Make lines thinner?

[coolboymew]

I've tried to cut a character out of a picture and I managed to make it look pretty great

http://puu.sh/7RDqg

However, I still need to feather the lines, but after that some lines will still be thicker than the others. Any handy tool/trick/plug-in to do that without having to use the eraser, because I keep trying there with the eraser but I always end screwing up

 

Thanks

Edited April 1, 2014 by coolboymew

[Pixey]

Hi Coolboy and Welcome to PDN.  If you are keeping your background colour, you can use the line tool and draw the same colour as the BG around the image.  Or, you could use the plugin called "AA's Assistant"  which will further reduce the lines without losing clarity.  Good luck

[coolboymew]

I'll try this, thanks

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Anime editing, now there's something I'm familiar with haha.

 

Alright, first you can try to smooth your edges with just plugins, which I will link at the bottom of this post. They might be all you need, since they will cause you're image's edges to recede. If it turns out you still don't like the uneven thicknesses of your image's edges, then undo your smoothing and use the line/curve tool like an eraser (explained below). Once you've taken care of the area's you don't like, run the smoothing plugins again.

 

Using line/curve tool.

Since I don't know your level of experience with paint.net, I'm just going to explain things using bullet points.

A note though, when the line/curve tool is used like an eraser, the edges are pretty pixlated (rough). Luckily that shouldn't be too much of a problem once the smoother plugins are run. The point of this is to tweak the uneven thicknesses.

• If you are using paint.net 3.5.11, choose the line/curve tool.
   
• Up in the tools options, which are just under the menu bar, change the brush width to what you are comfortable with.
  For your image and depending on how close you zoom in, anything from 3 to 8 is what I would use. Of course though, if it turns out you don't like the brush size, you can change it as needed (using the brackets  [   ]  on your keyboard also adjusts the size.) If you want, you can also change the style of the line's ends. I personally prefer "rounded".
   
• Next in the tool's options, find this icon : :BlendingEnabled: Change "Normal Blending" to "Overwrite" :BlendingOverwrite:
   
• Surprisingly many people don't realize the line/curve tool has two modes or how to use them, which is why I'm going to explain it to you. If you already know, then you can skip reading this. If you don't know the two modes, you may want to add a new layer to your image, and practice with them in normal blending before you try to overwrite with them
  Once you draw a line and see the nods, your next click will determine the mode.
  -- If you left click first, the line will move with the nods.
  -- While if you RIGHT CLICK first, the middle nods will pull the line to curve it. Right clicking produces better curves.

 

Smoothing Edges.

I usually first use Basic Antialias. Then I use Feather set to 3 or 4 (not old feather). And last I use AA's assistant. Using this combination gets me pretty nice edges.

 

Here are the plugins :

Basic Antialias -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=7644

Feather -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/2140-feather-plugin-now-with-source/

AA's assistant is part of this pack -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/16643-dpys-pack-2012-08-26/

Edited April 1, 2014 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles

[coolboymew]

http://puu.sh/7SwNG.png

Done!

When I'll be done with the other character the background will be transparent and the color will be handled by the HTML (it's for a website's background). Put a background because it looks better that way

Thanks for the tips and plug-ins

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Nice job.