Auto-Paint Keeps Balking

[JohnMayer]

I have a copy of Painter Essentials and am trying out the full version demo. Even after using Essentials, there is still a considerable learning curve that can’t be helping sales.

In the Essentials version when one assigns one of the auto-paint variations, either with a certain brush-stroke, or in the manner of van Gogh, that function runs until the entire canvas has been altered. With the full version it runs a few minutes and quits, most of the canvas untouched. If I restart it will take up again where it left off, but, at this rate, it will take hours of hovering near the computer; I can’t simply leave it running all night and find it completed in the morning.

I prefer the additional options in the full version. Is there some way I’ve overlooked of setting the “brush stroke cycle” to run until the canvas is covered, or, failing that, for a particular length of time?

Thanks.

Yours truly,

John Mayer

[Christine Farrelly]

The program usually just keeps going until you either click the stop button, click on the image or shift the focus away from the image by clicking on another image or window.

Christine

[JohnMayer]

Thanks, Christine. And that is, indeed, what I have seen in Painter Essentials, or, at least, the automatic brush work continues till the canvas is covered; it seems to stop at some point. At that point the art looks much like the original image until you look at an enlarged portion.

The full Painter demo, however, on my computer, does not do that. If I leave it auto-painting, close down all other programs and go to bed, I find in the morning that only a small additional area has been painted (I put it on Tracing Paper, so it’s easy to tell). It paints for maybe ten minutes each time, then quits. I have it set on the artist Sargent (only van Gogh is available on essentials). What I’ve gotten so far is pretty far afield of anything Sargent would have been willing to claim.

I would be happy to either be able to set it so it just keeps working till all “white” areas are covered (ideally beyond that, since the first pass is usually pretty rough), or, alternatively, just set an amount of time for it to process, an amount of time I’d, of course, especially as I am not familiar with Painter, simply have to guess at.

Yours truly,

John Mayer

[handrawn]

hi john

auto painting is not something I am familiar with - so I thought I'd check it out [painter 11], 'bout time I did

following the help - underpainting and quick masking first - I did not get any apparent problems provided, as Christine says, I kept focus in the program

I used van Gough - I'll try it with Sargent idc

is it possible to post up an example image that you are trying to paint - unlikely to be that in itself I would have thought, but you never know...

[handrawn]

ok

I tried it with sargent artists brush [default auto painting settings] and it stopped after around 12 minutes or so

The help section is not too helpful regarding what a brushstroke cycle actually is here, so I shall do some digging......

[handrawn]

seems like the whole idea may be to do this in stages - as per the tutorial here [link is to page 7]:

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pai...o-Painting.htm

I don't have painter essentials so I can't compare if there are differences between the way it and painter work

you will maybe get more specific help from a painter forum such as here:

http://painterfactory.com/Default.aspx

couple of other general links here:

http://www.corel.com/content/pdf/px/...John_Derry.pdf
http://www.macworld.co.uk/procreativ...chandate&print

hope this helps.. I've learnt a few new things..

[JohnMayer]

Thanks to all. This is my first experience with Painter, and probably my last. The program seems to be designed with fiendish cleverness to prevent a new user from performing the tasks most likely to draw someone to such a program. No doubt one can accomplish great things once they’ve mastered it, but the same could be said of medical school.

As to this PARTICULAR annoyance, further experimentation indicates Painter doesn’t actually QUIT auto-painting, it just uses successively smaller strokes, so that, ultimately, it is, we must presume, working on the subatomic level, thus only APPEARING not to be doing anything at all.

~ John Mayer

[handrawn]

ok - if its not for you, its not for you

did you ask around at painter factory?..[as I linked above]... as if you have a painter or painter essentials query that is the place to be

painter does a lot of things no other program will do, and it also does not compromise by trying to make simple and easy what is not simple and easy - like medical school in fact - yes

there are other programs around you can make 'paintings' of from photographs if that is what you want to do - and you already have essentials, the 'first-aid' version so to speak, no reason to go further for the sake of it I guess

good luck

[JohnMayer]

@Handrawn: Can't argue with if a., then a. But it COULD be for me and many thousands of others with, in my view, a bit of redesign. For example, there are at least four categories, maybe more, under which one can work with oils. Each one has a score or so of settings, each of those with sliders and values. I think I spent about half of my time just trying to find just the right setting, and then trying to maintain it (saving my variant wasn't enough).

There were times, though, when I had the setting just perfect, that it was great. With a Wacom tablet there were moments when it actually felt as though I were painting with oil. I could almost smell the linseed. But, of course, it was like painting with an oil brush tied to a curling stone, which would keep on painting across the painting well after my hand had stopped. Maybe you have to have a beefier computer to make use of Painter. Plus, it crashed several times; I know to save often, but it was still a hassle, especially the first time when I didn't understand reestablishing the clone source.

Yes, I understand that so many variations in media are going to mean elaborate programming and a somewhat complex interface. But I really, truly believe a simpler interface is possible and that Corel is passing up a huge share of a possible market by not addressing that (any review of Painter always warns of a STEEP learning curve). Essentials is, indeed, much simpler (which beguiled me into trying the full version), but not really all that useful, lacking many of Painter's features. Perhaps something like the van Gogh auto-paint setting, but much subtler, with the option of a little touch-up by hand, would be just the ticket. If you know of other paint programs which would meet my goal of adding just a little brushwork, I'd appreciate learning of them.

[handrawn]

you could try artweaver:

http://www.artweaver.de/

you would need the artweaver plus version cost 25 euros - with a demo tryout, which if I remember right is for 14 days

[It has artists brushes and scripts]