Meep

Wow that is cute, Shay. Is that vectoring though, it looks like a pixel drawing? Did you use the pen tool?

It's part vectoring, and part pixel. My problem is I can't leave the vectoring alone...I've gone over the edges and smudged/softened them :P I'm hoping when I get better, more of the vectored parts will remain visible.

And no...I can't use that freaking pen...this is all mouse drawn.

Oh, you mean in the paint program? No...I used the paintbrush tool...

What are you using for the vector? Looks like maybe your anti aliasing settings are off.

Ok...I've just done a bunch of reading on vectoring, and now understand it better.

I'm using Paint Shop Pro, and the vectoring tool, but I was combining vectored shapes with drawn images, instead of compiling the picture of just vectored shapes. That is what I need to work on.

Billie...shouldn't the anti-aliasing be turned off? From what I read, I am under the impression that vectored shapes are clean cut. If I use the anti-aliasing it's going to cause the edges to blend...right?

Yeah normally you'd want your anti aliasing to be off. Billie might have another opinion on that though, who knows ;) I've never used PSP for vectoring though so I can't help much with the program techniques.

lovely work. I like it. The hair style is cute too. :)

v

I've been struggling how to articulate this, there's a kind of complicated 'why' behind it, but the short answer would be try turning your anti aliasing on :X.

Okay lemmie give it a shot. Sorry if you already know some/all of this :X.

Vectoring is essentially a math problem hiding behind the picture, a plotted graph that tells the program how to build the lines and shapes. The math yields perfectly smooth edges. However, an imperfect medium has to display these edges, using pixels arranged as closely to the paths as possible. When you turn off anti aliasing, this means you get hard edges that follow the pixel grid (because you can't cut a pixel in half, neh?). Anti aliasing, however, is all about creating the illusion that you're not confined to the pixel grid at all - the concept is to fool the eye into seeing what is intended, and the result is that you end up seeing something closer to the math than the more literal interpretation. Anti aliasing shouldn't make your image blurry unless you enlarge it :).

Now here's where I say I don't know psp. But I'm not talking about airbrushing here - that's too soft. Um...*thinks*. Well here's an example. I drew this crappy android in Illustrator, which is a vector program, then saved it as a .jpeg, which forces the image into a pixel grid (the correct term is raster image). Now that it's converted, I can zoom in and see how the program made my lines appear smooth even though they are blurred.

Original image, saved as a .jpeg -


I screencaptured a nice close zoom in of her ear


Now had I not anti aliased we'd have something like this on our hands. Not as nice:



Hopefully that makes sense :).

Thanks so much for taking all that time Billie. I really appreciate hearing what you have to say.

That in mind, I'm confused now - lol.

I totally understand anti-aliasing, and how it smooths things out, but from what I've been reading about vectoring, I keep hearing how the picture is supposed to be composed of pieces, so clean that you can flood fill colors, and change them easily if you want. You can't do that if the edges have been created with anti-alias.

I tend to agree that the finished pieces look smoother, and because I'm not really used to the look of vectoring, they appeal to me more right now. But if what I read is correct, the piece then loses it's pure vectored form...am I mis-understanding? Or perhaps not explaining it well...?

I posted my current work in progress, which is totally vectored with anti-alias off. Can you look at that and see how I interpret vectoring? :)

Just so I'm understanding, what you have are shapes that you can grab, independently of each other, and move around, resize, and change the stroke and fill on? That's what I'm getting from my small amount of reading up on psp :X.

Vectors wouldn't lose their 'vectorhood' simply by virtue of turning anti aliasing on - you should still be able to grab your objects and manipulate them, and the anti aliasing will move with the manipulations. It's just a way of handling the problem of dealing with a pixel grid to display shapes that aren't initially defined in those terms - vectors are defined by paths, not pixels. So really what you're doing is giving the math behind the screen an extra piece of information - 'hey, vector object, when you have to display on my screen or when I save you in a raster format, do this thing to make the edges smooth.' The anti aliasing is married to that object and applied in the appropriate context.

Did you use gradients at all? Same thing sort of - you tell the vector object 'hey - display a smooth gradation from black to white'. Then no matter what you do, resize, edit your anchor points (psp apparently calls them 'nodes' - they're the little white boxes on your paths, whatever you call them :)) it's going to display that gradient according to it's background instructions. This is a huge part of why vectors are cool :D - you're not confined to telling individual pixels how to behave, you can command whole objects to do your bidding and let the software figure out how to make it work on a screen or another format.

Hopefully I'm not just muddying the matter further :X. Failing everything else, try turning it on and see if it clicks :D.

I think part of the problem is language, and the difference between Photoshop, Illustrator, and Paint Shop Pro. I've been using Paint Shop Pro now for over ten years, and have tried PS, and Illustrator, but because PSP has always worked for me, I've never made myself learn the others.

And...I suck at math ;) So a lot of what you say is a bit difficult for me to follow. However, I have worked with anti-aliasing a lot, so I do pretty much know how it works, and unless I keep my shapes on separate layers, I don't see how I'll be able to move them around, if they're made with the anti-alias on. I will definitely give it a try though.

One new thing I'm reading about is 'vexeling'...which may be what my first picture was, but I still need to read more about it.

Please though, Billie...keep any and all suggestions, assist, etc coming. Even if I don't understand them to begin with, eventually I usually get it :D And so far you're the only person who has really given me things to try, though I still appreciate everyone else's comments too.

Is your current WIP with the anti-aliasing on, Shay? If not, give that a try and see if it smooths it out - otherwise to a noob like me, it just looks more like a tightly controlled pixel.