I use Adobe Photoshop for all my post rendering and know it pretty well throughout, however I have yet to master the cloning tools?? Up till now this is the one thing I continue to use Corel 8 for because of it's ease of use in that program. Anyone else have a comment on Adobe Photoshop's cloning tools?? Also, please folks, don't limit this forum to Photoshop because Adobe makes some other very good programs as well! Anyone here use Adobe Imagestyler other than me?? Or how about Illustrator, Premier, Golive???? ~3DSprite ;-)

I have PageMill and GoLive. cloning tools? You mean the rubber stamp tool?

I have PS, Acrobat Reader :o)))) and Premiere 5 for videocutting wondering about the mentioned cloning tool in PS5, too. In coreldraw its really pretty easy to clone a part of the image with ANY brush-setting

The trick to using the cloning tool (in my opinion) is to watch the placement of the little cross hair while you're painting with the cloning brush (after having defined the starting point with option/click). While you're painting, you'll notice the cross hair blinking on & off and that's the source for the cloning. It'll move in the same direction as the brush is moving, so if you see the cross hair heading for a part of the picture you don't want used as a source, stop and re-define the starting point (option/click). There are some tricks to using it that are explained in the manual, but I'm not at home so can't look it up for you. I much prefer the way Painter does cloning if I'm going to do large areas, but the rubber stamp does ok for little jobs. You can also use the lasso tool to mask a large area quickly, copy and paste to a new layer, then use the eraser tool to fit it in (set layer transparency to about 75%). When you've got it right, set transparency back to 100% and flatten (or merge) the layers. It's a technique I've used often and it works well for me.

continued Most reviews I've read on graphics stress that each of the major programs has it's strong, and weak, points and you should really consider having more than one program. For the Macintosh, the most often recommended combo is Painter and PhotoShop. I have both and consider the combination to be unbeatable. For some reason unknown to me, Corel never really made it big in the Mac world (maybe because they are so slow in coming out with upgrades for the Mac?), but I've seen what it does on PC's and would certainly recommend it to anyone who asked me.

well, sounds if this can work...(did'nt figured out the cloning tool, yet, but wonder if its as easy as it is in corel photopaint) and its jnmoore once more who gave the fantastic hint :o) Thanks!!

Speaking of other programs... I almost always use Painter for applying textures, rather than PhotoShop. The reason for that is Painter's Dye Concentration filter. You invert the texture you are planning to apply first and use the dye concentration filter to adjust the saturation of the image based on the gray scale values in the pattern. If you then apply the texture over top of that, it really looks like it "grew there". Painter also gives you much better control over how the texture is applied than PhotoShop does. You can adjust lighting angles and color, light intensity, ratio of texture to picture, shine, and reflectivity with real time feed back. If you have Painter (if you don't you can download a trial version from MC I think) try what I've just described the next time you're making a texture for "Posette". I think you'll be impressed with what it can do....

You can do a lot of what I just described with the Lighting Filter in Photoshop (It's under the Render category in the filter menu), but it's (to me) not as easy as Painter and PhotoShop won't use the scratch disks for the Lighting Filter, so if you have a big file, you'll need lots and lots of memory to use it. - Jim

Dear Jim, you always give very proffessiional hints on photoshop and painter and i use them if time lets me, but.....when i search for "jnmoore" in the gallery theres NOTHING to show. please would you be so kind and upload some pictures you made? i'm very curious about what you do with Photoshop, Painter etc... -Karsten

Karsten, I never really gave it much thought because most of what I do isn't Poser related so would be of little interest to most of the people who frequent this forum. My biggest use of PhotoShop and painter is concerned with restoring old family photographs and I am currently attempting to scan most of my 35mm slides onto CD's for my children, but I have also done some "artsy" things with some of them. If I still have the files, I'll upload a few for you to the 2D gallery. If not, I'll upload the picture I'm currently "reworking" as soon as I've finished it (shouldn't be to long). - Jim

That would make me happy :o), because: talking of art and things one could do is one thing, to see them in a picture is another...thank you for leaving your "principles" just because i asked for... -Karsten

Uh, this is probably a dumb question but "How do I upload pictures to the gallery"? Keep in mind that I don't have a website and don't want to get into having one either (my wife already thinks I spend far to much time on this stuff). - Jim

Move to the Gallery, theres an Option "Upload" click it and fill out the form. give the path to your picture on your HD and, if you have one, to the related thumbnail. if you like to, add some text and then send it...thats all -Karsten, looking forward to see what you send :o)

Karsten, Thanks! Looks easy enough even for me. When I get home this morning (it's 4:30 am for me) I'll look in my CD's for something.... - Jim

okidoki :o)

Looks like I am not alone with finding the cloning tool in Corel much easier to use ;-) I have a PC obviously. However, from what I am hearing more and more it looks like I will have to start dabbling in Painter!! Can someone tell me the difference between Painter 3D and Painter?? Seems there are two different programs that look very much the same?? I have the opportunity to use either at work and am wondering which would be the better choice? Thank you for all the much useful info folks!! This is turning out to be a very interesting section of the forum! ~3DSprite ;-)

hehehe, just wondering, too, which difference is between painter 3D and Painter. they're obviously both from metacreations, and painter 3d seems to be the one for "mesh-painting",but..which one is more worth purchasing it? who knows? -Karsten

And they "look" almost identical???

Karsten, Get Painter 6 by all means. You can generate the mesh maps in UV Mapper a lot easier than in Painter 3D and you will have a lot more brushes and special effects available to you in Painter 6. 'Just my opinion, of course... Also -- Painter 3D-SE is free with Poser 4 and, I think, RDS 5.5. The full Painter 3D is no longer available from MC (I tried to get it from them 2 weeks ago). BTW: You wanted to see some things I'd done with Painter & PhotoShop. There are 3 of them in the 2D gallery. 'Hope you like them...

I have to say, get Painter 6 as well. It truly is a great complement to Photoshop and a definite must for making textures! Painter 3D really is a bit limited and not for post-production. I go back and forth extensively between Painter and Photoshop because each one has its strengths. And many you wouldn't even think of! For instance, I always convert to a Photoshop document to print even if I did the whole image in Painter, because I find that Photoshop prints a lot better. As for Photoshops clone tool, jnmoore is right. It's best for small jobs unless you are cloning in a part of the image that has large areas without detail. It's best to clone in small dabs rather than trying to stroke. And if you don't really watch the crosshairs, you will get funny lines in your cloned area. BTW, I have Adobe Illustrator and would be glad to talk about that, too. It has its definite uses for "clean" graphic work and now has many more line options that include "natural" brushstrokes. I find that it takes longer to do work in it in the beginning than it would in a paint program (getting all those bezier points adjusted properly), but because it is vector based, it remains completely editable and infinitely scalable. That is a definite advantage for certain types of work. Diane

Yet another one to chime in. Painter 6 is the perfect companion to Photoshop. I wish I knew more about Corel but Photoshops rubber stamp works very nicely. I have been using it almost all day. What a lot of people dont seem to realize is that you can open another completely different image in Photoshop and with the 2 images open do a direct clone from one to the other. Immensely useful. I havent really had any trouble working with large areas, but generally all my clone work is small and for touchups. As far as a 3d Paint program for painting meshes etc. I have heard nothing but good concerning Deep Paint 3D. I have been told that it is Very "Poser" friendly. However I like to do my maps in UV mapper and then take them to Painter 6. Tartan

uh, very much information, thank you guys!!! so i will have a look at painter 6. if its a lot different and better than corel photopaint8 i will buy it, i think. :o) thanks again to all you friends out there! -Karsten

Yes, thank you from me too!! ;-)

Diane, Although I don't have Illustrator, I do have Freehand 7. Any insights into the arcane world (to me) of drawing with bezier tools would be welcome. I mainly use Freehand for text effects (text-on-a-path, envelope distorting, etc), but have also used it to make a small booklet for the family (Pics and bio's of family memebers). I never upgraded to version 8 since the art tools weren't of to much importance to me and it doesn't have the "natural paint" tools anyway. I used to use it a lot for printouts of pictures I did in PhotoShop because it did a better job, but, alas, it isn't very friendly to PhotoShop 5's pictures for some reason (anybody have similar experiences?). I've seen some of your work, Diane, and would greatly appreciate your insights into any of these paint programs. 3D Sprite: If you want to see what can be done with Photo Paint, just look at the textures Rena (renapd) has done over at FairyWoods. I'm sure her talents contribute more to it than the program does, but I doubt that she could have done any better with PhotoShop or Painter. She has told me more than once that she couldn't do what she does without Photo Paint. 'Quite a recommandation as far as I'm concerned... - Jim