Perspective Tool, Smart Lines, Smart Shapes - Procreate features in Photoshop

[tylerb27382239]

Procreate for iPadPro has some awesome features that I'd love to see implemented by the Adobe/Photoshop team.

I know Photoshop is marketed as a photo-editing software, as it should be; but it is no secret that the vast majority of digital artists also use Photoshop.

I'm a long-time adobe user, and love the products. Recently I've been using Procreate on the iPadPro, and it has some features that just has Photoshop beat, and I'd love to see these things in Photoshop, particularly for desktop application.

The first is a Perspective Tool. Many other programs have this, and it is one of the few tools Photoshop lacks compared to competitors. I think Procreate has implemented this in a smart way. Sketchbook Pro has a Perspective tool, and you must be on that perspective tool in order to draw perspective lines. Procreate, on the other hand, allows you to set up the perspective in the tool, and then apply a setting to any layer to either user the perspective on that layer or not. This allows you to sketch in perspective while using the Brush tool, no need to switch between tools.

The next BIG one in my opinion is what I call Smart Lines. In Procreate, you can draw any line you'd like, and if you hold your position for a moment, the line becomes straight from the origin point to where you're holding it. I know you can shift+click for a straight line already in Photoshop, but here's where Procreate's version excels: In Photoshop, if you shift+click when using a brush with pressure sensitivity, you get a less-than-consistent accelerated line. Procreate's tool not only makes the pressure/width more consistent, it actually keeps the pressure sensitivity information. For example, if you draw softly for the first third of your line, and then thick for the second 2/3, hold, the line will straighten, and the first third will still be narrow, second 2/3 thick. No dot-to-accelerated line that looks like an exclamation mark that Photoshop currently has.

The other great thing about the smart line is the speed of using the same tool. Sketchbook Pro, another competitor, also has a perspective tool and a straight line tool that works a little like a ruler (sort of like Adobe Sketch), but when sketching measurement lines between perspective lines (often used for product sketches), you need to switch between tools, which slows down the process. In Procreate, if you're on a layer that uses perspective, the hold-to-activate-straight-line still functions, allowing you to temporarily break the perspective rule and draw any straight line you'd like, without having to ever swap out of the brush tool.

Procreate also has smart shapes, which work the same as the smart line, but will detect things like rectangles and ellipses and correct for those.

Overall, Photoshop still cannot be touched; however, these few little tools in Procreate are so useful that I honestly feel their absence when using Photoshop. I think they would be great in Photoshop.

Thanks,

Tyler

[davescm]

Hi

Perspective in Photoshop is mainly done in the Vanishing Point filter, although you can render grids from the vanishing point onto an empty layer to use as perspective guides outside the filter.

You can raise feature requests at the link below which will be seen by developers:

Photoshop Family Customer Community

Dave

[tylerb27382239]

Thanks for the information, Dave!

[Trevor.Dennis]

Hi Tyler

I see this is the only post you have made to the Adobe forums, so you are either a true believer, or involved with the Procreate app.  I looked it up (because you forgot to give us a link, and it appears to be along the lines of Krita and Paintstorm Studio.  I love those apps.  They have great brush engines, but the thing is, I always seem to open Photoshop when illustrating, because I can't do without its features.

I use SketchUp extensively, but it is an entirely different tool to Photoshop, more along the lines of AutoCad.  It draws on three axis, and you just switch the way you see the 3D models you draw between perspective and parallel.  The actual drawing is unchanged.

First off, do you use Photoshop on Windows or Mac?  If it's the Mac, then you are plum out of luck.  If you are a Windows user though, you might be interested in Lazy Nezumi Pro.  LNP was created as a line smoothing tool, but now has dozens and dozens of useful presets.  You can set up a perspective, but what I find more useful is that you can match the perspective of an existing image.

Set up is easy.  You can have to six sets of perspective at any one time, and set up by aligning the orange disks to image features, Shifting to the next one till done.

In use, you Shift between axis, and when the cursor touches down, it locks the line on the selected axis

Like I said, it has dozens of presets. I have only shown you a _tiny_ fraction of what it can do. I feel sorry for OSX users who can't use it. 

BTW I mentioned that's primary use is line smoothing, and Photoshop has added that feature now, but LNP takes line smoothing way beyond Photoshop.  (Paintstorm Sudio is pretty Stella though).  You can set max and minimum pressure, where that pressure activates, and get real control of pen pressure.  

[tylerb27382239]

Hi Trevor,

Thanks so much for your response.

Just happens to be my first post, I'm not affiliated with Procreate in any way, but re-reading my post, I can see why you'd think that, it's definitely cringy and sales-pitchy, not what I intended at all.

I use Photoshop on both Mac and PC (home vs. work), though most of the time I don't need any of these features, I am just starting to get my feet wet with more illustrative stuff.

I tried Lazy Nezumi quite a while ago when it was just a line smoothing tool, as photoshop has now as you mentioned (or it may have been a mac alternative), but damn, I didn't realize the Pro version had all these tools! That is fantastic, and I really appreciate you sharing both the information and the screenshots.

I haven't had the chance to try out SketchUp yet, but I'm just starting to get into Blender and some 3D, so SketchUp is on my list.

Thanks again for your time and info, I'm definitely going to try these out!

Tyler

[davescm]

tylerb27382239  wrote

....I'm just starting to get into Blender and some 3D,.....

If you are just starting in Blender then go straight to version 2.8. It is still beta but is quite stable now and has a much better interface. It will save you having to "unlearn" the old interface.

Dave