Lighten/Darken pixels or selection?

[paul_nicholls]

Hi all,

I have done a search on the forums, and looked at the "Popular Feature Requests" list but I can't seem to find out if this is possible (or even requested).

I have played around with Tilestudio (http://tilestudio.sourceforge.net/), a free program that amongst other things allows one to make tiles (or sprites).

Two of the painting commands allow drawing over pixels to lighten or darken them - which I find extremely useful for doing shading, etc.

Is there anyway of doing this sort of thing in Paint.NET instead? It would be good if it works with more than just the pencil tool - lines, selections, etc. as well.

I feel it would be also quite useful to be able to lighten or darken the currently selected drawing colour (primary or secondary colours) when painting, perhaps using the + or - keys or similar.

This would, in my opinion, be another very useful trick to do shading, etc. without having to pick a lighter/darker colour from the palette manually.

cheers,

Paul

[Ash]

If I understand you correctly.

You will have to set layer's blending mode on the top layer and draw on that top layer.

PDN does not have a lighten/darken brush at the moment.

[willgoss]

Most often, I pick the easy way........

I make a selection, then use curves to lighten or darken the color...or even adjust the RG or B color.......found it effective for faces, hair and sometimes backgrounds.....

[paul_nicholls]

@Ash: thanks, but I think that is too fiddly for my liking.

@willgoss: an interesting method, but I am having trouble with moving the curve to do just simple lightening/darkening.

Thanks for the info guys :-)

PS: Do you think I should start a new feature request thread for this feature?

cheers,

Paul

[oma]

are you meaning just lighten the color but keep to the same shade?

way I do that is

original picture bottom layer.

add new transparent layer name black

add new transparent layer name white

adjust transparency down a bit on the layers

paint the pixels you want to change with primary black on one layer

and the pixels you wish to lighten white on the next you will automatically get lighter and darker shades of the original color. lightnes and darkness depending on amount of transparency on level.

note this is why I require ability to see where I'm painting when using brushes. !