Im trying to draw small buttons and small backgrounds and Im using photoshop but I find it very difficult to work with photoshop on pixel art. Do other people experience this, or am I just too new to photoshop to know how to work stuff? If photoshop is very good for pixel art can someone please give me a rundown basics of how to do it, or point me to a tutorial. If therse a better program could someone suggest it?
A lot is just how comfertable you are with the program. Be sure you're using the pencil tool or un-antialiased line tool. If you're one to often change an image around, PS isn't the best. Most people that use it for pixeling have a lot of experence with pixeling before using PS.
I agree it's probably not the ideal tool for pixel art, but it's not a bad program for that matter either. I personally use GraphicsGale (http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/) as it's designed for pixel art. Still, as Evil said, as long as you're working with a single-pixel pencil tool, it's hard to go wrong - and Photoshop has a handful of nice features that most 'lesser' programs don't.
I never figured out how to animate in photoshop, mind you, so if you're making character sprites eventually, that might end up tripping you up ultimately. It's handier to have something with multiple frames and an onion-skin option. Regardless, once you've zoomed in to 300 or more percent, the principle's the same.
I use photoshop for EVERY thing I do. I find it very easy to use for pixel art.
Granted I've been using Photoshop for over a decade, so I'm very comfortable with it.
If you're new to pixel art, and new to photoshop, I can understand that it would be difficult.
I don't think Photoshop is that hard to use for pixelling. I actually started pixel graphics with it (well okay, I started with MSPaint, but didn't everybody?) and learned it quite quickly. Sometimes I use both Graphics Gale and Photoshop for my pics.
I started with MSPaint and then moved to Photoshop, I don't understand what Evil is saying in the slightest but.. differen't strokes!
http://kafkaskoffee.com/tutorials/hirestut.shtml
here's an old old tutorial I wrote that should help you understand photoshop a little better.
Caine: Imageready that comes with photoshop is what I do all my animating in, might want to check it out.
Eric
Ah, yes. Imageready. Unfortunately, I only own Photoshop Elements, so it's all bare bones for me. Still, I do use photoshop for resizing scanned images that I translate into sprites (Also, consequentially, something I learned off of Eric's site). Not to mention that I don't really have the RAM to run two adobe products on my computer at the same time.
And speaking of that tutorial, what ever happened to the RON game that tutorial refers to? Also - sorry for all the tangents - I don't see a navigation bar on your site at the moment, or I'd have linked the sprite tutorial myself.
the server broke and it deleted everything, now have to wait for AGA to fix the site so my shtml works.
The RON game is still being worked on, just hard to find the time/motivation. It's almost done and it is sexy.
Just a note on Elements. I'm using Elements 1 and it'll export a .gif animation. Using layers with transparency and .gif exporting, it's *almost* decent. Damn, I need to go to something a little higher-end.
I use Paint Shop Pro 7 for pixelling and just about anything else, and it does everything I want. I get the feeling that PS is little different, so it's probably just the way you use it. If you don't already, try using a 1px 100% opaque brush, and use layers for objects at different depths. With layers you can draw an animatable object onto your background, and then just make more layers on top for different stages in the animation, so that you can always compare it with the background. I'm no professional artist, but that's how I do things.
For GraphicsGale tutorial goto : http://www.solidussoft.tk
I made a tutorial on pixelart backgrounds with GraphicsGale. Goodluck with it!
From the screenshots I see graphics gale does look easier to use then PS, Im sure PS would be great if I really got into learning it, but if there's an easier alternative I'd rather do that.Ã, Graphics gale doesnt appear to be free however, I dont really want to buy another program and all it offers is a 30 day shareware.Ã, Did those of you who use graphics gale purchase it, or is there something I'm missing?
What I mean about photoshop is Im sure there's a way to do things like onion skins and such to see animations, and easier ways to edit the pixels that are much less frustrating then how I've been going about it. But photoshop is so gigantic its really difficult to learn, and learning it would take away from time I could either play games or do AGS, and I'd really rather be working on my actual game then tinkering around with the pictures.
which is why I posted the tutorial I wrote, follow that and you'll know everything you'll need to know to pixel with photoshop.
besides, if you start using Graphics Gale you'll have to learn that program anyway.
My advice for photoshop is to learn the keyboard shortcuts, youll find you'll be able to do things a lot quicker than with a mouse.
Quote from: MrColossal on Tue 04/10/2005 05:59:38I don't understand what Evil is saying in the slightest but.. differen't strokes!
My point was it doesn't matter what program you're using if you don't know how to pixel well. If you can't drive well then what does it matter if you drive a car or truck?
Most people start with MSPaint before then move up to something bigger like PS. It's a lot easier to know how to pixel and have some idea of what you are going to pixelate before you mess around with transparencies, layers, auto-a.a., etc.
what I ment was this "If you're one to often change an image around, PS isn't the best."
confused me.
I'm not really a big fan of Photoshop for pixel art, and I've been using programs for it since the late 80's...blah blah yackity schmackity....ramble...snort...Oh yeah, my point.
Ever since I moved away from the Amiga (with much sadness ;<) to the pc world I was looking for that 'perfect' DPaint IV clone. I found it in Pro Motion about six years ago and haven't looked back since. It doesn't require any 'setting up' or tutorials to pixel with, so if Photoshop confuses you I highly recommend it. Just buy, open it, click on the screen and you're there (course there's a bit more to it than that, but the controls are so monumentally easy to use you shouldn't have any trouble). That's not to say I dislike Photoshop; I use it for alot of touch up, layer and filter effects, and it's great for nice looking fonts- but it was never created specifically as a pixelling tool, and therefore you will find other programs designed for only doing pixel art that do the job better and with less stress. Pro Motion is such a product. I am NOT a cosmigo whore, I am NOT a cosmigo whore, I am NOT...
For beginners in pixel art, those who might change large aspects of their art, Photoshop can be hard, with the automated blurring and transparencies and the liking.
Paint Shop Pro, Paint Shop Pro, Paint Shop Pro... best art program ever ^_^
As far as GraphicsGale being a commercial program, I indeed shelled out the (about) 20 bucks that it cost after getting myself hooked on it around the beginning of the ATC this year (Granted, it was my first venture into sprite art, and that usually tends to be the one people stick with).
It's nice and inexpensive, but if 20 bucks is still too much, Human Balance also offers a free version here (http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/download.html) with .gif, .ico, .cur and .ani functionality removed. My advice as always is that if you're going to buy any program, try out the 30 day trial, and if you don't think it's worth it, try something else. I thought the price was right, and I have a credit card of my own, so I went for it.
If you're going to pay for an art program specifically for sprite art, though, it sure beats the hell out of paying four times as much for Paint Shop Pro, or 30 times as much for Photoshop (Though I suppose you already have that one).
Thanks a lot MrCollossal, those tutorials are erally helpful. I check them out earlier but the site was down or something, Im no where near as good an artist as you are but I think I can at least learn some PS and artistics tips from those tutorials.
Kinoko, can't you list a few things that actually make PSP better than PS?
It's not like I don't think it can be done, I'm just curious.
It will also make a much better post than just repeating "paint shop pro, paint shop pro, paint shop pro" :)
Mmmmm... I've discussed a lot about PSP and PS. The conclussion is that PS is a little little bit better, but not enough to change if you've learned with PSP.
Also, PSP is cheaper (not a big difference since we all have our copies for ages...)
So... The "mothership" products of adobe or Jasc software are very good, as usual when talking of "motherships" of marks, no matter if you're talking of bikes, cars... No need to make a lot of buzz discussing about this, both are good.
I've used PSP 5 for a couple years now. It works fine for me. The only problem I encountered is that you can't resize or rotate images without a whole lot of anti-aliasing. That sucks if you want to animate pixel art by rotating legs or arms. People have told me that you can turn off anti-aliasing, but it sounds like it's just in the post version 5 packages.
If you're doing general pixel art, there really shouldn't be a big difference between programs. A good pencil or 1 pixel pen, a magic wand/lasso, line tools and the use of layers is pretty much everything you need.
I use pro motion too. Progz finds the interface easy to use but it's because he knew dpaint and pm is a clone of that. Otherwise it's quite confusing for a newbie. Best place to start is Graphics Gale. PSP is good too. Unless you're really serious about pixel art, you'll never have to go to pro motion. Ggale is even better for animating that pro motion is because it has layers ( but pmotion has animbrushes! woo ). New version of pro motion will have layers too though so neat. Avoid photoshop for pixelling regardless of what eric says. He can't change all the pixels of x colour with y colour in just a few clicks, can he? If you need just one generic art program for non-professionals, PSP. one program just for pixel art but not really serious, graphics gale. One program for all your pixel art needs and ambitions: pro motion.
I love you, Helm. But I still think Pro Motion is fairly easy to use. Maybe I'll give Graphics Gale a once-over and see what I think of it.
Quote from: Helm on Wed 05/10/2005 20:58:35Avoid photoshop for pixelling regardless of what eric says. He can't change all the pixels of x colour with y colour in just a few clicks, can he?
Are you kidding? (I'm afraid I don't know your humor)
It's quite easy to do color replacements in Photoshop. Especially while doing pixel art (with no anti-aliasing). In fact, it can be done with only two clicks!
Sorry ... I get protective of Photoshop ;)
I already explained to Helm once how to do that in PS (and you have more than one way, depending on how flexible/fast you want it to be), he just doesn't want to realise PS is better than PSP for everything, including pixel art!
an Ms pain man myself, I love the curve tool. and colour selection is SO easy. and the fact all I got is that and artgem, makes me a mspaintin' man ;)
As a longtime PSP user, I'd like to ask if there are any significant and useful features in PS that PSP lacks. I don't say this to be argumentative, it's just that I don't have deep experience with PS, so I'm genuinely curious.
Ok ive figured out the basics of photoshop with the keyboard shortcuts and all.Ã, As for imageready, I managed to make multiple frames by hitting the animation toolbar and then duplicating frames, is this the correct way to do it?
Also, how do you work easily with more then one image at once, I currently have to hit the window button and then click on other images, whereas it would be nice to have some of them side by side to see how then will look together.
Is pro motion really limited to 256 colours?
I was so happy when I stopped having to worry about that limitation back in 1997.
Yes, it's 8-bit, but that's part of what makes it so good for sprite work imo (I've always found working from a palette to be so much nicer than color pickers). I'm not really sure you need more than 256 unique colors for a game background either, but if you do then pro motion isn't for you.
pixel art is about limited palettes. if you don't care how many colours you're using, chances are, you don't need 'dedicated' pixel art software. You're just taking it easy, which is totally fine, but doesn't call for anything of pro motion caliber.
Darth, I'm not kidding. I'm half-joking about the colour replacement, which is stupid in PS still. You can't even see the indexed palette for christ's sake and select colours from there. in psp there's an actual COLOUR REPLACER tool. come on, scotch, tell me how I can replace 50% dither of that colour with this other colour while doing brushwork. Not all instances of colour a, but while drawing with patterns.
I was just about to write what Helm said. Limited colours. Once you are serious with pixel pushing you will find that 256 colours is more than enough. Ã Ât might seem that high colour count doesn't matter at all nowadays but for example doing gfx for a mobile java game means you have to fit all the graphics and animations into about 50 kB. Now there every colour saved counts.
Even though I am doing graphics commercially, I am still guilty of not tuning my palettes properly and sometimes I resort to techniques that are not considered "right" by pixel purists. Yes, I mostly use PSP 7 and I consider it a great tool even for pixelart.
But I highly recommend trying Grafx2. It does just about everything a pixel artist needs and it is fairly similar to legendary Deluxe Paint from old Amiga ages. And it is FREE!
You may get it for example here:
http://www.topshareware.com/Grafx2-download-11930.htm
I've used paint shop pro before, but i have to say i much prefer photoshop, it just has a lot more depth in the things you can do with it.
Not that I have a point to this, but I still find that the Amiga was the greatest showcase for pixel art ever. The many hundreds of demos produced for it constantly amazed me by the sheer level of detail they were able to get out of 32-256 colors- but don't let me convince you, have a look at some screenshots from a few games and demos.
http://amiga.art.free.fr/graph/planches_screenshots/ecrans_titres_amiga07.jpg
http://amiga.art.free.fr/graph/planches_screenshots/ecrans_titres_amiga09.jpg
(some of these are scans and some are not. You may be surprised about which ones are not)
http://amiga.art.free.fr/graph/planches_screenshots/demo_scene_amiga05.jpg
Would anyone know which game is this image from?
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/hmmm1m.png)