Basic cloning techniques
The steps needed to create a clone copy are easy to follow and the process was made even quicker and simpler when the Quick Clone command was first introduced in Painter X. Step 1 File gt Open and select your picture. Step 2 File gt Quick Clone, this will achieve several steps which in earlier versions had to be done separately. A copy of the original picture is created, all the imagery is removed ready to clone, a brush from the Cloners category is selected and the Tracing Paper option...
Soft clone
The first step-by-step example in this chapter is what is called a 'soft clone' and this is a clone that does not use any paper texture but has a very smooth finish. It is a simple clone that can result in a beautiful delicate picture and is a good one to start with. Try it with the picture that is on the DVD, it has been tested with this image so it will be easier to follow. Throughout the book the precise settings will be given for each brush and it is most important that you follow these...
Toolbox
The Tooibox is where aii the toois are stored no surprise there then and Figure 1.4 shows the Painter X Tooibox with aii the hidden toois reveaied and shown in red. To access the hidden toois ciick and hoid the visibie tooi and the other options wiii appear to the side, just ciick the one required. Some of the important toois which are being used in this book are detaiied in this chapter, but most are very obvious by their icons. The Toolbox with hidden tools shown in red. The Toolbox with...
Cloning from three images
Try to visualize what you want to achieve before you start making a clone montage. These three elements were carefully selected to work together, the common element were trees of course, but using three very different scales will add a sense of mystery to the final picture. The holes in the old leaf are particularly interesting and the way this hole punches through the more realistic landscapes will also emphasize the sense of unreality. Step 1 File gt Open gt DVD gt Step-by-step files '07...
Hand tinting Changing season
The next stage follows on from the previous exercise and illustrates how with hand tinting you can change the season at will. The first snowfall has arrived at our autumn scene and the brown and gold tones will soon be covered with a layer of snow. Many of the autumn leaves are still on the trees, so you can use your final version to build on or use the new starting version provided on the DVD. Figure 10.29 New starting photograph. Figure 10.29 New starting photograph. Step 1 File gt Open gt...
Overlaying a texture from another picture
The next step is to take a handwriting sample and overlay it on the montage. This involves using the Apply Surface Textures command, which is explained in more detail in Chapter 6. Step 17 Make a new layer at the top of the layer stack. Effects gt Fill, and choose 50 gray in the Colors palette. You can select 50 gray by placing the cursor on the left edge of the inner triangle and moving it until the Value shows 50 . This will hide all the other layers with a gray color. Step 18 File gt Open gt...
Softness and Inverted
The Softness slider controls how sharp the texture will appear, in most cases the slider is best left on zero to keep the detail. The Inverted option changes the appearance of the texture from positive to negative. Figure 6.4 shows the normal texture and Figure 6.5 the texture after being inverted.
The fourth clone
For the final clone the brush changes to an airbrush that will give an even texture. Step 24 Click the eye icon of the newly cloned layer to hide it. Step 25 Make a new empty layer on top of the cloned layer and rename the layer Broad Wheel Airbrush 50. This airbrush does not use a special paper. Step 26 Choose the Broad Wheel Airbrush 50 with the following settings. Dab type Airbrush, opacity 44 , brush size 150.0. Click the clone color button in the Colors palette to change this to a cloning...
Conte
As you will notice from the list of variants on the left this is a very small section. When you remove the different sizes there are only three different variants of the Conte Brushes. Like the Chalk and Charcoal categories, these brushes are excellent at picking up a paper texture as they have a very rough finish. They can all use the Cloning Method. In the examples below the brushes have been shown using both the Cloning Method and the Clone Color option. This tree had a wonderful bark...
Adjusting the saturation and contrast
Step 26 To reduce the color saturation make a new layer at the top of the layer stack and fill it with black. Change the layer composite method to Colorize, this will turn the picture to monochrome. Reduce the layer opacity to partially allow the color back. Use a layer mask if you want to restrict this muted color to certain areas of the picture. Step 27 To increase the color and contrast, make a new layer at the top of the layer stack and fill it with black. Change the layer composite method...
Oils 1
Many of the brushes in the Oils category have textured brush strokes and in this next step-by-step you will see how this can transform a photograph into an image which appears to have depth. The impression of depth is called Impasto, which is described in more detail in Chapter 4. Step 1 File gt Open gt DVD gt Step-by-step files gt '08 Autumn Color'. Step 2 File gt Quick Clone. Step 3 Select the Thick Wet Oils 30 brush, size 35.0, opacity 100 . Click the clone color option in the Colors...
Impasto
Impasto is both the name given to this group of brushes and also the name of the style used for many other brushes particularly in the Acrylics and Oils categories. The Impasto effect is based on the traditional technique of painting with a very thick paint to create the impression of depth. Painter re-creates the look of Impasto by using lighting effects to create a three-dimensional impression which is applied as the brush stroke is made. This old shovel and another tool were hanging on the...
Using and organizing palettes
There are over 3O palettes in Painter X and even though they will collapse and stack very neatly they do take up room on the screen that could be used for the image. Many of them are not usually needed when using photographs so fortunately they are easy to organize and unwanted ones can be removed. To remove a palette from the screen, click on the cross in a square on the palette header. To show palettes not visible on the screen, go to the Window menu and click on the name of the palette you...
Using a graphic tablet
A graphic tablet with a pressure sensitive stylus is a must to obtain the Painter brushe's full potential. Wacom are the leading brand of tablets and have a large range from small to very large sizes. I personally find the A5 6 X 8 inch size ideal, it is large enough to have ample room for brush strokes yet not take up too much space on the desktop. How you set up the button configuration for your pressure sensitive pen is a matter o H personal preference, once the software has been installed...
Chalk
The Chalk brushes are particularly good for using with paper textures, many of them use very rough captured dabs, which scrape over the paper surface and emphasize the grain. Some of the dabs are square and the icons in the list of brushes on this page gives an indication of the shape. In most of these examples below the grain and the opacity settings have been reduced to emphasize the paper grain. The papers chosen vary and it is the differing papers that have changed the appearance of the...
Rotating the canvas
The Grabber is one of several tools that have alternative options in the Toolbox. Click and hold the Grabber and select the second icon with a circular arrow. This is the Rotate Page tool and allows the picture to be rotated to make it easier to paint with certain brushes. Don't get this confused with the Rotate Canvas command in the Canvas menu, this tool simply turns the picture around in the same way a traditional artist might move a canvas around to get a better angle. Click and drag in the...
Tracing paper
Tracing Paper is a semi-transparent overlay of the original picture that assists in the early steps of making a clone copy. The overlay can be clearly seen in Figure 2.4 and when the Tracing Paper option is turned off the clone copy will be shown as an empty document which it is . The overlay is created automatically when the default Quick Clone procedure is used and can be turned on and off at any time. To turn the Tracing Paper on and off click the top icon on the right of the document...
Making a new brush category
It is a good idea to make a new brush category for your own saved brushes, it helps to organize them and keeps them all in one place. To make a new brush category and add brushes to it follow the next set of instructions. Step 1 The first step is to create an icon which will be used for the brush category. This can be an image or text, whatever you will recognize. For this example it will be an image with a single letter. Open an image or make a new document and using the type tool type a...
Acrylic brushes
The Acrylics range of brushes is ideal for making pictures that need to show the brush strokes clearly, the range is large and distinctive. The Thick Acrylic variants use Impasto to give a stronger impression of depth to the brush strokes. Impasto is explained in more detail in the next chapter, but essentially it means that the brush strokes have a three-dimensional appearance. The Wet variants blur the cloned image, this applies particularly to the larger brush sizes, but even with smaller...
The Brush Creator
The Brush Creator is the powerhouse for customizing brushes as it brings together all the various palettes and commands into one easily accessible place. Bring the palette on screen by Window gt Show Brush Creator or by the shortcut Ctrl Cmd B. When you click back into the image the Brush Creator drops back behind the document you are working on which is a nice touch and saves time. Figure 4.3 shows the Brush Creator with the Stroke Designer tab active. This is where the many sub palettes are...
Art Pen Brushes
This brush category was added in the Painter IX.5 upgrade and at the same time an art marker pen was added to the Wacom range, so to get the very best out of these brushes you may wish to purchase this additional pen. The examples shown here were created using the standard pen. There are a range of different styles available, several will use the grain texture quite successfully, these include the ones with Grainy in their name. Grainy Calligraphy and Soft Flat Oils will smear the picture...
RealBristle Brushes
RealBristle Brushes are new in Painter X and are a wonderful addition to the existing brush categories. They are already fast becoming some of my favorite brushes. What I like about them is the beautiful bristle marks which they make, it has been hard to achieve this effect previously. They are also excellent for cloning and very easy to use. The Real Blender Round will clone very well, it slightly smears the existing colors and is excellent for portraits. The Real Flat Opaque is the odd one...
Default settings
As you continue to use Painter you will be changing the settings of many brushes and Painter remembers these from session to session which is very useful, however it is often desirable to return to the default settings from time to time. To return an individual brush variant to its default setting either click the brush icon on the far left of the Properties bar or click the palette menu triangle in the Brush Selector and choose Restore Default Variant. In the same place is the option to...
Pens
As you may expect, the Pens brush category includes a fair selection of thin brushes, which give a ball pen style of painting. There are, however, some rather unusual and interesting variants. The barbed wire pen, for example, which spreads random lines around the brush stroke. The Nervous pen is great fun, it might also be described as a drunken pen as the brush stroke is so irregular. The Scratchboard Rake is also quite different, painting everything with multiple separate brush strokes....
Watercolor Layers
All the brushes in this category use a dedicated layer on which to paint and this is automatically created when you select and use a Watercolor brush. These layers have some special characteristics, e.g. because watercolor will blend when wet, you can return to these layers at a later date and having wet the layer again, paint over the image and paint 'wet on wet', a traditional watercolor technique. This is only possible if you save the picture in RIFF file format, if you save it in any other...
Painter X to Photoshop CS
The Canvas will translate as a background and Normal layers will stay the same. The specialist layers that include Water Color layers, Liquid Ink Layers, Dynamic Plug In Layers, Type Layers and Mosaics will change to Normal layers. All these special layers will be rasterized during the process of saving to PSD format. Rasterized means that they become normal bitmap layers and the special effects cannot be directly edited again. If you wish to keep any of these special layers to be edited at a...
Erasers
When it is necessary to erase parts of a picture it is often better to change the Method to Erasers in order to retain the same brush stroke characteristics. There are times however when it is more convenient to use the Erasers in this category as you can then swap very easily between the cloning brush and the eraser. There are several brushes that have uses other than as erasers. The darkener can be used to enhance modelling by darkening shadows. The Gentle Bleach will do the opposite and...
Blenders
Blenders are not brushes for cloning but they do have some very interesting and useful features. They can be used directly on photographs and also on finished clones to add a further dimension. Several of the variants, such as Diffuse Blur and Round Blender Brush, smear the image and give it a furry look. Others, like the Detail Blender, smooth the image but retain the overall shape and color. There is more detail on Blenders at the start of Chapter 11 as they are excellent for portraits. Many...
Liquid Ink
Liquid Ink is a large group of brushes which replicate the use of ink-based artists materials. The ink flows very fast and covers the paper quickly and has a graphic appearance. All Liquid Ink brushes use a special layer and a new Liquid Ink layer is created automatically when you use one of the brushes. The Liquid Ink section in the Brush Creator has many controls for adjusting the brushes, in particular the amount of ink. If this slider is very high the ink spills over the paper in pools....
Duplicating layers
To duplicate a layer go to Layers gt Duplicate Layer or if you are using a computer which runs Windows you can right click the layer and select duplicate from the pop up menu. The procedure to make a duplicate copy of the Canvas Layer is different and is shown below Step 3 Make the Layer Adjuster tool active. Step 4 Hold down the Alt Opt key and click in the picture area. This will make a copy of the Canvas on a new layer at the top of the layer stack leaving the Canvas layer intact. If you...
Artists
1t is perhaps surprising that this set of what one might call curiosity brushes, all work perfectly well as cloners. All of the brushes except Tubism are able to use the Cloning Method while Tubism has to use Clone Color. The final example titled Auto Van Gogh on Auto has been created in a different manner. The brush was set to Auto Van Gogh and the Cloning Method chosen. A clone copy was made and cleared then 1 went to Effects Esoterica Auto Van Gogh and immediately the 'Van Gogh' effect was...
Layer masks
Layer Masks work very much iike their cousins in Photoshop. By painting into the mask with biack the contents of the iayer are hidden. If you have not used masks before you may want to try the short step-by-step exampie beiow Step 1 Fiie gt Open gt DVD gt Step-by-step fiies gt '07 Muiti-Layered Fiie'. Step 2 Ciick the top iayer to make it the active iayer Step 3 Make a iayer mask by ciicking on the iayer mask icon highiighted in Figure 7.5. Step 4 Ciick on the iayer mask itseif to make it...
Mixer
When the Mixer was first introduced in Painter it was a huge advance in recreating traditional techniques, it works like an artist's palette where paints can be mixed together to blend colors. Figure 10.9 shows the current Painter X Mixer palette with the flyout palette menu. Click on the second brush icon and select a color from the selection at the top of the palette or use the Eyedropper and click in the current open picture. Paint some brush strokes into the palette The Mixer palette with...
Pastels
The Pastel brush category has a rather loose smeary finish when used at a large brush size but more detail can be brought back when the brush size is reduced. Most variants can be used in Cloning Method but to get the distinctive pastel finish it is generally more useful to use the Clone Color option. The Blunt Hard and the Square Hard Pastel uses the paper textures very successfully without any brush modification. The various Soft Pastels all smear the picture, some very substantially Pastels...
Smart Stroke Brushes
Smart Stroke Brushes are the other brush category new to Painter X. They are designed to work with the new Auto-Painting palette and cover a wide range of traditional media techniques. They can be used for cloning and work very well, I particularly like the Acrylics Captured brush which gives a very rich texture and is quick and easy to use. The examples shown below for Sponge Soft and Watercolor Broad brush have been made using the Auto-Painting palette. This palette is very useful as it can...
Tinting
This set of brushes is designed for tinting photographs. They all work in a similar way and their names indicate the differences, oily, grainy, bristle, etc. In the illustrations below the differences are not very apparent and I have rather arbitrarily chosen to repaint this car in some vivid colors. The original monochrome photograph was kept on the Canvas, a new empty layer was created on top and the brush strokes painted onto that layer. It is essential to change the layer composite method...
Soft Runny Watercolor
Step 1 File gt Open gt DVD gt Step-by-step files gt '08 Slater's Bridge'. Step 2 File gt Quick Clone. Turn off the tracing paper as it is difficult to see the detail in this very light clone. Step 3 Select the Watercolor gt Soft Runny Wash brush, size 100.0, opacity 2 . Click the clone color option in the Colors palette. Step 4 Starting from the bottom, gently paint into the picture allowing the picture to slowly reveal itself. This brush uses a lot of diffusion and is therefore very slow to...
textures
Making a paper texture test print Changing the paper scale Changing the paper contrast Changing the paper brightness Using extra paper libraries Creating your own paper texture he huge range of paper textures is one of the reasons that Painter is so attractive to photographers and choosing the right texture can transform a picture quite dramatically. In this chapter you will explore the library of paper textures that come as the default set, altering the size of the texture and also the...
Calligraphy
The major characteristic of the Calligraphy brushes is the sharp angle of the brush stroke, one edge narrow and the other broad. All of these brushes use the Cloning method and are therefore very good for using with paper textures. In the examples below the first three brushes have been used at their default settings and have the opacity and grain at high levels. The other examples have had both the opacity and the grain reduced to around 20 and this gives them quite a different appearance. The...
Watercolor explained
Before you start work on the next step-by-step clone it will be helpful to explore some of the very special features of the Watercolor brush category. This category has a lot of unique features and the following exercise will take you through some of the settings in the Water palette and explain how the brushes can be adjusted to suit the style of painting you need. There are 52 brushes in the Watercolor category and each one has a particular arrangement of settings in the Water palette, with...
Blenders for smoothing and mixing
There are many diffusers and blenders in various categories and they each have different ways of mixing existing paint or imagery in your picture. When the description says Grainy, then the mix will take on some characteristics of the paper texture currently selected, the Oily and Directional blenders also pull the paint in a particular direction. A soft finish will result from using blenders such as Just Add Water and ones with Soft in their name. For more information on Blenders refer to the...
Stroke Designer Palettes Random
Computer brush strokes can often be too precise and accurate, unlike when we paint traditionally and our hands flex and the stroke varies. The Random section gives us some controls which will reduce the regularity of the brush strokes. Figure 4.15 shows how the sliders affect the picture from the left. 1 Using Square Chalk, the first is a normal stroke. 2 The Jitter slider is at 2.67, which places brush dabs at random places, the picture is still in register with the original clone source. 3...
Watercolor
As can be seen from the list of brushes on the left, the Watercolor category contains a huge range of variants, which cover many types of watercolor painting. The Runny brushes use the traditional wet on wet style and run down the page leaving a highly diffuse picture. The Dry Camel and Fine Camel give quite a clear clone with the brush stroke visible. The Dry Bristle brush is a good quick brush for a beginner to try. All the examples below use the Clone Color option. Generally Watercolor is a...
Dry Bristle Watercolor
Step 1 File gt Open gt DVD gt Step-by-step files gt '08 Slater's Bridge'. Step 2 File gt Quick Clone. Step 3 Select the Watercolor gt Dry Bristle brush, size 30.0, opacity 2 . Click the clone color option in the Colors palette. Step 4 Brush over the main elements of the picture with the tracing paper on, then turn the tracing paper off and continue to paint in the picture. You will find this brush much quicker to use than the Soft Runny brush as the paint does not diffuse as much. Step 5...
Digital Watercolor 1
This first Watercolor clone step-by-step uses the Dry Brush technique which is one of the easier Watercolor brushes to use. The painting method is to start with a Watercolor wash and then to use the Dry brush to gradually bring in more detail. Step 1 File gt Open gt DVD gt Step-by-step files gt '08 Lower Brockhampton Court'. Step 2 File gt Quick Clone. Step 3 Select the Digital Watercolor brush category and the Coarse Water variant. Use brush size 85.0 and opacity 1 . Click the Clone Color...
Sumi E Corell Painter 12
Sumi-e is an unusual, distinctive brush that uses the rake stroke in most of its variants. The Digital Sumi-e has the most pronounced rake style but apart from the Flat Wet Sumi-e all the others display this feature in varying degrees depending on the brush type. All the examples have been used with the Clone Color option. The fine Sumi-e is one of the few variants that can resolve fine detail. The Flat Wet Sumi-e makes a very vivid colorful clone and, because it uses the Build-up Method, the...
Artists Oils
Artists Oils brushes replicate the use of real brushes much more closely than ever before the paint can be taken directly from the Mixer palette and a blend of colors picked up on the brush. The brush only takes up a specific amount of paint so the brush stops painting when it runs out of paint. The brush also interacts with any paint already on the canvas, just as it would on a real oil painting. When the brushes are used on photographs they do not work as cloners in the same way as many other...
Felt Pens
Felt Pens are graphic tools and are best used for pictures that need a strong energetic style. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Felt Pens is that when you repeat brush strokes the density increases and the color builds quite quickly to black. Most of the Felt Pens in this category work on this same principle. The Design marker is very rough and increases the contrast and color quite strongly. In the last two examples the Method has been changed to Grainy Hard Cover Cloning and paper...
Apply Surface Texture dialog box
Surface texture is usually applied at the last stage of creating a picture. There are several ways of applying texture and the dialog box, which is shown in Figure 6.3, where all the adjustments are made. Before you start the step-by-step examples in this chapter read through the explanations of the various controls, which are given below. Open a picture first, one of your own or use '6 Vase of Grasses' from the DVD. To open the dialog box go to Effects gt Surface Control gt Apply Surface...
Keyboard Shortcuts
Ctrl Cmd Alt Opt and drag in the document, the circle shows the brush size Square Brackets - Left The incremental amount can be set in the General Preferences Change between active documents on screen Numbers on keyboard, that is 2 for 20 Remember that you can change any keyboard shortcut and create your own in the Preferences gt Customize Keys There are many ways to create artistic pictures with Painter painting from scratch in a blank document, using plug-in filters to change photographs in...