gdenby

Hello, Sort of a newbie question. I've viewed various members' online presentations about creating custom brushes. It seems that vector shapes, or masked bitmaps are required as the base for vector brushes that are created as intensity brushes. But in the pixel persona, one would be using just bitmaps that would replicate along the brush stroke. Is this correct? Also, I supposing that the vector shape info is the only thing brought into the brush, and that color, opacity, and blending are modified after laying down the stoke. Thanks to those who have donated brushes to the forum. They have been great to use. I'm having lots of fun and wasting a lot of time playing w. them.

My knowledge about this is limited. As I understand the issue, a single processor can handle all the operations, which might include recording user input, performing calculations to accomplish tasks, send and receive data from GPUs, write to memory, etc. That single core can only perform 1 operation per clock cycle. If the stream of tasks can be separated, and performed on another core, each core will perform a sub task at the same speed as the primary. An analogy. In a kitchen, the chef receives the order, and hands off the different portions to dedicated cooks. Then inspects the results, and instructs the server to deliver. The chef could do it all, but for some meals, it would be very hard to have everything ready at once. I don't know how many varieties of tasks have to be co-ordinated w. a graphics app. I would suppose more than I mentioned above. So, 4 cores seems a good starting point. To respond to the original post, I'm using an iMac w. an Intel i5 4 core. Affinity Designer has had almost instantaneous response for most operations, and probably less than a second for those things that had a noticeable lapse.

I bought a Huion 1409. Delivered today. Seems very nice. Using Designer, the 2015 iMac, and the tablet, response is very fast using vector brushes. Less than a second to display a quick stroke. Pressure and velocity, but it doesn't seem to have pen tilt. Not certain. Still trying to decide what commands to program into the express keys. One down side. The keys are matt black, like the rest of the tablet. If used in dim light, its hard to tell which button is being touched.

I'm downloading Silver Efex Pro right now. Thanks for mentioning that. Always nice to have another tool set. Here are some guesses about Clarity. Images that have a broad range of contrast are usually considered more visually attractive and interesting. If the overall contrast is limited, the image appears flatter. its harder to focus on any area because everything is too similar. So the overall look of and image will be improved if the range of darks and lights are expanded. But,more important focal areas, the portions of an image that should be most evident, should have a high contrast. Think of a silhouette of a face profile. Just black and white. It is very simple, but enough to easily be recognized. In traditional drawing and painting, the most important forms are made to have a full range of contrast, perhaps higher levels of color saturation, and maybe a different hue or color temperature to separate the figure from the background. Structure and Sharpening apply the same principles at smaller scales. Depending on the image, too much structure and or sharpening can be a negative. There's and old maxim that goes "In art, less is more." Or another way, to use the earlier analogy, "Sometimes you can't see the forrest for the trees."

Hello. Having much fun w. Designer since I got it a few days ago. It seems like a drawing tablet might be a good addition. Some years ago I had a Wacom. At that time it was about the only choice. I'm assuming the quality remains fine, but I see there are some competitors in the market now. I was looking at one yesterday, and it had a list of supported software. Designer was not one, but my guess is that Designer may not have been available when the model, or at least the sales page, was introduced. My question is, what are people using for pressure sensitive tablets? Thx for any responses.

Hello, all, 1st post. Bought Designer last week, and have been delighted. Goes well with my new to me reconditioned '15 iMac 27" retina I'm retired now, and this will mostly be for personal projects. Started w. computer graphics in the ancient days of ASCII art line printer out put. Later, got an Amiga, and was using a 3D app called Silver, later renamed Turbo Silver, later Imagine. When the Amiga went away, moved to PC, continuing w. Imagine and adding Corel Photopaint and Draw. Spent a couple of years writing scripts for Photopaint to "artify" digital photos into pseudo watercolors, etchings, etc. The company I worked for adopted Macs, and I was thrilled w. OSX, having used Unix a little. Unfortunately, the Corel Draw and Paint moved exclusively onto the PC, and I couldn't afford to support multiple platforms, either in $ or time. Got to use Creative Suite thru work, but the cost was prohibitive for my own work. Have done some simple 3D w. Sketch-up. Lately, been using GIMP and Inkscape. The sophisticated UI and surprising depth of Affinity has been a very pleasant surprise. Can't wait to see how the new symbols routine works. Have several children and their spouses who do graphic work. Can't wait to show them this app when they next come to visit Gram and Gramp. gdenby