Essentials Cafe

I recently got a copy of corel painter essentials 4 and Im having real trouble working with it. I am fluent with photoshop, but i have never used corel before.
The main thing Im having difficulty with is that Ive found that light colours do not come out on top of dark colours, unless i use a thick paint, which isnt great for doing soft highlights, and the opacity doesnt work the way i would expect either, ie at 50% its still a solid colour....
So i was wondering if i might have a setting wrong or something? ive not changed anything from installation.
Its very confusing to have a turquoise pencil come out dark brown on a light brown background, I really hope someone can help me understand so i can get back to painting, I miss it very much :(

Ella

>X<
 

Sutmae Ella, and welcome, hope you will become a regular here. I am also fluent in photoshop and thought similar to you when using painter but it goes like this - Photoshop doesnt act as proper paint with its brushes, painter does. You can use layers in essentials though which might work for what you want to do, i havent tried or should i say, noticed this when using layers but will have a go. Its a different way of working but you will get used to it, and will love it.

I am not the best person to be advising you about this, as I am not on top of Painter 4 myself by any means. Do you know about drying watercolour before adding colour over the top of it? I'm sure there is an explanation of that in the Help section. Also some of the paint modes don't work together, just as they would not if you were using real watercolour, oil, chalk etc. I am only finding these things out slowly by experimenting. I think it does take a while to get used to this application, don't be put off. Perhaps someone a bit more knowledgable will reply to you on this subject.

 thank you :)

I have been experimenting with layers, i think it might depends on which brush you have open when you create a layers as to how colours will behave in that layer, which is kinda weird tbh, alot of things are a bit strange, but like you say, im sure i will get used to it. Its been a long time since I worked with traditional media in colour, which i guess is why im having so much trouble really, its a completely different way of thinking to the photoshop painting i was so used to. Maybe a little dabbling in the traditional medias once again will help me get my head around it  :)

>X< 

Hi ella and welcome to the forum.

It can be a bit confusing at times when you first start but there is an excellent tutorial in the help section which should help you to find your way around the interface.

I haven't been able to re-create the problems you are having and so far all my brushes have applied the currant colour over the top of the previous one, albeit at times changing the colour just like traditional mediums would.

The other option is to work in layers, I often do this as it means I can revert back to an earlier stage if I make a mess of any one stage, by simply deleting that layer. I can also compare different versions of the same image by switching on and off the different layers.

Another way of doing soft highlights can be to use the erasor or the dodge tool at low opacity and then blend the edges.

I'm sure you will soon find yourself flying with this programme once you start to find your way around it. I look forward to seeing some of your work once you do so.

Ella, as you have noticed, how a brush "paints" on a layer depends on the type of brush you are using. So, as you mentioned, the behaviour of a pencil is different than the behaviour of a "Thick Paint Brush". Different media act differently from each other in the hopes that they would behave in a way that you would expect from traditional media, but obviously, from your post we are not meeting that goal for you.

 If you open your Layers palette in the Drawing & Painting area and you create a new layer, depending on which media you first paint with on a layer, the Layer Type icon (the one that looks like stacked pieces of paper) may change to a red colour eg: it changes to red if you first paint on a new layer with a pencil. Whereas if you create a new layer, paint on it with a "Thick Paint" brush and then draw with a pencil, you will notice that the Layer Type icon stays grey and depending on what you have beneath that layer, you may notice some white jagginess around your pencil stroke. This is because of the "Layer Mode" that is being set in the background depending on the media you are using. We have not exposed the Layer Mode control to the user because Layer Modes can be complicated to understand, instead we tried to focus on having the media "just work" as you would expect it to.

So, all this to say that in order to leave a stroke with the colour intensity that you are looking for you may need to use a brush instead of a pencil.

I hope this helps. Please keep experimenting and don't hesitate to let me know when you come across anything else that doesn't "feel right" to you.

Thanks
Jennifer

Welcome to our forum Ella, using a new programme is confusing at first, being a typical male (who thinks he doesn't need an instruction manual) I came unstuck a few times, at first I got myself into a flat spin, but I see Jennifer has addressed your problems, because you had the sense to ask a question. Hang on in there Ella, and soon you will master the programme and make it do whatever you desire, in the meantime I look forward to your first artwork.

Thank you so much everybody, you have all been incredibly helpful, I cant wait to test out a new way of working digitally.

Im insanely busy at the moment, so im sorry this reply is a little lacking, I will be getting back to u all in more depth as soon as i get the chance.

Take care, and happy painting!

Ella

>X< 

Hi, Ella! I've sometimes experienced your problem of color blending. This is caused by the natural transparency of the mediium you are using. If you want to lay, say, a light yellow over a blue without getting green in pencil, you can simply change the medium. Usually, in a case like this, I switch to a gouache brush at 100% opacity, (like if I want to add a highlight to a bird's eye.) The others are right; Essentials just behaves as the true medium does. By the way, if you want to dry your watercolor, click on: "canvas"; at the bottom of the drop menu you will see "dry watercolor". click on that! It helps when adding a new watercolor stroke in reducing transparency. When working in colored pencil, you can add the paper texture first, and then adjust the grain to show more paper on the stroke of the pencil. stroke as lightly as you can if you want colors light. I prefer, myself, to use autopaint with random strokes with the colored pencil; the computer can stroke a lot lighter than I can! Hope I was of help to you!