How do i set my brush so it draws refined lines?

[DennisJa]

Im trying to draw in Photoshop but im not liking how the brushes are. im trying to go for flat colors with no fade to the strokes (i guess vector like, almost how flash does it)

The paint brush even tuned up to 100% is still a little bit faded especially on the edges

and the pencil is how i do want it to be but it has jagged edges

[Trevor.Dennis]

I don't think I ever use the pencil.  As you have found, reducing hardness makes no difference, so you never get any anti aliasing with the pencil tool.  Just nasty jaggies on any by perfectly horizontal or vertical lines.  I expect you know you can force horizontal, vertical lines by holding down the Shift key.  Or in any direction by touching down, and then holding the Shift key while touching down at the other end of your line?

Are you using a tablet, or mouse?

If a tablet, then I am a big fan of Lazy Nezumi that allows me to draw wonderfully smooth curves,, and all sorts of other clever features.

http://lazynezumi.com/

[DennisJa]

Mouse and its not just when I make make curves. Smoothness isn't the issue its hardness.

The green was is a screen shot from flash That's what i want the colors are nice and full with almost no bad edges

The red was done using a brush of 100 opacity and hardness and Its to faded for some reason

The blue is with the pencil tool. Full colors but to jagged it makes my drawings look like they were done in ms paint

[Trevor.Dennis]

So what preset are you using?  You need to be starting from a known point or there is nothing to base your results on.  Reset your brushes, or load the Standard set.  Then try the first pair of brushes which are Soft Round and Hard Round, neither of which have any dynamics applied.

I get nicely smooth edged brush strokes even with a fully hard preset using the mouse, although I do see a trace of edge wobble due to spacing, with a large fully hard size.

[DennisJa]

Oh wow im a complete idiot. Well I almost never use the brush tool so i forgot about the presets all i did was change the brushes and boom it works better then flash :b.

Thanks for the help

[Trevor.Dennis]

I don't know what sort of work you do.  I'm guessing it is web related if you use Flash, but I don't have any of the web related apps installed here.  But the brush tool is without a doubt my most used tool, whether I am doing Illustration, layout, composite, or Photography.   And I couldn't imaging using Photoshop without a tablet. They really free you up.

[DennisJa]

I remade my post it turns out it wasn't fixed

http://forums.adobe.com/message/6242335#6242335

[Trevor.Dennis]

DennisJa wrote:

I remade my post it turns out it wasn't fixed

http://forums.adobe.com/message/6242335#6242335

Answered in the new thread.

[DennisJa]

It got deleted for some reason. But i understand why everything im saying doesn't make much sense.

I found out that the faded outline i was calling "hardness" is actually called anti aliasing and apparently some people say there is no way to turn it off in photoshop.

What im looking for is smooth lines like Flash and illustrator have with out AA.

Ill keep looking but hopefuly you have something to say about this

[Trevor.Dennis]

DennisJa wrote:

I found out that the faded outline i was calling "hardness" is actually called anti aliasing and apparently some people say there is no way to turn it off in photoshop.

Of course there is.  The lines you showed in tghe other thread were still not fully hard.  If you set brush hardness to 100%, you can fill right to the line, not problem.

Were you using something other than the second brush in the panel?  Which is round hard.  If you thought your brush was 100% hard, then you may havve had something going on in Brush Dynamics, like a fade controlled hardness.

[DennisJa]

Im using the default number 6 or the one on the far right of the first panel of cs6. I checked all the settings is hardness 100% the brush dynamics look fine I played around with every option and reset my brushes to default still not even close to looking as good as Illustrator.

This is apparently a very common problem iv look up the subject and no links i clicked on had a solution.

My main problem is that im trying to build character rigs in photoshop for a flash animation but because of the AA its messing up all my parts making them look both blurry and giving this white outline that you can see when layers over lap in flash.

[Trevor.Dennis]

When you use the Paint bucket, do you have AA checked in the Options bar?

[Noel Carboni]

You're expressing the desire for something in a subjective sense that may be difficult to relate in technical terms.

It sounds like you want anti-aliased edges to things you paint, but don't want even a single pixel of edge softness.  That can't be achieved - the edges MUST be blended or you see the pixel boundaries (as "jaggies").

Now, if you draw lines with the Brush Tool, it WILL provide anti-aliasing, and you're correct, it can't be turned off with the Brush Tool, specifically.  That's okay - you need anti-aliasing.

What you may not realize is that you can set several other options to allow you to make the brush lines as smooth and even as possible, while minimizing edge softness.

Experiment with:

Brush Spacing

Brush Hardness

Your issue with color showing around the edges of your sprites may have something to do with how you're preparing your images vs. the brush you're using to create them.  Perhaps you could describe in more detail the steps you go through.

-Noel

[DennisJa]

Trevor- No

Nole- Noting special my work space is always set to web 1600x 1200. I just played with  brush spacing and harness is always at 100% I don't really see what those two options have to do with anything.

The more information I get the more I really start to think that this is a photoshop problem

This is what it looks like zoomed in

This is what it looks like after the transparent edges have been manually removed. It just looks like the jagged pencil tool.

[boo_radley_2013]

what you're seeing is normal, not a problem. You're looking at the pixels while being zoomed in really close to it- that's why you're seeing these additional gray pixels on the outer edges of the black line. Not sure how else to explain it - this is what it's supposed to look like when you're zoomed in that close.

The question is why are you looking at it that closely... set your zoom level to 33.3% (which is  what your image would look like if it was a painting on canvas sitting infront of you on your desk, basically 33.3% is showing you the real-size of your image if it were printed out on paper. To do this go to 'View/Print Size')

now when you view your image at print size, you are not going to see any jagged lines if you've used the hard brush at 100% hardness. But if you zoom in closer, then those grey/jagged lines become more evident - and that's what it's supposed to do. We won't get into why, that's another long story. So don't zoom in unless you're trying to paint in details, etc. Then zoom back out to print size and you won't see any jagged lines.

also - one important additonal factor - make your dpi resolution 300dpi or greater to ensure you don't see the anti-aliasing.

There's no problems with what you have there.

[DennisJa]

Trevor yes that dose help with filling in the images thanks

Boo then why dose flash and illustrator have non pixley lines when zoomed in? I know when you zoom in things get more pixlated. Look at the illustrator image above then look at the photoshop image they are both zoomed in far

[boo_radley_2013]

because Photoshop and Illustrator are two different programs. They work with graphics differently. Photoshop works with rasterized images, and Illustrator works with vector images. This is why the line in Illustrator never becomes blocky even when you keep zooming in. If you need sharp vector lines then stick to Illustrator., Photoshop isn't going to do what you need because it wasn't designed for that. Just like Microsoft Word wasn't designed to mix audio tracks, Photoshop wasn't designed to work with vectors (which is what you are looking for.) You need to stick with Illustrator or something similar

[Trevor.Dennis]

You should turn AA _on_ for the Paint Bucket as it will get much closer to the line.  Try it.

[DennisJa]

Well thanks everyone for helping especially you Trevor for always replying.

I ended  up finding a compromise of drawing with a mix of flash and Photoshop it turns out the flash pen tool actually isn't as bad as i thought and it helps for drawing basic images.