New to Pixeling

[ptoing]

why are all you people saying what every pixel artist (good or bad) got into pixel art with is bad?

Pixel art both predates and evolves without MSpaint. The origins of the artform lie in ancient home computers, and the rise of what we call pixelling today occured on home consoles like the SNES and computers like the Amiga500, with deluxe paint and variations of. All the active demoscenes which involved pixel art were much more on machines that aren't PCs. Atari, Amiga, c64. MSpaint is a recent tool in this historical framework, and not what most of the great pixel artists started out with.

Word!

[robotriot]

Actually, MSPaint was released the same month as DPaint (November 1985). Which doesn't change the fact that it's crap of course

[ptoing]

Yeh, DPaint has nothing on the mighty MSPaint 

[ndchristie]

i can see whhy people dont like idraw, which i why i say that i like it because it works best for me.  right-click serves as an eyedropper (which is nice) and you can define all hotkeys (like many other programs but still nice)

the main selling point on idraw im is the selection tools, which are not as powerful as photoshop (no AA ability) but feel much better when i am using them.  I really only use 4 tools: the rectangle to draw, the pen to sketch, and the magic wand + rectangular marquis to change selections.  A program which doesnt make these really fluid just doesnt go with how i work.  GraphicsGale loses out imo because its selection tools (no shift/alt functions) and the fact that it cannot animate a sheet.  i hate using separate images per frame, and Idraw's custom animation preview for me is the best (especially if you have the later version that can save animation schemes)

Promotion i think is probably the most well-rounded program ive seen, it has many more things than Idraw, i just dont use it because its not as comfortable to me and i havent taken the time to explore it.

MS paint has nothing.  you need to select the eyedropper or go down and click on the palette every time you change your active or passive color.  you cant do anything while selections are drawn, and you cant make complex selections.  you cant save with a unique palette unless the file was opened with one already existing, and even this one you cannot alter except along the standard (often useless) schemes that it offers

[Gil]

GraphicsGale loses out imo because its selection tools (no shift/alt functions) and the fact that it cannot animate a sheet.

Graphicsgale can export sheets easily, but you can only do that at the end, because you can't import them afaik. That's enough for me. Oh, and I happen to love the selection tools, because right click dragging is a hotkey for selection, really quick to select something that way. I love the freehand lasso marquee tool too, I use that a lot. (all my animations are sort of based on rag dolling, to get the exact selections I need, I freehand lasso them)

The reason Photoshop will never compare is because it doesn't snap to individual pixels. You can't draw anything decent if you're not sure which pixel exactly you're clicking. Oh, and its preview thing sucks compared to others.

That said, Pro Motion gets me lost in all those functions. I haven't gotten into it, because I always see an abundance of stuff on my screen that I don't need. This is not argument against it though, just a quirk on my side... I'll give it a go again today...

[robotriot]

The reason Photoshop will never compare is because it doesn't snap to individual pixels. You can't draw anything decent if you're not sure which pixel exactly you're clicking. Oh, and its preview thing sucks compared to others.

Uhm, of course it does snap to pixels. It's a pixel-based program after all, what else should it do?

[Gil]

It really doesn't snap to pixels, check again...

Try drawing a perfect line with the line tool. You have to "guess" the center of a pixel or it produces junk. What I mean is that the cursor can be 50% on one pixel and 50% on another pixel and you don't know for sure which one will be filled. Snapping your tools to single pixels, as in every other pixel tool really is the way to go...

[robotriot]

Yea, that's true, but I hardly ever use the line tool. Pixeling works perfectly fine with the pencil tool.

[Gil]

Pencil tool doesn't snap either

[ptoing]

Yes it does, there is a setting that has to be set so it works, can't remember what it was tho. And as for making lines you can just click, shift-click with the pencil tool which works pretty well. I don't use ps and it's a bit bloated, but it is suited if dumbed down.

Don't bash a programm if you don't know it well enough.