What software do you use?

[KaiserFate]

Apologies if this is in the wrong section, but I've been getting back into Pixelart again quite intensely lately, and I've been running into some problems with the software I use.

Primarily I use Photoshop CS2 which for the most part works perfectly. Annoyingly, however, it seems to be really, really inconsistent with registering clicks from my Intuos tablet, meaning that stippling pixel shading is virtually impossible, and even the simple chore of drawing lines is unpredictable and messy as the pixels aren't actually appearing.

I moved onto SAI and found it to be an extremely powerful and capable tool when creating pixelart, but unfortunately the one limitation I found with it was the most crippling - the eraser has no option whatsoever for disabling anti-aliasing. There is no efficient way to "rub something out".

I then moved to The Gimp out of desperation and spent nearly half an hour just trying to figure out the tools and found it to be equally confusing and limiting.

I'm at my wit's end here because I have no intention of slowing down in my pixelling, but my software is seriously getting in the way of productivity! What do you guys use? And if you use the same programs as me, how do you circumnavigate these irritating shortcomings??

Thanks in advance.

[Atnas]

Most people use either graphics gale or promotion, I think.

[Gil]

Yeah, Graphics Gale or Cosmigo Promotion, those are the two most universal pixel art programs.

[KaiserFate]

Well I've never even heard of either of those, so that's a start, thank you both. I'm assuming they're free?

[blumunkee]

GraphicsGale has a free version. It's biggest limitation being you can't save GIFs. It's an annoyance when you need to post animations online, but it's perfectly functional for game development.

ProMotion costs money. It is to pixel art what PhotoShop is to image editing: the de facto standard.

GrafX2 is a new version of a very old program. It's free and it's got some nice feature overlap with ProMotion (they both trace their roots to Delux Paint), but it's lack of animation support disqualifies it from serious production work.

[edit to fix link]

[KaiserFate]

GraphicsGale has a free version. It's biggest limitation being you can't save GIFs. It's an annoyance when you need to post animations online, but it's perfectly functional for game development.

ProMotion costs money. It is to pixel art what PhotoShop is to image editing: the de facto standard.

Grafx2 is a new version of a very old program. It's free and it's got some nice feature overlap with ProMotion (they both trace their roots to Delux Paint), but it's lack of animation support disqualifies it from serious production work.

Cheers for that - though the Grafx2 link appears to be broken.

I have never used DeluxPaint so that means nothing to me, it would be just as fidgety as learning a new program.

I am, however, very much enjoying GraphicsGale and might even buy it. $25 really isn't that much.

-Edit- Okay, so it has keyboard shortcut mapping. Sweet, this program has everything! Thanks a lot, guys, you are all life-savers.

[9_6]

I don't suppose there's a way to set keyboard shortcuts in it for the tools, though? Having to go up and manually click the buttons from the top menu is kind of a pain.

You can customize the hotkeys for pretty much everything under "preferences".
In fact, you're heavily encouraged to do so as it considerably speeds your workflow up.
The only thing you can't do (which is a major flaw of GG) is assigning the picture mover to "space" or moving the picture out of the window like you can do it in photoshop.

[blumunkee]

I am, however, very much enjoying GraphicsGale and might even buy it. $25 really isn't that much.
I don't suppose there's a way to set keyboard shortcuts in it for the tools, though? Having to go up and manually click the buttons from the top menu is kind of a pain. Otherwise, no complaints.

Keyboard shortcuts are, for the most part, customizable. I don't have the program on hand, but look around the preferences somewhere. The only thing thats really hard-coded into the program is color selection via rightclick.

Yeah, I used GG for a couple of years before switching to ProMotion. My setup was very PhotoShop like so I didn't have to do mental gymnastics to learn the UI.

[KaiserFate]

I might tackle ProMotion down the track, but for now the price is right for GG. It has the look and feel of a homebrew program, yes, but on the other hand it has absolutely all the functionality I need and then some, in fact it seems to combine everything I liked about Photoshop, MSPaint and SAI. And it's an animation tool, my head's spinning here.

I've set up my keyboard shortcuts to basically meet my Flash and Photoshop setup halfway. Breezing through it now.

[7321551]

ProMotion: I like it, I bought it, but I've been pretty disappointed since I realized that the color-picker uses HSV (labelled HSB) rather than HSL.
Explanation of what I mean.
Consequently, I can't draw a picture with just values (grayscale), & then fiddle with the hue & saturation - if I raise the saturation of white or near-white, for instance, I will get what I perceive as mid-value, fully saturated red (or blue, or wherever the hue slider is).
This is sort-of crippling for me somehow, so at the moment I'm shifting ceaselessly between Graphicgale & the one I paid 78USD for. Hopefully HSL will be added in a future version.