Digital Art Program - Question.

[Sharky]

So I just got myself a copy of Coral Painter 12, so far very good program and makes digital art a ton easier however I often find that some brushes come out very pixelated... I'm sure this is not supposed to be the case and I suspect it has something to do with the resolution of the canvas?... That said I'm not very 'tech savy' and don't really understand 'resolution.'

Could anyone tell me if changing the resolution of the canvas picture would change the pixels of the brush?
Is it possible to change them mid painting?
and... at a stretch is it possible to recommend a resolution to fix the problem?

Thanks in advance!

[Barry the Nomad]

Resolution is the amount of pixels that determines the size of the document once you output it. So something like 72 dpi (dots per inch) will appear smooth on the computer screen, but printed it'll look pixelated. So best bet is to set your canvas at 300 dpi from the get-go so the brushes will appear smooth when printed AND when on the computer screen.

While you can change dpi while the document is in mid-progress (at least in photoshop), this won't upgrade the work you've already done, unfortunately.

[Happy Cat]

It could also possibly be the hardness of the brush, I've never used corel painter so i can't say if that's it or not, but generally the more hard the brush, the less smooth it looks.

[Sharky]

Thanks guys, that's a big help in understanding. If it helps I did a quick doodle to show you the problem;

[Barry the Nomad]

is "anti-aliasing" on? That might be the problem. Not sure if that program has that option, but I know photoshop has options like that.

[Happy Cat]

hmm i never use pencils when in photoshop, because they are 100% hardness and create hard lines like that. I don't know how corel painter works though, you could try using a black brush (with like 90% hardness or so, you'll need to experiment) to do your penciling.

[Sharky]

So I took Barrys advice, it didnt have 'dots per inch' but it had pixels per inch which I assume is the same thing? I bumped it up from 100 too 300 and I think it did the trick.

[Happy Cat]

So I took Barrys advice, it didnt have 'dots per inch' but it had pixels per inch which I assume is the same thing? I bumped it up from 100 too 300 and I think it did the trick.

Well on your screen, DPI shouldn't make a difference, he was only saying if you print it out you should do 300 DPI. But if it made it better for you, that's good, but strange.

although it might just be the higher resolution that is making your lines smoother, that can happen, cause if your drawing at too low of a resolution, your lines arent smooth.

[Nameless 24]

If you need some help on what format you should export in, I would suggest an .eps or .ai file.

I work with CorelDraw [spoiler]in my job[/spoiler] and we pretty much export in .eps when we can, as not only does it keeps the smooth lines no matter how zoomed in you get, but the file can be edited with most Adode formats/applications with relative ease, since the nodes still exist in that format.

Sorry for the bump, I thought I'd add my two cents.

You really should only ever convert to a .bmp/jpeg/gif what have you when you aren't as concerned about the pixels showing up in your image when zoomed in, but yeah...I suggest .eps all the way (and you can make a pretty profit with these files if someone asks you to send you over the file you created (about $50/£30), since the format isn't very common but they are pretty much the ultimate format in recreations and what not...), so let's say that SEGA's logo is an .eps, in CorelDraw, it is MUCH easier to manipulate it's shape/colour better then the other formats (.ai is the same but you need Illustrator for that, and I find that pretty hard to use).

[spoiler]Oh and if anyone gives you a PDF file of something you want to extract, that can be hit or miss depending on whether it is a .jpeg or .eps edited with a newer version[/spoiler]