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Software
I used to use Paintshop Pro (6 & 7) for most of the art I colour or edit on computer, but now I use Photoshop Editor 6, as it generally produces better quality pictures. I've tried a few different graphics programs, so I'll give you a brief review of some of them, and links to places where you can get trial copies of them. Paintbrush: Why am I bothering? Because it's the best place to start if you look at a computer and go 'dur?' It's like a really dumbed down version of the following programs, and therefore the best place to get a basic idea of how they work. It gives you very few options, and the result looks like... um... a paintbrush image. Moving on... Jasc Paintshop Pro 7: Has a huge number of features, which take a long time to get used to. All of the brushes have settings (like size, opacity and hardness) which can be altered, as well as textures and gradients to choose from. (One thing PS7 has over PS6 is that you can create your own textures more easily) You can also change the shape of the brush to one from the 'custom' section. There's also a variety of selection tools (when an area is selected, the brush or fill tool will only effect that area), which are very useful, especially when colouring work. Layers allow you to keep parts of your work separate from the other parts. Basically, it's like having your drawings on separate transparent sheets in a pile. (I've been known to use up to seven or eight layers a picture... O_O) There are also lots of useful effects you can use to alter your picture, like making your picture look like an old parchment or warping it into strange shapes. Adobe Photoshop Editor 6: Photoshop has most of the same functions as Paintshop Pro, but I find it's way ahead of PSP for painting backgrounds and scenery. As I do most of my backgrounds on computer, this is really useful. I think this program's far superior to Paintshop Pro, but it's a little harder to use. You can get a trial version of PSE6 from here. Adobe Illustrator 9: A different type of program to PSP and PSE. Illustrator works in a similar method to the now outdate Corel Draw, in that it creates lines as vectors. Basically this means that every line is seperate, and can be altered or deleted at any stage. It's particualarly useful for drawing on computer, as it creates good lines and you can change the size and shape of anything if you realise there's some problem with proportions or whatever. You can use layers like you can in the other two programs. I don't generally use it for colouring or shading artwork; it just gets too time consuming. I don't recommend the program to beginners, as it's just too complex. |
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