years ago a couple of times, but after the brushes were as I liked them I never used it again. The oil brush blends better, but the blenders, esp the smudge tool still has very little effect even at 100%. Any ideas on how to tweak this? Possibly forcing a setting in the brush tracker rather than just using my natural stroke?

[fes]

Glad to help PG.

I'm not on Win 7 (so not sure if that's affecting anything - I'm on XP using both a Cintiq and Intuos 3).

If your other non blender brushes have the sensitivity you want (via Edit/Preferences/Brush Tracking) then I wouldn't change it just for the blenders

I don't use blenders much, but my 'Just Add Water' seemed to be working fine, but then I tried the 'Smudge' and 'Smear' and they did seem odd. So I reset both brushes back to default and now they appear to be working as they ought to.

To do this go to the Brush Selector in the tool bar, change the brush to Blenders/Smudge or which ever is not working. On the upper right of the Brush Selector there is a small arrow, click on it to bring up a drop down list. Choose 'Restore To Default Variant' (DON'T choose restore ALL - the next option down - or you make wipe info you don't want to).

Hopefully that will help make the brush work as it ought to. Fingers crossed.

[pgd]

Hi Fes,
Thanks for the help. Unfortunately it didn't change anything. The Smudge tool @ 100% opacity is about where it used to be at 20% in Painter 9.5 on my old XP machine. Likewise the "Just Add Water" has less blending and it seems to be a tighter area than before. For instance if I set the brush size at about 30 it seems to blend an area of about 15. I seemed to minimize this effect by unchecking "Enhanced Brush Ghost" in the Preferences/general tab.
I should say these aren't deal breakers for me. I think I just have to get used to the new settings (although losing 80% of the blending is hard to get used to).
I'll keep experimenting and see if I can find work arounds for these.

Thanks again for the help. If you think of anything else I'd appreciate it.

pg

[Elsevilla]

Hi Fes,
Thanks for the help. Unfortunately it didn't change anything. The Smudge tool @ 100% opacity is about where it used to be at 20% in Painter 9.5 on my old XP machine. Likewise the "Just Add Water" has less blending and it seems to be a tighter area than before. For instance if I set the brush size at about 30 it seems to blend an area of about 15. I seemed to minimize this effect by unchecking "Enhanced Brush Ghost" in the Preferences/general tab.
I should say these aren't deal breakers for me. I think I just have to get used to the new settings (although losing 80% of the blending is hard to get used to).
I'll keep experimenting and see if I can find work arounds for these.

Thanks again for the help. If you think of anything else I'd appreciate it.

pg

I know what you mean, this is all caused by brush tracking, the settings by default changed, just add water brush doesnt work on presure, works on velocity by default, so its not because of presure,. its all about of speed i recomend you to change the setting of speed by presure, works better.

The best brush tracking i got control its placing the scale of presure to 4 so i can con trol it better and then move the presure power to 1, or if i want more power in each stroke i just download it a bit to 95 or 90, but the scale on 4 its the best you can get on brush tracking, lowering the scale, will make big jumps of sizes, and you want control.

Calibrating the brush by stroking on the brushtracking its just way stupid, its better when you use the numbers, try setting the other numbers on top named velocity to 36 and 0.35 cant remember the order but you will notice it.

And the brush will act like candy, or butter on bread, damn i hungry gotta go and get a snack.

[se3dy]

I think Painter 11 could have had a bit more bug testing before being shipped out. This, is probably, one of the worst Painter releases. Although it could be a CPU, and wacom drivers issue perhaps, I am astonished all these bugs slipped past alpha/beta stage. If they could marry the new changes with the stability of Painter X (which was buggier than Painter IX), then it would be really ideal.

[ikken]

corel are known for releasing really raw painter builds, painter IX initially had absolutely fckd up zooming that was fixed in ix.5 about... half year later?
I was happy with X when it came out and I don't think I'll ever upgrade unless patch for 11 will MAKE WONDERS, and who knows if we ever see painter 12, lol

[pgd]

Elsevilla,
Thanks so much for your suggestions! They helped a lot. One thing though, I couldn't find a "scale of pressure" to set to 4. I did, however go through the Brush Creator and change every setting possible to "Pressure" for the "Just Add Water" brush and it seems to be working much better.

Now, can you tell me how to change settings so my Oils/Round Camelhair brush doesn't go on so opaquely and instead has a more gradual opacity and blend qualities as it had in Painter 9.5?

I REALLY appreciate your help,

Thanks again,

pg

[Arshes Nei]

Oh one other quick note on how to "reset" your brush variant. When you are using the Brush, if you notice the upper left hand corner where you see the brush icon on the same palette but OPPOSITE side of where the brush selector bar is? It's the "Reset Brush".

[fes]

For your Oils/Camel hair brushes try playing with the settings in Windows/Brush Settings/Well for Resaturation and Bleed. The higher the Resat amount the more opacity so try lowering it, and keep the Bleed up high. Both should be set for Pressure, (on my Bleed the box next to Pressure is also ticked).

[Elsevilla]

corel are known for releasing really raw painter builds, painter IX initially had absolutely fckd up zooming that was fixed in ix.5 about... half year later?
I was happy with X when it came out and I don't think I'll ever upgrade unless patch for 11 will MAKE WONDERS, and who knows if we ever see painter 12, lol

well almost a year, lets keep the fingers crossed

[ikken]

I keep my fingers crossed for AR3 ;)

[pgd]

What's AR3?

[Doug B]

What's AR3?

Art Rage 3:

http://www.artrage.com/artrage3.html

http://www2.ambientdesign.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=27

[ikken]

It's finally out!
http://www.artrage.com/artragedemo.html - download/purchase links all here

I can't try it atm (rendering a heavy scene on my PC), hopefully some of you can.

[fes]

I tried AR3 Pro. It's ok, and good for the price, but I still prefer the Painter brush engine. I can't alter the AR3 brushes enough for my needs. Either it has to much blending or not enough. And the pen pressure doesn't seem as sensitive to me. But most 2.5 AR users seem to love the new version. And it does have some nice features, but I'm sticking to Painter for my workflow, bugs and all.

[Robellyn]

Same here ... AR3 is very pretty, and is fun to sketch around with, but once you have the Painter Brush engine it's hard to settle for less.

And Cosmetics aside, Painter is still faster than ArtRage (try editing a 300dpi 2400x2400 image in ArtRage ... ).

Actually, when they released Corel Sketchpad (which has a similar kind of interface to ArtRage), I HAD hoped that a major Painter Interface overhaul was in the works for Painter 11. Something a little less early 90's. Ah well.

[Arshes Nei]

I tried AR3 Pro. It's ok, and good for the price, but I still prefer the Painter brush engine. I can't alter the AR3 brushes enough for my needs. Either it has to much blending or not enough. And the pen pressure doesn't seem as sensitive to me. But most 2.5 AR users seem to love the new version. And it does have some nice features, but I'm sticking to Painter for my workflow, bugs and all.

I agree. The thing for me, was I wanted ArtRage to at least meet what I wanted Corel's Painter Sketchpad to be. I think it's met pretty much what I wanted for it, some of it surpasses and some of it underwhelming (I am still mixed on the watercolors). On the other hand, I like that pen.

But if something like Sai Paint/Artrage can give me a better start without fear of crashing, then I'm happy to pay for. Painter may end up being "like" Photoshop - where it's like finishing painterly touches and Photosop makes the image ready for web and print.

[fes]

some of it surpasses and some of it underwhelming (I am still mixed on the watercolors).

Yeah... I can't get excited about the new AR3 watercolour. I don't like how they blend at all and no amount of tweaking the settings helps. Turn off the blending and it's not good either. So hit and miss. But I guess that's what some people like about it.

I always take my images into PS for final colour tweaking or printing. Not Painters forte I agree.

[Elsevilla]

Elsevilla,
Thanks so much for your suggestions! They helped a lot. One thing though, I couldn't find a "scale of pressure" to set to 4. I did, however go through the Brush Creator and change every setting possible to "Pressure" for the "Just Add Water" brush and it seems to be working much better.

Now, can you tell me how to change settings so my Oils/Round Camelhair brush doesn't go on so opaquely and instead has a more gradual opacity and blend qualities as it had in Painter 9.5?

I REALLY appreciate your help,

Thanks again,

pg

hahahah this is surprising no one have ever thanked me before in this forum so its really an honor, glad the brush tracking helped you, when you change brushtracking on edit preferences, you automaically change all brushes, umm so you think you maight have to much power on your brush, let me see, the best setting for brush tracking are this ones.

Velocity scale 35
velocity power 0.35
pressure scale 1.00(this is the tablet presure, if you change it to 0.90 you will be using the 90% as a 100% presure, so you dont have to press that hard to get a 100% of color)

and

Presure power 2.20(this is the amount of paint it will come out from the settings, i use the value of 4 because in that way the paint will take longer to go out, so you have more control)


As for the control on the round camel hair, i recomend you to not place the setting of 100% of opacity, working with that brush its great working with it at 60% or even 30% so you can contol easier the amount of paint.

Also lower resaturation will mix both colors in a natural way, also take a note that higher the amount of bleed higher will be the amount of dirty in colors cesause colors will mix and can leave low life colors like gray, you can work perfectly a brush with out the bleed on 100%, i even got brushes at 05 bleed to get real clean colors, bleed its how much pixels will mix on each stroke, and resaturation its how much mix of colors will mix with the up coming color, nt the cnavas color like bleed, so in resaturation there is no dirt and you can have great blendings with no dirt on it, real live colors.

[ikken]

I tried AR3 Pro. It's ok, and good for the price, but I still prefer the Painter brush engine. I can't alter the AR3 brushes enough for my needs. Either it has to much blending or not enough. And the pen pressure doesn't seem as sensitive to me. But most 2.5 AR users seem to love the new version. And it does have some nice features, but I'm sticking to Painter for my workflow, bugs and all.

I finally tried it too, can't say I was REALLY impressed... just a few notes,
1) watercolours blending is really odd, however, the watercolour brush is nice AND watercolour has actual transparency, so working with layers can reduce strange effects the brush certainly has;
"wet paper" setting is producing weird colour blending but I guess that's the way their engine works. What I really like is that you can make a new layer and paint older ones with white watercolour, lol - something not possible in painter;
2) Most tools come packaged with presets, and in case with watercolours and blender those are actually really nice;
3) Real colour blending - make sure you turn it on, from there yellow + blue is finally green, etc., and generally, it works in a much more natural way.
I'm sticking to my painter x and AR 2,5 for now (I only need an oil brush from there, so... ), but if I get some extra cash by Christmas, I'll totally buy a copy of 3.0