Photoshop is driving me nuts! (anti-alias problem)

[bspeers]

Is it just me, or is photoshop terrible for pixel art?

I'm trying to make a juggling character for a game I'm making (it stars the character I play in a real-life juggling show), which involves a rotating chainsaw, sword and juggling ball.

Unfortunately, paint doesn't handle simple rotation well--photoshop is the only program I have which allows mutliple layers for adjusting the trajectory of each object, but it has a problem.  Anti-alias! What a bummer for any transparant background--since shades of the background are replicated around the edge of every manipulated object, even when on an entirely different layer.

I have scoured the help file's index and seach engine, turned off anti-alias on every single available menu (for each major tool), but still it leaves those little colour lines all over my artwork, effectively ruining it.  And I can't stand the action of having to re-outline everything every time I move it (the colour selector can't select the difference between the anti-aliased colour and black even at tolerance 10, meaning selecting all the colour at once is virtually impossible without leaving even more work than with the pixel-by-pixel replacement.

So my question to all you great AGS artists is this: is there any way to turn off anti-alias when doing things like rotation, effects, etc?  If so, how?  If not, any suggestions on an equally robust program that will actually do what I want?  I just want to be able to rotate objects to precise co-ordinates without them getting little mixed colour outlines.

Thanks to all and any who can help.

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

Which version? ._.

[Darth Mandarb]

Duplicate the image (CTRL-I-D if you're using it on a Windows platform).  Get rid of all frames but the one that has the object you wish to rotate.  Convert the image to Indexed Color.  This will flatten the image and take away the transparent background (if you were using one) but that doesn't matter.

Using the wand select the background (which should then outline your object) and select inverse (CTRL-SHIFT-I) and that should make your object the only thing selected.

Then hit CTRL-T to 'Free Transform' the object.  This way, when you rotate it, it should leave the colors alone and forget to anti-alias.  But don't do this technique with anything too detailed, because with out anti-aliasing you'll lose some of the details.

Then, once rotated to where you want, just copy it back into your master template.

Hope that helps!
dm

Disclaimer:
Remember to duplicate your file first. Darth Mandarb accepts no responsibility for lost or damaged photoshop files

[bspeers1000]

Thanks to Darth -- I'll try that (soon)
To OTG : 6.  I also have a machine with 7 I sometimes use, but right now it's 6.

Completely legal, of course...

Thanks for all the help.  I'll report back if that works.  It's too bad you can't turn off anti-alias in general in non-indexed styles though--seems like an obvious preference to remove sometimes.

[Darth Mandarb]

bspeers - there probably is a way to do it the way you said, but I could never find it.  I've had the same problem  before and the way I suggested was just about the only thing I could come up with that works!  Let me know how it works out for you!


dm

[Esseb]

There is a way to make PS completely non-anti-aliased. AGD#1 or 2 mentioned it in a thread a month or so back. Search through their most recent posts. They don't post much so it should be the most recent.

[bspeers]

EDIT: it works!!!!

I haven't tested this yet, but it appears to be accurate so far (did what he said):

"Press CTRL+K to go to General Preferences (Or click the Edit menu/Preferences/General).

Change the "Interpolation" box to 'Nearest Neighbor' for non-antialiased edges when using the free transform tool and other similar tools etc."


Thanks for the tip, Esseb.  Took me a looong time, but I found that little quote.

[scotch]

PS is fine for pixel art, people just don't look at stuff :|

Use the pencil, not the brush.. (click and hold on the brush icon), turn the resampling thing to Nearest Neighbor in preferences so things aren't antialised when you rotate stuff.. also to rotate, scale, skew parts of an image select it and press ctrl+t..
If an sprite is already antialiased around the edges one way to imprive it is to select the area around it with 0 tolerance, then expand the selection by a pixel or two and delete the selection.

(Annie didn't even notice the pencil tool and she's used if for ages..)

[Darth Mandarb]

I've always known the pencil tool and not the brush for pixel art.

[sarcasm]
But sure, everybody should know to change interpolation from Bicubic to Nearest Neighbor ... it's so freakin' obvious!
[/sarcasm

cheers,
dm