My honest thoughts on photoshop

[wolflu66]

I now mainly use CSP for drawing too. PS is only used for some post-production work.
CSP gives me a much better experience than PS.

[Shanny8]

@KennethLopezJr921 Even though CSP's gradient tool has gotten a lot better, I still like Photoshop's gradient...this past weekend I was trying to use CSP's gradient for the background on a piece, and it seemed like it was doing that harsh gradual shift from one color to the next- never had that issue with PS.

Granted there are a ton of OTHER things that made me dropkick Photoshop, but I will still tout their gradient tool/effects higher than Clip Studio. The only time I use PS now is to mesh my lettering to the art(I still do my lettering in Illustrator because CSP is not even close to my standards for comic lettering abilities, though I will use their lettering capabilities to occasionally spot stuff here and there).

[KevinReijnders]

@KennethLopezJr921 you pretty much described the entire reason why I stallwarthy refuse to ever "upgrade" my photoshop 🤣

I used the 2018 version until I got myself a new PC and was locked into the 2022 version. I'm still running that one and will until I'll be forced to use a newer version with a new PC.

That said, I also own CSP, I just don't like it as much as PSD. They also have their weird upgrade paths I've decided not to fuck with (meaning I'm still on CSP v2.0)

((Also did you just say you animated in photoshop ))

[Oriflamme]

Or if you don’t have any money, like me, you can use krita. It has a robust set of drawing tools, and it is free.

[skullforceagents]

I’ve used Adobe for over 14 years now. I honestly don’t use Photoshop very often because ProCreate and Illustrator are my primary drawing tools. I think Photoshop is a good choice for bitmap drawing, but if you’re going to go through the trouble of purchasing an Adobe subscription, learn Illustrator’s brush tool and draw with that.

[KennethLopezJr921]

((Also did you just say you animated in photoshop ))

Yes......Yes I did.

I dont really have a good excuse as to why I went with it because even before my animation final, I knew it was not a good tool for animating. I could list off numerous annoying quirks PS's Timeline I found with it prior but they were at least tolerable back when most of my animations were short and consisted of 30 something frames and drawings. My animation final was the most advanced thing I had done up to that point, and it amplified all of the Timeline tool's quirks and made them extremely worse as a result.

The only excuse I can give is that PS' timeline tool was the most convenient option for me, as I hadnt played around with animation in CSP at the time, and it was more convenient than animating on paper (I needed to scan it in the school and specifically a day before class, and none of the labs on the one other day I had to go in for classes was available. Plus I live off campus and have to commute by train to get to school). But yeah, one of the worst mistakes Ive made in my life

[KevinReijnders]

Honestly I'm surprised your teachers didn't introduce you to Toonboom or TVPaint (my preferred animation program).

Back when I was a first year, more than a decade ago at this point, I had a few students in my class that were hellbent on animating in photoshop. Teachers tried their best to persuade them into using TVPaint. But they were stubborn and suffered for it. At least no one was stupid enough to try it again the year after that

But if I were you I wold definitely try to look into Toonboom, iirc it's pretty much the industry standard in America, Clip not so much. At least, that is if you want to pursue 2D animation.

[NickRowler]

((Also did you just say you animated in photoshop ))

Animating in Photoshop just reminds me of when I took a computer graphics class in high school and we had to animate using Adobe ImageReady. ImageReady is now defunk and all of its features merged with Photoshop. But the next year, they had us using Macromedia Flash, which was so much better and easier.

[kyupol]

I used Photoshop CS until 2018...

Since I started using ibis paint, never looked back

[Oriflamme]

You know what other program where you can Animate: Krita

Well I barely tried animating with it, but I do use an animation file as a virtual notepad for quick sketches, where each frame is like a new page. This format is really useful for quick iteration.

I’m not a 2d animator by trade, but the animation feature set seems adequate.

It can be worse than my real software of choice for 2d, blender. but I’m also a weirdo, who sometimes refuses to do things properly.

There is also opentoonz, but I have even less experience on this one.

Tldr: Have you heard of our lord and savior, Krita.

[thepenmonster]

Have you heard of our lord and savior, Krita.

Has the new version improved on the dialog/ word balloon front?

[Oriflamme]

I don’t know, I have not upgraded the software in a while.

If you're talking about the speech bubbles options in the symbol libraries, for my purpose they suck. But then again, I like to do things my way even if in the end the final result is slightly worse.

[conventurecomics]

I used it before their subscription based plans kicked in lol. Moved on to Clip Stuio Paint EX.

[diamantecreate]

Read WolfTrain to Heaven :: WolfTrain 14 (S5) What about You? | Tapas Community

Gimp is like photoshop but its free photoshop crashes and has bugs

[KennethLopezJr921]

My animation professor did funnily enough, but not directly. But he was not confident in photoshop's ability to be a useful animation tool, which he ended up being right on.

I probably wouldve felt more inclined to use tvpaint if not for the fact that you still have to pay for it, unlike toonboom or storyboard pro where the school gives you it for free via a license. Speaking of toonboom, we didnt delve into it at all since the course was more about teaching us the fundamentals of animation, rather than a specific program. Plus, I dont know if you can do frame by frame animation in toonboom :0

[KevinReijnders]

Yeah he was absolutely right haha.

I almost forgot you have to buy TVPaint haha. Upside is though, you can get it at a student discount and then use it indefinitely. I don't think the other softwares have that set-up (ie, the free ones are only free so long you are in school and become paywalled once graduated)

As for Toonboom, I'll admit to have only worked with it for a short time on one project, but you can absolutely animate frame by frame with it! So it's definitely worth checking out.