Doing a Project from Start to Finish, at 'FARP'

By Danny Staten

Painter Basics

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Painter Workspace

A very important thing before you start anything is to make sure you establish the habit of backing up your project every time you save. Keep two seperate copies of your curent file in seperate directories. I got burned by this once when Painter corrupted my only copy of a project right as I was literally ready to sign it and say it was done. It is very rare that it happens, but be safe. Rather than have painter save twice, just copy your saved file manually to save a bit of time though. It can be a good idea to keep a backup of one save back just in case your most recent save is corrupted too.

First off, you may want to take a look at the screenshot at the top. That is a shot of what my screen looked like with painter open. Actually it was while I was making this tutorial so you can also see the other applications open on the task bar. The picture is reduced in size to make it more viewable to most users.

Screenshots Screenshot

Tools close up

A few things to note here: first is how big the picture appears compared to my screen, and second is the unusual shape of my screen. The screen shape is from a dual monitor setup which I absolutely love. I have the workable space of two monitors each at 1200x1024 resolution. It gives so much more space to working on the picture. I highly recommend it, though it can be a bit pricey. The size of the picture on my monitor is due to resolution which is the first thing to explain.

Resolution and Painting

One of the greatest challenges with digital art in particular is balancing high resolution with computing needs. Before you start your painting, decide what you intend to use it for. If you intend to print with it, you want to do at least 200 DPI (dots per inch). If you only intend to use it for web display you can do as low as 72DPI and get away with it. Take note that the technology doesn't exist to effectively take a low resolution file and make it higher resolution. This means that if you work at 72DPI you are essentially stuck at that resolution. Increasing resolution of an existing low-res file essentially makes each pixel in the image larger, but lets you edit those large blocks in a more refined manner. It does not figure out where edges are and make those edges clean at the new resolution. You can however take a high resolution file and lower it without many problems. For this reason, I prefer to always start high resolution unless I am absolutely positive that the piece is only for on screen display.

The challenge with high resolution is that it is very demanding on your computer. Keep your layer count low if you work high resolution on a less powerful machine. (If you don't know what layers are, don't worry, I will talk about those also).

The higher resolution you work, the more detailed you can work, and the longer a project is likely to take. This is why some great digital art takes less time than other art. They work at screen-display-only resolution and can get something that looks great on screen a lot faster than if you work for print.

Another challenge with higher resolution is the fact that most monitors display somewhere in the neighborhood of 72 to 92 DPI. So a file that is 300 DPI will appear huge on screen. This is because a view of 100% on screen assigns one dot of the image to one dot of the screen. The monitors pixels are roughly 4 times the size of the same image dot in print (precisely 300/72 times actually) so viewing at 100% is like a 4x zoom on the print. This is why the small portion of the image in the work space dominates so much of my screen. This also means that viewing a file at actual print size on your monitor does not show all the detail. Again assuming you work at 300DPI you are trying to squeeze roughly four pixels into one pixels display space. So something to keep in mind when you work at high resolutions is that you should always check your details at a zoom of 100% because any lower and you don't necessarily see everything that will print.
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Stylus or Mouse?

It is nice if you have a stylus, but you can get by just fine with a mouse. A Stylus offers better motor control and pressure sensitivity than a mouse. A mouse is either on or off, not allowing for you to press hard or soft. Some people actually prefer a mouse for drawing, though I find that group to be a very small number. A large stylus is a bit expensive, but you can find smaller ones for somewhere in the neighborhood of $50. If you do buy a stylus, get one that has pressure sensitivity. Wacom makes the nicest ones. Definitely get a stylus that has a free independent pen (rather than a pen with a cord). If you are willing to pay the higher price, a 9"x12" stylus is absolutely awesome. If you are a college student, you may be able to find an academic price and save a bit of money like I did.
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Layers

Layers are one of the most powerful tools you have as a digital artist. In traditional paint, artists usually paint a coat of paint, let it dry, and then paint on top of that coat. You can conceptualize each layer as a coat of paint on a transparent piece of plastic. Click on the first tool picture to see the layer control tool.

The top palate you have here is the layer palate. I only have one layer there right now. The canvas is always there and cannot be deleted in painter. In painter you can add new layers by clicking on the new layer button (right next to the trashcan.) The trashcan will delete the layer highlighted on the palate. Like a stack of clear plastic you paint on, the highest top piece will cover any painting underneath when you paint on it. Digital layers are great because you can chose any layer to paint on like painting on a middle piece of plastic without having to pull higher pieces off. This allows you to paint a background behind a character for example, without removing the character and without messing him up either. You can also rearrange the order freely. To change the layer you are painting on, simply click on that layer. To rearrange order, you click and drag a layer up or down in the list.

Layers are your best friend as an artist. For example, say you want to paint a face on a character. Typically faces are challenging. So what you do is create a separate layer, and paint the face on it. If you mess it up, just delete the layer and try again. This way you run no risk of messing up the rest of your painting. It also gives you the freedom to build from general to specific (a very powerful and highly used principle in any art discipline).

A quick tip: Double Clicking on a layer brings up a property tool where you can rename a layer. This allows you to keep track of them better. It is best to always name a layer by what it is used for.

One thing to be careful of is to keep your layer count down for your computer's sake. Each layer has the potential to take up as much space as one copy of the image, and each layer you add is that much more information the computer has to crunch any time it refreshes the image. When you have something finished (be sure you are really finished with it) you should combine layers. In Photoshop this is easier than painter. In painter you have to create a group first. Do this by clicking on the button on the far right of the layers palate and choose create group. Then you drag all your layers into that group and make sure the group is in the right order. This is useful for organization, as well as for combining them. Once you get the group the so the layers you want to combine are all in that layer and in the right order, right click on the group and choose collapse.
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Selection Tools

Selection tools are very useful, but don't abuse them. One of the biggest give-aways that a piece is digital is if they overuse the selection tools. Selection tools are nice for stenciling an object. Conceptually, a selection is like a stencil, anything outside of the selection is protected and will not be affected by any brush strokes etc. Problem is that it can result in something with an edge that is too sharp and crisp. There are ways to get around it, but the bottom line is that selection tools should be used sparingly. On the same picture section as the layers palate you can see several different tools on the smaller palate underneath. The middle tools (dotted square, squiggly and a wand with a star on it) are the selection tools. The dotted square allows you to select square and rectangle shapes. The squiggly (called lasso tool) allows you to draw a shape and make that your selection. The line with the star on it (called magic wand) attempts to automatically identify areas. The magic wand is usually not that useful.

If you make a selection, then hold down alt, your next selection made will subtract from the current selection. Shift adds. This is a useful tool allowing you to refine and perfect a selection before you use it. If you have a selection you really like you can save the selection by going to the select menu and choosing save selection. Save it as a new selection. You can then go to the selection tool (blue palate below layers on the tool shot) and expand the masks section. You will see your selection in the masks and you can give it a name there.
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Other Stuff

Other tools that are useful include your color set manager. Open the second tool picture and you will see it on the gray tool palate. There is another palate there which has a bunch of square colors called the color set(very bottom of the screenshot.) This is nice to keep the colors you use most often. It is best to do as much painting as you can from a limited palate. A challenge with digital work is keeping your colors under control. Traditional painters naturally have a controlled palate because all their colors are mixed from a small set. You can add a color to the color set but try and treat the color set like the paint you mix from. I still can get better at using a smaller color palate. This will help give your painting a unified color scheme.

You will also see a small palate that has a bunch of pictures of art tools. You can select from a huge variety of tools, ranging from air brush, bristle brushes, watercolor, pastels, ink, colored pencil etc. Some tools only work properly on a layer that is set to gel mode (ie watercolor.) It is a good idea if you are starting with an unfamiliar tool to do it on a new layer. When you first brush on a new layer, it automatically finds the mode that brush was designed for. You can change almost any attribute for a brush on the brush controls palate (the green palate on other screenshot.) There you can experiment with runniness of paint, bristle in the brush, angle etc.

You will most likely want to save a color set you are using for use with the file later. That option is available on the color set controls. It saves as a text file that you can then open up next time you open that same file. This way you can keep your color palate as long as you need it.
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Okay so that is a basic run through of painter tools. You could spend weeks writing about all the tools, and I haven't even explored more than half of them in the year or so I have been using painter. You will most likely settle into a few favorite tools and tend to use those.

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