Pixel art in Photoshop, plugins/tips&tricks?

[Seiseki]

Hello!
I can't imagine doing pixel art in any other program, the only downside is not being able to make geometric shapes without anti-aliasing.
So you people out there who also use photoshop, do you have any special tricks or plugins that you use?

[michelcote]

To make geometric shapes without AA set your rectangle tool (for example) to Paths (3 icons in the upper left, the middle one). Draw your shape, right-click>stroke path. Your current brush/pencil settings will determine what the path is stroked with, so set it to pencil at 1 pixel.
I've also recently discovered shift-clicking with the brush or pencil and it's helped with my workflow quite a bit. Click with your pencil where you want your line to start, and shift-click where you want the line to end. Makes a straight line.
A grid also helps. Ctrl-H to toggle the grid, ctrl-K to bring up the preferences menu. In the guides, grids and slices tab you can adjust your grid.
Hope all this helps 

[Hazzy]

I use Photoshop because I don't like how GIMP is laid out, else I would use GIMP considering I like how easier it is to organize colors when setting the image mode to indexed.
Also the grid in Photoshop MUST be square which I dislike about it, say if I wanted the grid to be 16x18 then I'll have to make my own.

I'm still looking for a better program to sprite with (which is free). I have seen some good programs around but they always lack something that another one has, so I'm pretty much planning on making my own program dedicated to pixel art sometime soon.

[Elk]

Special tricks... lol

Use your head to make a rectangle... use your knowledge, to make a perfect circle -.-

Tsssssssssssssss.... man

[rikfuzz]

There is an antialias tick box for the shape tool.  (And if you're at 100% zoom, rectangles will always fall inline with the pixel grid anyway).

I do wish you could do non square grids though. There's probably a plug in for it, but it's never bothered me that much to look for it.

[ptoing]

Also setting Image Interpolation to Nearest Neighbor in Preferences > General would be a good idea. It prevents stuff from getting antialiased when you you rotate, deform, and so on.

[Seiseki]

Special tricks... lol

Use your head to make a rectangle... use your knowledge, to make a perfect circle -.-

Tsssssssssssssss.... man

It's all about workflow

Thanks for the comments so far
Never had the need for a non-square grid actually, but now that I think about it, it would help with sprite sheets.

[ui]

I create my pixel art like this....
FILTER->PIXELATE->MOSAIC......
jajajajajajaja im kiddin!!

the only downside is not being able to make geometric shapes without anti-aliasing.

You can actually do it without AA, just UNCHECK the Anti-Alias option everywhere...
Press M, L o W and unckeck that option.
Press T (font) and select, None in the aa option (which is anti-alias)

I suppose you already know these but...
W, uncheck Contiguous, Tolerance 0, and you can select 1 color from your palette and then change it if you want. This is usefull for sprites and 1 layer stuff...
You can export the PSD into files like PNG, BMP, GIF o whatever.... (if you manage to create sprite animations) - FILE/SCRIPTS
If you also create VECTOR art, you can import to photoshop without AA

a tip,
if your scaling your pixel art try to use 200%, 300%, 400%, etc... or rounded numbers like... 240%, same for rotations... this maybe is a bit meh tip, but just in case! XDD. And as ptoing said... Nearest Neighbor first at all! :X

I use Photoshop because I don't like how GIMP is laid out...

Did you tried Paint.net, is pretty good and similar to photoshop... the main problem i have with that program is...the guy who code the program dont want to create a a photoshop clone (which actually is a lol, cause the program is almost equal). And also you cant config the KEYBOARD SHORTCUT, dont know why, but the guy who code the to program just dont want to add that option...

[Mathias]

Never had the need for a non-square grid actually, but now that I think about it, it would help with sprite sheets.

Create a grid yourself, use 2 high contrast colors. Keep it as a layer below everything else and keep it locked. Modify it's opacity at will (I always want mine very low contrast so opacity of like 10% may be good, for instance. You only need to see the edges of the grid blocks afterall.

Extra trick - place 1 bright nasty-colored pixel in the very top left of your sprite's in-game dimensions, in each frame and use that to register each frame correctly in your little custom grid. Erase/hide the registration pixels at will, by either keeping them each on separate layers and/or in a different layer group folder that may or may not have a mask applied to it that would hide all reg pixels. If needed, select all reg pixels at once with the magic wand to sample all layers, non-contiguous, no AA, etc.

If any of this is over your head due to Photoshop noviceness, I would just ignore my advice for now. You'll learn eventually.