Frankenspriting Workshop

[BlueScope]

Well, I'm not sure how PSP would do it, but the pencil in Photoshop locks to both guides and grid if you set it up that way (you would do that in the View > Snap To menu). Now if you choose to have a 1x1 grid, it would snap to the grid lines, however that somewhat resembles the default behaviour of the pencil...
What you're probably talking about is the brush, which aliases edges and always gets blurry even at a feather of 0%, which is obviously not suitable for spriting. Try switching to the pencil tool, and play around with that

 

[Skyla Doragono]

No, I wasn't. In my experience working with the pencil tool, I'd be hovering the cursor over where I want the pixel to be, click, and end up with the result either above, to the side, or below, because the cursor was just a hair off, and it didn't look that way to me. With PSP, the cursor looks like the cursor in RMXP/VX while mapping, so it's really easy to tell exactly where your color is going to be plopped.

C'mon, BlueScope, give me a little credit please. I'm not a nooblet. :|;;

 

[Perihelion]

Personally I prefer programs that are specifically designed for pixel art, such as GraphicsGale (which, by the way, is free). Using Photoshop for pixel art is like using a cannon to kill a mouse. The pencil doesn't annoy me, but having to disable anti-aliasing on everything does, and more importantly you can't just switch colors or right-click or something to erase if you want to preserve transparency. I love Photoshop, but I find the interface to not be streamlined for pixel art.

But lots of great pixel artists use Photoshop, although I don't know how personally. Ultimately any program with palette control and preferably layers will work for pixel art, so use whatever you're most comfortable with. Imo it's worth at least trying a program made for pixeling, though.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

I'll have to check out GraphicsGale and see if it's a good substitute for PSP on newer computers. The transparency issue when copying from one image to another is starting to drive me nuts. >>;

 

[Perihelion]

GraphicsGale definitely has its quirks, but I really like it despite that. One great feature it has is that you can set anything to any key shortcut that you want. I've been meaning to learn Pro Motion, since apparently that's what the pros use (and GG is pretty shitty for animation tbh; no onion-skinning), but I've been too lazy so far.

 

[Skyla Doragono]

Hm... well, I can't say that I like how the pallet is, but there are ways to circumvent that. It does work better on newer OSes, and I like the fact that the color you have selected is your cursor. I just gave it a curtosy look right now, so I need to play with it more. But it doesn't seem like a bad sub for PSP9.

 

[BlueScope]

@Skyla: Heh, I didn't try to call you noob really... Still, someone can be a good and experienced spriter, yet never worked with Photoshop, so you simply wouldn't know. No offense ^^

That being said, let me show you a screenshot of PSCS5's default settings if you just plop a few strokes on the canvas (mouse used for this example). Since it's a giant image, let's just link it.

What I enabled in there is he new-to-CS5 (or maybe even CS4... don't really remember) pixel raster, which will give you a natural 1x1 grid. You can still achieve the very same effect with only slightly different appearance with previous versions by setting your regular grid to 1x1 in the preferences.
The pixels draw perfectly, don't alias, are well-placed, and in general I can't find a single reason why this would be any flawed. But yeah, maybe it's me not seeing the problem, as I'm really not spriting most of the time ^^ (by the way, I actually am interested in resolving the issue one way or another... I don't mean to go "you are wrong!" or anything... just saying).

 

[glorious caesar]

sorry folks. real men use ms paint :pissed:

 

[Skyla Doragono]

@Skyla: Heh, I didn't try to call you noob really... Still, someone can be a good and experienced spriter, yet never worked with Photoshop, so you simply wouldn't know. No offense ^^

That being said, let me show you a screenshot of PSCS5's default settings if you just plop a few strokes on the canvas (mouse used for this example). Since it's a giant image, let's just link it.

What I enabled in there is he new-to-CS5 (or maybe even CS4... don't really remember) pixel raster, which will give you a natural 1x1 grid. You can still achieve the very same effect with only slightly different appearance with previous versions by setting your regular grid to 1x1 in the preferences.
The pixels draw perfectly, don't alias, are well-placed, and in general I can't find a single reason why this would be any flawed. But yeah, maybe it's me not seeing the problem, as I'm really not spriting most of the time ^^ (by the way, I actually am interested in resolving the issue one way or another... I don't mean to go "you are wrong!" or anything... just saying).

It's okay, I forget myself sometimes.

Ah, see, I'm back on CS3Extended. I'll have to play with it more often to see if I can get the same settings.

 

[Perihelion]

Hm... well, I can't say that I like how the pallet is, but there are ways to circumvent that. It does work better on newer OSes, and I like the fact that the color you have selected is your cursor. I just gave it a curtosy look right now, so I need to play with it more. But it doesn't seem like a bad sub for PSP9.

As a protip, always work in 256c mode for pixels. This binds the colors to the palette, so you can tweak the palette in the palette box and the colors in the image change. I like GG's palette. I found my color use got a lot better once I started using the RGB sliders liberally.

The only thing that's annoying is that there's no easy way to sample all the colors in an image and transfer them to the palette box, which means you have to manually set up colors if you want to do frankenspriting. That's annoying, and I would probably just use Photoshop's magic wand for recolors. But GG is great for pixels from scratch.

 

[Venetia]

as for the PSP:Photoshop debate, I've always been privvy to PSP9 for pixelling. Why, when it's such an incredibly incredibly old prog?

Well,
- changing grid & guides is a 2-step process, with no guesswork. select the grid button from the menu, then set the numbers. done.
(it can potentially be a 1-step process if you set a script to do it for you)
in photoshop, there are several more steps involved, and i just find it a little frustrating, esp when toggling between having no grid and having one.
(it boils down to the fact that PS flat out has more features and thus, more buttons & menus. but in pixelling you dont need all that bullshit.)

- atemu is right; even in cs5, where you click may not necessarily be where the pencil decides to fart out a pixel or set the selection boundary.

- setting the paintbrush's & selection tool's settings in PSP requires a quick little blow-through of the options console at the top of the screen. super simple to change on the fly. don't even have to expand menus or jack diddly. in photoshop, there are more features, which is great for everything else, but adds extra steps and menus to toggle to get to the damn settings you want.

- colorpicking is a fucking chore in photoshop. it's more PRECISE in PS, but you can build simple palettes etc in PSP and experiment using the on-screen color selector. again, not a lot of menus etc. to navigate through.

- making & editing scripts in PSP is MUCH MUCH MUCH simpler than making complex sets of Actions in PS.

- copying & pasting in PSP doesn't automatically create a new layer. aaaa fuck how i hate that functionality in PS when pixelling.

- hitting [ctrl]+[z] in PSP = undo. in PS, it's undo the 1st time, then you have to add in [alt] to do backwards-through-history steps. wtf, that has always bothered me

- it's always seemed like the magic wand algorithms in PSP were somehow smarter & less picky at color selecting than what I deal with in PS.

i've never been fond of GG's GUI, which is why I never really bothered with it.

anyway just my two cents on that little discussion.

 

[BlueScope]

So wait... because Photoshop is not set up by default for what you want to use it, it's a less-efficient program? I mean, you can customize the program for your needs with a depth that renders Windows to shame, and obviously, for the wide amount of varieties, you are meant to do that.
For example, if enabling and disabling the grid is taking too long because you need it often, just put it on a reserved-just-for-that button on the keyboard - if the default key combo doesn't work for you, that is. The pencil, from all I've experienced (and seriously, I'm working with CS5 almost since it came out, on a multiple-hours-per-day base, and I am actively using the pencil tool :p ), works deadly accurate, and as far as Undo goes, you can set that to the 'usual' functionality within a few seconds after starting the program for the first time, and never have to worry about it again (that being said, I don't really get why they chose such a default layout either).
Now, I've never worked with PSP's scripts (and neither too much with Photoshop actions...), so I can't really comment on that. As far as the magic wand goes (despite noone really using that one ever over the several other color replacement adjustments, or simply setting the fill tool to non-neighbour-exclusive), it's as accurate as you tell it to. I've had cases where a tolerance of 15 would totally mess up my selection, however 14 fixed it, so you do have to be quite accurate there... but it is a Swiss pocket knife, not a Mickey Mouse plastic one.

And again, I'm not trying to say Photoshop is the better program... just saying if you're used to Photoshop, you'll deal with a more complex environment if you switch to PSP instead of just change some settings around...

 

[Skyla Doragono]

I think the point is when you do both IMAGES and SPRITES, then it's annoying having to switch your default settings all over the place when you want to do one or the other. I know I primarily use CS3 to line and color my artwork, and I don't really want to disrupt my settings for that every time I go to put together a sprite.

Anyway, all it really comes down to is a matter of preference. If you like Photoshop to sprite, far be it for me to tell you not to use it. I'll still say BAD! though. :P

 

[BlueScope]

Let me just add a short mention of Workspaces, which include windows, key input preferences, and whatnot

 

[Mikepjr]

For all those using Photoshop, BAD? WTF? I been using Photoshop doing sprite work for years, i feel all the extra tools can be handy and helpful, and often times, they streamline the process for me!

Bottom line, their are all kinds of software out there for computer imaging, even sprite work, a program only hinders those who take longer to learn software than others, i picked up Photoshop fairly quickly, so it's been a great tool for me.

Weather or not it's bad, is all personal taste, maybe it's bad for YOU, but not everyone.

I will say this, Photoshop was never really meant for sprite work, but it helps a lot.
It's good for me cause i like making low res images and then blowing them up and doing post work to make them higher res if needed.

It also helps with changing out colors.

-edit-
I just seen where this is being debated, sorry.. i don't make it a habit of reading every post in a thread, i just read the first one and then make a comment.

 

[Ellie]

- atemu is right; even in cs5, where you click may not necessarily be where the pencil decides to fart out a pixel or set the selection boundary.

Ugh, in Fireworks, if you're zoomed in 150% or 300%, the starting pixel of the selection boundary changes depending on where the ending pixel is. It's a circus.

I just thought I'd add that in that Fireworks may be great for many things, but pixel art isn't generally one of them, bar the magic wand tool which is great for selecting colour ranges.