[D3l7a3ch0]

Bottom line is it possible to get the same look from photoshop as from painter?  I've been browsing DA and most of the paint-style colorists name Painter as their fav program.  is it, like, a color filter or color pallette thing?  There's some beautiful work on DA and I'm wondering if I need to find a copy of Painter now.

[jgandjz]

It would probably be helpful if you post some examples of Painter works. Photoshop is a great program, especially for editing photos, but many artist also use it for regular art. Post some works or links and I'm sure we can further discuss this based on the examples provided.  ;)

[chaosrevolver]

hmmm i´m actually using photoshop and i dont know much
of other programs, but i´m a little curious about this and would like
to see some samples, too

[darkwan75]

You won't get EXACTLY the same look but you can come close.  Personally I think Photoshop has better blending tools.  The Healing brush is one of the best blenders ever in any program.  But to answer your question you can get similar results.  

I use both programs pretty extensively.  I'll actually save my files in .psd format and jump back and forth between apps.  

[LovelyLittleKat]

Theres certain things that are both good and bad about painter and photoshop

Personally I believe that Photoshop gives you a bit more control over layers. Painter x is complicated as hell and it's rather annoying to constantly have to change layer modes.
Painter has some absolutely wonderful realistic brushes..a tool called the Scratchboard tool and "Just add water" These things are the highlight of painter in my eyes. The layout and user interface though in my veiw is extremely annoying and unless your willing to sit for a couple hours with that huge guide or figure it out on your own I would reccommend Photoshop, simply because it has a better and more self explanitory interface and tool set up

Photoshop has more filters
Painter has more brush options premade
Photoshop is way easier to make your own
Inking in Painter in really easy

Personally I prefer Photoshop CS2, it's my weapon of choice, but I have everything from Painter to Inkscape and even Open Canvas. Different tools for different jobs.
I wouldn't say to not at least TRY painter...

I might even know where to get a Patch for Painter 10 if ya ask nice ;)

[variable063]

I love using Painter just because of the "just add water". It blends pretty well especially with skin tones. I use painter 6.1. I heard rumors that Painter 10 isn't that great, any truth to that?

[chewbaca]

sigh it must be nice to have axes to powerfull engens like painter and photo shop

me I use plain paint and gimp and it works if slowly

[byebye]

time 4 a new comp chewy?

[chewbaca]

hay my computer is only six years old and it was practicaly bottom of the line when I got it

[gmsalpha]

It definitely is a matter of preference, but both programs are awesome in their own way and you can find outstanding works from each. Photoshop is much more popular, so if you want to see a few great Painter artists, check out the deviantart galleries of Reiq, Artgerm, Greg Capullo, and Jay Axer.

I use Painter 9 and Photoshop 4 and depending on what look I want, I choose one or the other, although I always finish the piece in Photoshop. I tried Painter 10, but I simply could not reproduce the brushes, even with identical settings. It wasn't the same.

[Dick_Dasterdly]

Photoshop's default method of compositing colors sucks. Well ok it's actually pretty good but it has a problem for the way most people use it. Take some fully saturated green and red brush strokes and put a fully saturated blue brush stroke across both with a soft brush (one whose edges are semi-transparent so it gets antialiased into the picture). Where the blue goes down 100% opaque it's blue, where it doesn't it's purple or blue green. Ok, no problem, that's exactly what we'd expect. Now put a red brush stroke across the blue green. Where the red brush wasn't 100% opaque, the canvas is now gray, (red + blue + green => gray) or at least much less saturated. With not a hint that it was going to happen, the canvas over all has slightly reduced it's apparent saturation, and it will get worse as you continue. That's the problem.

Most of the simple tools like just painting, smoothing, blurring, smudging, etc use compositing (mixing) algorithms that tend to desaturate colors. When you use traditional painting methods with PS, your painting seems to get less and less saturated as you go on. Traditional media can do the same thing, but 1000's of years of techniques have been developed by assorted master painters and handed down on how to avoid the problems. Most don't translate well to the PhotoShop tool set. My last real exposure to PS was version 10, and I yes know there are new compositing methods available, like HSV, but they aren't the ones most people use.

Now a little history. PhotoShop invented layers in the mid 1990's but in the same version they introduced a whole new method of painting. The second invention didn't go over so well.

When I paint in Gimp (which uses mostly the same compositing algorithms as PS for it's tools) I basically use this new method. First I paint entirely in gray scale. Then I add a color layer over that, and a saturation layer over that. The saturation layer is just for highlights and adjustments. The compositing modes made available in even early versions of Photoshop Value, Hue, Saturation and Color (a combination of hue and saturation in one layer) were created for that very purpose. You can use all the tools you want on the gray scale layer with out worrying about the unpredictable effects on hue and saturation. You've reduced the complexity tremendously. You've also thrown away much of the accumulated knowledge of the last 1000 years on how to paint with traditional methods. Of course the folks doing the best stuff with Photoshop were the ones with years of experience prior to digital art. They had little use for these new methods and would have taken a great hit in quality of their work if they'd tried them. The new methods got a lot of bad Word of mouth. (mention you use the burn or blur tools to some folks and prepare to get blasted hard)

Not surprisingly most of the development in painting tools since then has come in the area of emulating natural media. It's what the market wants. Many new painting programs don't even have color and saturation modes for layers. Sniff, "real arteests don't use that!" Kind of like the way most don't have anyway of smoothing line art. Sniff, "Real arteests don't use that!" (Even the ones like PhotoShop that can do vector line art, how crazy is that.)

My point, yeah I have one. (feels the top of his head, no not that one) If you use traditional methods to get color and shading, ie lots of dabs of paint of various colors, all on one layer, mixing with water, scraping and smudging your way to slowly build up a finished work; get Painter, or Easy Painter Sai, or Sketch Book Pro, etc etc. You CAN do those things in PhotoShop but you're fighting it. You have to learn ways to get around the whole slow graying of your work, or put up with lack luster colors. Or you could use PhotoShop the way it was originally meant to be used (though they'll no longer admit it) and do grayscale and color work on separate layers with different compositing modes selected for each. You know, give in to the dark side. We have cookies.

Of course all this is great for skin, and pretty good for most surfaces in general but for textured surfaces where different facets of the texture are different colors, not so hot. Like a plaid wool skirt or even hair. Where different colors and shades go together all over.

But fortunately at this site the plaid skirts don't stay on that long anyway.

D_D