Korean Job Discussion Forums

[TJ]

I am starting to teach myself to use Photoshop and it's a long slow process. One of the problems I've come across is drawing, using a mouse. My hand is just too shakey to use a mouse for this type of work.

I think there is a 'device' which looks like a pen which you can use to draw on a flat screen. Can anyone tell me what these items are called and if they are worth investing in. I'm a rank amateur, not a professional. This is just a hobby for me and I don't want to spend big money on equipment that will only be used occasionally.

Thanks.

TJ

[the_beaver]

For drawing Illustrator is betting than Photoshop.

[the saint]

Isn't there some kind of tool in PHotoshop that kind of smooths the line you draw so that it isn't so shaky? And can't you adjust this so that it is more or less sensitive to what you draw?

I'm not a Photoshop person, Paintshop Pro is what I use so I'm sorry if this provides false hope.

[The King of Kwangju]

TJ -

All drawing in Photoshop (and Illustrator, for that matter) should be done with the Pen tool. It's finicky and will break your heart, but you'll sort it out and in the long run, you'll be much happier.

[Hank Scorpio]

Experiment with brush types. I tend to go with a somewhat oval shape, with a lot of "fuzziness", so the edges aren't as hard. Also, zoom in as much as possible while doing it, for some reason that tends to negate the shake factor somewhat.

ETA: Also, Kwangju is right about Illustrator. If you're focused exclusively on drawing, it can't be beat. The difference between them is that Photoshop is raster based, meaning that it needs to save where each pixel is relative to the composition. Illustrator is vector based, so instead of saving each pixel's location it instead plots curves. Short example; zoom in really tightly on an image in photoshop. Notice how blocky and aliased it'll look? That's rasterization, and you don't get that in Illustrator. You can zoom in as far as you want and the image will be smooth because those curves are based off of logarithms rather than pixel placement.

Sorry to get longwinded, but really they're different tools for different things. Gonna work with exclusively photo realistic images? Photoshop is the best tool. For Illustrations it's Illustrator (Duh?). If you're serious about graphic design, though, it's best to learn both.

[mindmetoo]