Elysian Shadows

To start off with I'm not very good at graphics and was wondering what technics and programs many of you guys here at the chaos rift use?

I started off with regular paint and pretty much hated it. Then I moved on to Paint .NET but figurativly it lacked some of the necesities in expanding on more advanced graphics. And lastly I'm currently stuck with some experience with Photoshop :/ not exactly where I wanted to end up, I wanted more of a program that I can add the complexity too. Any suggestions?

Some of my friends use Gimp and I do like the concept but not the layout, but hey you don't get everything you want
I'd like to know what you guys think.

In my opinion, it is all down to preference, and what some like, others won't. A graphics program is not going to drastically improve any art produced, for that you have to practise.
Personally, I like GraphicsGale, but you might not. I would just try many programs until you find one you like.

hard to say. some progs will be better for specific types of art.

im using photoshop but i prefer paintshop pro. its so much cheaper and i actually prefer the way psp selects things. i tried gimp a couple of times but havent for about 2yrs now. i didnt like it then and i cant imagine using it now.

Ironically MS Paint is by far my favorite and allows me to be the most productive. Photoshop just feels like it has WAY too many tools, but I only ever make pixel art.

[offtopic]
I'm still pissed Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to absolutely destroy Paint, Notepad, and Sound Recorder in Windows 7. It has caused more setbacks than I can say. My solutions are Gimp, Notepad++, and Sound Recorder stolen from WinXP.
[/offtopic]

What's wrong with notepad dandy? As for paint they changed it too much for me :P I use graphics gale for pixelart, I hate gimp with a passion... and uh... yeah...

I use gimp for screwing around, Photoshop for any real art, and a mix of Blender, Maya, Mudbox and zBrush for 3D

eatcomics wrote:What's wrong with notepad dandy? As for paint they changed it too much for me :P I use graphics gale for pixelart, I hate gimp with a passion... and uh... yeah...

The only thing I ever used it for was stripping all formatting from text before pasting it into something like Microsoft Word. Now it holds partial formatting so I have to manually manipulate any copy/pasted text before using it in Word. It's too functional to relentlessly relieve text of formatting, but still not functional enough to do ANYTHING else useful.

The new paint sucks. Half of the tools aren't even functional, and it anti-aliases the shit out of everything.

Photoshop is extremely powerful. A bit overkill sometimes, but hell that doesn't bother me.

dandymcgee wrote: [offtopic]
I'm still pissed Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to absolutely destroy Paint, Notepad, and Sound Recorder in Windows 7. It has caused more setbacks than I can say. My solutions are Gimp, Notepad++, and Sound Recorder stolen from WinXP.
[/offtopic]

XD Well I never used any of those programs to begin with except ms paint on occasion but anything else I stick to the '3rd party' software. Big fan of Notepad++

MadPumpkin wrote:I use gimp for screwing around, Photoshop for any real art, and a mix of Blender, Maya, Mudbox and zBrush for 3D

Oh yea that brings up another good point. 3D renders? I'd like to start to learn about it maybe not go full blown into designing 3D cars or something but it'd be nice to understand the basics. Any good ideas?

RyanPridgeon wrote:Photoshop is extremely powerful. A bit overkill sometimes, but hell that doesn't bother me.

Overkill. Agreed. But it's worth it sometimes...

If you knew every in and out of Photoshop, every other program (with a few exceptions) would render as a giant steaming pile of shit.

dandymcgee wrote:(dandy's reply

Ah didn't know that about notepad, but yeah Paint was a turn-off for me :P

/offtopic

pritam wrote:If you knew every in and out of Photoshop, every other program (with a few exceptions) would render as a giant steaming pile of shit.

Totally agree.