Paper selection

[Sqig]

I'm sure I'm doing something stupid (as usual) but I can't get the paper I select, for instance Italian Watercolour paper to have any effect whatsoever with my brush strokes, using a watercolour brush, or any other type of brush for that matter.Is there some step I'm missing I just open a new sheet and select the paper from the drop down menu.I can choose any of the papers and nothing happens.I'm using Painter 8 by the way.

[molucca]

Effects/ Apply Surface Texture

You would select the paper type from the paper palette.

Rich

[Sqig]

Thanks Molucca...That seems to do the trick.Now having fiddled with the settings a bit I'm less than impressed with the effect.Do you have any tricks that make it more realistic?....One method that I got from another forum, used after the painting has been done was to make a new layer as an overlay and then after filling the new layer with white choosing the paper and applying the texture by way of the "express texture" command.Trial and error with this after the fact method gets a fairly realistic looking paper.Can the "new" paper approach you just described come up with as good results, from your experience.See attached example.

[Jinny Brown]

I'm sure I'm doing something stupid (as usual) but I can't get the paper I select, for instance Italian Watercolour paper to have any effect whatsoever with my brush strokes, using a watercolour brush, or any other type of brush for that matter.Is there some step I'm missing I just open a new sheet and select the paper from the drop down menu.I can choose any of the papers and nothing happens.I'm using Painter 8 by the way.

Hi,

While Rich's suggestion to use the Apply Surface Texture Effect is one way to add texture to an image, it needs to be done with discretion as it can tend to flatten an image to a single plane if applied too fiercely to the overall image or even when applied too many times to the same area.

Here are three demo images showing what happens when Apply Surface Texture is used on the background, painting is done, then Apply Surface Texture is used again on the entire image:

Apply Surface Texture Used on Background:

http://www.pixelalley.com/painterfor...ture_demo1.jpg

Painting Added to Background:

http://www.pixelalley.com/painterfor...ture_demo2.jpg

Apply Surface Texture Used Again on both Painting and Background:

http://www.pixelalley.com/painterfor...ture_demo3.jpg

As you can see, a few things happened with the second application of Apply Surface Texture:

• The painted area no longer produces the illusion of "roundness" or form. Instead, it looks as if the semi dried paint had been stamped down into background with some kind of textured object (or stepped on).
• Texture on the background is now doubled, and is now rather harsh and unnatural looking.
• The difference in amount of texture on the background and on the painted area is, if only subconsiously, puzzling and distracting. If the viewer is conscious of this distraction, he/she might wonder "How would that happen in real life painting?". It probably wouldn't unless the artist was deliberately using unusual methods to produce unusual effects.

While all of these sometimes unwanted results, and more, can be used effectively when the artist wants special/unusual effects, if you're going for a natural painting effect that simulates commonly used media (i.e. oils, acrylics, watercolor, chalk, charcoal, pastels, etc.), it's probably best to understand what to watch out for that might give you less than desirable results.



What you're asking about anyway, is how to produce the illusion of Paper texture when painting.

Here are a few things that affect whether or not texture is visible in your brushstrokes:

Is the brush variant one that interacts with Paper texture? If you don't know, first restore all brush variants in the currently loaded brush library to their default state (Brush Selector menu > Restore All Default Variants). Then open the Brush Creator, Stroke Designer tab. Open the General section and check to see if the brush variant's Subcategory name contains the word "Grainy" If it does, that brush variant should interact with the currently selected Paper.

Some brush variants will show Paper texture in brushstrokes to a greater degree than others. To control how much a brush variant shows Paper texture in its brushstrokes, adjust the following brush controls:

General section:

• Grain slider
• Grain Expression options (drop down list)

To control how much and in what ways a Paper will show its texture:

Choose a Paper that comes closest to having the degree of texture you want. Some are more "flat" (i.e. Fine Hard Grain, Smooth Handmade Paper) and some have more distinct texture (i.e.Woven Paper, Simulated Woodgrain).

To enhance the Paper's texture, adjust the Papers palette controls:

• Paper Scale
• Paper Contrast
• Paper Brightness.

If Grain Expression is set to Pressure, it may also help to adjust your Brush Tracking Preferences by opening the Brush Tracking Preferences and painting a brushstroke on the scratch pad using your normal hand pressure.

[Sqig]

Thanks Jinny,
That helps a lot...One last observation with your example.The texture effect is clearly evident, but the effect I was hoping to get was more about how the paper absorbs the paint.As you know different papers in real life gather and reject paint at different levels froming tiny pools of pigment and more open almost white space.Is that an unrealistic effect to strive for with Painter?

[Jinny Brown]

Hi,

I should explain, though it's probably obvious from the way they look, the demo images above weren't related to simulating watercolor effects, just to ways of adding texture in general.

No, it's not unrealistic to strive for that watercolor effect and if you can learn to use Painter 7, Painter 8, and/or Painter IX (IX 9.1 and IX.5) Watercolor (rather than Digital Water Color) I think you'll find you have a better chance of getting that effect.

If you can show us some examples on the Web of the kinds of effects you want to achieve, it'll be easier to tell you if we know, or have figured out, how to create those effects.

Painter's Digital Watercolor (Painter 8 and Painter IX, IX 9.1, and IX.5) are more simplistic and not so much designed to simulate traditional watercolor, though many people prefer Digital Watercolor over Watercolor. I like both Watercolor and Digital Watercolor for different reasons and some Painter artists use a combination of both of these brush categories on a single painting.

Basically, if you want to get a pooled edge effect and some others with either of these brush categories, it's going to take some understanding of how the brush variants work and some trial and error time to get enough experience to learn how to paint the kind of effects you want. Some of it will come easily, some not so easily but if you have traditional watercolor experience, you'll be ahead of others who don't have that experience. Even though Painter's Water Color brushes are digital, the Corel Painter developers have worked hard to make them simulate traditional media as much as is possible with today's technology.

There's a Visual Guide written by John Derry that should help you get a more clear idea of how Painter 8 Water Color brush variants work and how they interact, in their own ways, with Paper textures:

Visual Guide to Water Color (.pdf, 476 KB)


And another Visual Guide by John Derry that explains Digital Water Color:

Visual Guide to Digital Water Color (.pdf, 223 KB)


Something that's fun to experiment with, too, is to choose an existing image that's not already heavily textured or has no texture already, and:

NOTE: Depending on the currently selected Water Color variant and currently selected Paper, the results can be anything from subtle to extreme so it's important to do enough experimenting to know what to expect. That way, you won't find yourself in a pickle running out of time to complete an image that needs to be finished by a specific time.

1. Choose File > Clone.

2. Save the Clone with a unique name.

3. Close the original image.

4. Working on the Clone, in the Layers palette menu, choose Lift Canvas to Water Color Layer.

5. In the Layers palette menu, choose Wet Entire Water Color Layer.

Take a look at this page for an example of a painting on which I used this technique:

Resize an Image Upward, Lift Canvas to Watercolor Layer, Wet Entire Watercolor Layer

If you take time to read the text on that page, you'll learn another reason or two why using this technique can be helpful.

[Sqig]

Thanks Jinny, that John Derry tutorial was VERY helpful.