With some "media" such as watercolor, it is desirable to paint on top of the source image.
However, it is hard to guage what the effect will be at different opacities of the underlying source image.
One can go to IOP and change the opacity via the fixed image options, but then it is necessary to go back to Paint Synthesizer again -or back and forth trying different opacities.
Is there a way continuously change the opacity of the canvas (with source image as the canvas) directly from Paint Synthesizer ? This would be most useful.
Replies
If you look in the Paint Fill Apply control panel, there are 2 different adjustable controls you can use in there to adjust the opacity of the paint preset you are working with. They are the Blend % and the Transparency % controls.
Blend % will be available for any Composite option other than Replace. Reducing it from 100% will allow more of the existing canvas to mix in with the paint being applied to the canvas.
The Transparency % control acts as a straight transparancy adjustment for the paint preset.
The effect of the 2 is somewhat different, so you should play around with both of them to get a feel for how they adjust the look and feel of your paint preset. Depending on your artistic goals you might want to reduce one or the other, or both, to get the desired effect.
The Blend Mod (mod stands for modulation) control allows you to modulate the Blend with various signals. Pen Pressure for example would allow you to use the pen pressure of a pen on a wacom tablet to modulate the blend in real time as you paint.
Thanks John, but I am talking about changing the opacity of the source image, not the applied paint. for example, if you hit control-T a decreased opacity source image appears on the canvas, but is not part of the final painting even thought painitng over this reduced opacity source "looks good". I would like to have a variable opacity source image on the canvas and paint directly over it.
Nora if you think about it, once you paint on it you could not adjust the opacity without affecting the applied paint. the Cmd-T that you note is actually "applying" the source image OVER what you are painting as a transparency the opacity of which you can set. The closest equivalent would be to work on two layers. paint on the first and adjust the second. Of course the paint would not be interacting with the image, but you would get an adjustable overlay. Alternatively you can bring the source image in via the fixed image ImOp at whatever opacity and blending mode you might desire. you could create and save a few custom ImOps with settings that you prefer for quick one click solutions.
Thanks ! I will try these 2 solutions.
Command t (control t on windows) turns on the onion skin. Which defaults to a source image onion skin. If you want to simulate the effect of that, then you could use the Fixed Image ip op with a low percentage mix is the solution. Set the IP Source for the Fixed Image ip op to the Source Image. At 100% Mix it's like erasing to the source image. But at lower percent Mix settings it will add it with partial transparency. You could also play around with different Composite settings other than Replace if you like the way they look.
Maybe I am missing something here, but in the new version (4.04) or in the user guide for 4.04, I cannot figure out how to blend or composite layers. Where are the controls ?
Where is the documentation for handling layers in the newest version ? I am not making progress with a trial and error approach.
Nora, I'm new to SA4 so I may be missing the point but here is something I tried and it seem to work well. I opened the picture in SA4 and it produced a white canvas. I then used a soft clone brush (Toolbox EXF and Utility Clone Brushes) and painted a clone of the picture into layer 1. Then I create layer 2 and painted as desired. You can set opacity of either layer and their blend mode. For example the clone layer 1 set to 80% and blend with Overlay black and the painted layer 2 set to 100% Max.
Perhaps you can spell out step by step what you are doing. I am unable to find how to handle layers in the current documentation. I fiddled with changing the opacities but got no results and am wasting time in a trial and error process.
Nora, make sure that you have your Layers window active. there is a menu command for that. When you have the layer window active you will see a column for composite and one for percentage. The blending modes are under the composite drop down. Adjusting the percentage will affect the opacity or amount of blend.