ShimmeryDaze
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Posts posted by ShimmeryDaze
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I love Paint.NET! I forget how long I've had it, but I don't even miss Photoshop. Okay, maybe a little, but mostly because I haven't learned all of the dot net tricks yet. I tend to stick to the same techniques. But I've been branching out from pixel graphics and wanted to show the results.
This was a pencil sketch that I scanned into my computer. I colored it using Paint.NET. I do it the lazy way. I separate the different color sections (hair, skin, clothes, flower parts) into their own layers, create a new layer, fill it with whatever color I want that part to be and then mess with the Blending Mode, hue/saturation, and brightness/contrast until I have what I like.
Pencil sketches tend to be pretty light, so to get that inky look, I start out by duplicating the sketch, and using the Multiply blending mode on the top layer. It works a lot better than messing with brightness/contrast.
To get her tattoos to have that rainbow effect, I made a layer and filled it with different colors. Then I magic wanded the body and deleted the rest. The blue/purple skin was on a different layer, so all I did was erase the parts where the tattoo was, and the rainbow peeked through where I erased. Similar technique for the wings.
A nice, simple way to add texture to the color is to make a layer and use the cloud effect with two similar colors before messing with the blending mode. I did that for the flower petals and the pollen thingy.
I really like Overlay, Additive, and Multiply for this technique, but it depends on what you're going for. The first time I used this technique, the results were a little crude, but with practice, I ended up with this. I really like it.
I've seen people mentioning plug-ins, so I'll have to check those out. Take care!
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I actually prefer the unblended version too. Fantastic work Sweedie. I love seeing all the fantastic stuff people make with this program.
Tember, that's really cute. If you do a google search of "graphic tutorial beginner" you'd probably find some good ones.
And here's a good one for isometric stuff: http://www.19.5degs.com/element/869.php
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First you find a good tutorial:
Both of those sites have good tutorials for beginners. Then you e-mail me if you have any questions. Heheh... crystal@shimmerydaze.com
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Lol, sorry for the confusion, Dan.
Actually, aatwo, I don't do sprite work really. Dollz are a little bit different, but if you check out Angy Chan, she does both and they're awesome. http://www.yumestudio.it/angychan/ She does details, props, backgrounds, animation, and it's all just amazing. Your sprites are very cute too. I dig your pickle guy, lol.
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Yah, that thing is seriously cool. I can't stop staring at it.
It struck me after I posted that--You made a GAME on your calculator? I remember someone shared like a tetris type thing where the 'U' catches 'O's but I could not figure out how they coded it. And I looked at the code and everything. Did NOT make me want to make games on it. *sigh* Back then (1995) that was the cool thing to do with those. I could barely use it to do my homework, lol. I tell you what, if you make another game, I'll take care of your sprites for you, okay? Lol. You should see my dragons, they kick butt.
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Lol...I guess we all have our strengths. I LOVE your new av, btw. That is kick < no swearing > looking!
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Thank you, Dan.
I have no idea what you're talking about, lol. You start with a base on one layer, draw some hair on another, etc. I could lend you some palettes if you have trouble finding colors that go together...? Shading just takes practice. Each element (hair, pants, eyes) has about 2-5 shades each, the eye does the rest of the blending. You're welcome to zoom in on the image and see for yourself.
I guess it also depends on interest. The reason I started making dollz is because I was interesting in fashion design. Basically, it's a drawing of a person who is wearing clothes...heh. Pretty simple. I get stuck on backgrounds and props. Plus people (even other dollers) talk about light source all the time, which totally loses me. You can probably tell--I usually just do basic back is dark, front is light shading...heheh...
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Lol@Dan. That IS a good tutorial, I've followed it several times just for fun.
I think the biggest feature that we can start yelling about is that v3.0 will have the ability to open multiple images within the same instance of Paint.NET ("MDI").Awesome!!!
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If you're talking about a global magic wand selection, we have that.
Just hold Shift when you click.
That kicks < no swearing >! I never knew you could do that! Stupid doing it by hand bloody potato! Woohoo! Hey, I just tried doing the same thing with the paint bucket, and that works too! Hah! Oh, this is going to make changing skintones a LOT easier than using the color replace tool! Hee...
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I use the pencil tool primarily because I do pixel work. I use the grid when I'm counting pixels.
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*jumps into love fest* I love that when you copy and paste something, it pastes into the same spot instead of the top-left of the image. This saves a lot of time with lining up stuff, especially if the image is really large to begin with.
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Or possibly, the layer that your text is on is invisible and the jpeg won't show saved layers that aren't checked.
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You can't recolor any color to transparent. Any color you try to turn transparent using the recolor tool will turn white instead. I've tried it too.
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I dunno if this has been mentioned before, but I looked around and didn't see it. In Photoshop (for example) you can make little collapsable folders to organize your layers. I used this feature a lot for dolling elements such as hair colors, eye colors, skin tones, seperate outfits, etc. I was wondering how difficult/simple/realistic it would be to incorporate something like that into Paint.NET.
This may not be feasible because of loading time of images with a lot of layers/folders since I gather a lot of people like to make really LARGE graphics using Paint.NET but my stuff is pretty small, usually around 300 pixels wide or high.
I would also like a palette toolbar. I tend to import homemade palettes into seperate layers and use the eyedropper tool, switching between the palette layer and the one I'm working on. Even MS Paint has a palette toolbar. :wink:
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I third this one. Even with pixel work, cutting and pasting temp layers into permanent layers can be a hassle because any supposedly transparent sections that remain from the temp layer erase what is there on the permanent layer. Still worth working around, but I would like to see this feature as well.
*edit* Ne'r mind! Now that I know about hitting select with the magic wand tool, I can cut and paste without losing any of the non-contiguous stuff. But I'd still like to be able to flip selections...
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Use the magic wand and raise the tolerance until you get a nice area. If the tolerance (on the 'Tools' window above the colors) is set at 0, it'll only select one pixel. If you raise the tolerance to 100, it'll select the whole image. I tend to like the tolerance at around 20 or 25 to erase white backgrounds on scanned images. That's the fastest way I've found, although you'll still be doing some clicking.
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In life, there are no easy answers.
You can't resize layers individually unless you select the whole layer (using the Recangle Select
tool or the Lasso Select, Circle Select, or Magic Wand) and switch to the Move Selected Pixels 
tool and use the nubs to resize the image.Or you can open each image in seperate Paint.NETs, resize the whole image, and paste the resized image into the one with layers.
I could be wrong--if I am someone will correct me so I just answered this the best I could...
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Thanks for the compliment, Daryl. I downloaded GIMP last night and I really like it for the soft brushes. I've been doing only pixel work for the last six months to get used to Paint.NET but I missed doing more CG stuff so I look forward to getting to know GIMP better.
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1) Huh? You can change the saturation, but if it's of a certain color, I think you need it on a seperate layer.
2) YES.
BTW, I'm not one of the dealers, I'm just a user.
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Lock transparency in layers
I remember in Photoshop, there was an option to lock transparency for each layer. It meant that you could recolor any part of the image that wasn't transparent. That was lovely--what I do now instead is use the color replacement tool with 0 tolerance. Which works so well I don't even miss being able to lock the transparency.
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Welcome to Paint.NET, Darylmark. I'm new to the forums but I've been using this program since I think August of last year and I love it. I do pixel work like dolls and stuff so I don't do much with the tricks, but I'll try to answer your questions until one of the pros can get to it.
1) Patterns: I assume you've already noticed the 'Fill Style' option and are frustrated because you can't use your own patterns or imported patterns to paint with. I think that's a bit more than what basic programs offer, MS Paint certainly doesn't. There is a way to work around the fact that you can't personalize your patterns. You could import a pattern or texture that you like in gif or jpeg format and repeat the pattern manually, then use the select tool select your text or shape and delete extraneous pattern.
2) Re-entering text field: This has actually frustrated me too, but again all it takes is a bit more planning and elbow grease than you would usually have to employ. I tend to use the color replacement tool to change the font color if I'm not happy with it after it's entered. It's not too inconvenient to just start over if you want a different size or something. I've made LJ icons and colored alphabets using the program. It's certainly not as simple as pointing and clicking like in Photoshop, but it's a lot cheaper.
3) Nudge: I only used nudge in Photoshop once using a tutorial for cloudy skies so I can't feel your pain. But there ARE 'grab' points on a zoomed selection, at least in 2.6...I don't remember if there were in 2.5, but I think there were...
4) Cut and paste: The alternative to cutting and pasting would be to save your fancy font stuff as a gif or png and import it on a seperate layer.
There are certain advantages in using programs like Photoshop (which I had a "free trial" of for about a year until my computer crashed. I've been using Paint.NET since then and I barely miss PS except when I want a quick fix. Mostly I've found this program to do pretty much whatever I want--even if there are a few more steps. The thing I'm most grateful for is layers. I may have given up dolling if I'd had to go back to MS Paint...heh.
Here's the doll dress I did using patterns that were included with the Fill Style option. Just thought it would be a fun look.
The cloudy castle background I did in Photoshop when I still had it. 
How to start a fire with Paint.NET
in Creations
Posted
Okay, here's mine.
To get the blue and purple flames, make a new layer with gray clouds (flames) with Difference as the layer opacity again.
Great tut. Thanks so much.