I agree the way to go for artwork is a graphics tablet, the difference is stunning. I have to say though that I prefer the Intuos Tablet over the graphire just because of the extra sensitivity. How ever the cost of the Intuos is a LOT higher. So if you cant afford it go with the Graphire. I never have gotten good at using the tablet as a mouse so I still use both.... the tablet for drawing and the mouse for surfing etc. Mostly because I am stubborn though I think! If you want to see the difference in my art between using a mouse and using the tablet check out my gallery. All of the images of the birds were done with the tablet the older ones were done with a mouse.

Sorry about that typo up there, you can get them directly from Wacom at that price.

I have the Art Pad II as well but I have had one of the less expensive tablets in the past, there is a BIG difference in the feel of the less expensive tablets, you dont have as much control or as much preassure sensitivty. I hated graphics tablets when I had the cheaper one because it just wouldnt do what I wanted it to do. I finally folded to preasure from my sister to try the more expensive tablet and now I cant live with out it. All of my bird art is done soley with the graphics tablet and Photoshop with out the use of any filters or effects......I can say for sure though where tablets are concerned you get what you pay for. I do agree though the 4 x 5 tablet is plenty large enough. The Intuos is the Art Pad II replacement/ upgrade tablet, and you can get them from Intuos for about $199 .... if you can wait and save a little more money I would say go Intuos over Graphire.

Not that I know of..... you can use the distort and perspective adjustments under the edit menu somewhat for this..... and maybe Sphere under filters to achieve a roundness.... I would just play with it if it were me and see what I could do with those tools.

Congratulations miyu fabulous work. Alpha Finding Edges sounds fun :)

I have to agree, Painter is a pain and has so many flaws that I wouldnt pay money for it again. I have tried the demos on both Zbrush and Deep Paint 3D and I really liked the way both of them work. Sadly I am not independently wealthy and can not afford those two programs. I would definitely reccomend you download the demo versions of both Deep Paint and ZBrush and give them a try. They work fully as far as I could tell, I just wish the 30 day trial was a little longer.

Hey there Alpha! Sounds like you are going to be a great FM for this forum! I think you have the backroom pretty well covered I cant think of anything you could add really that couldnt be covered under the headings you already have. The banner contest sounds like a fabulous idea and so does the challenge. As dar as topics for the challenges go.... hmm well have to think about that.

no, I mean actions. Brushes as far as I know will only do solid colors...I could be wrong there.... but to record an action there is a button you press on the actions menu.... you do all your steps then press the button again to stop recording. Then to replay it you just choose that action from the menu and it will re do everything you did when you recorded it. Go to the help menu and look up actions....it gives good instructions for recording them :) I am not sure though if this will remember the image you chose to copy/paste..... it may though I just never tried it.

You could probably manually do it once and record it as an action...but you wouldnt have the mouse/ pen control you have on placement of the image like in Painter. Meaning it would paste the images in the exact same position as you originally recorded the action instead of making it random. There is a plugin that is supposed to work simularly, but I have never tried it...right now the name of it elludes me. If I remember I will repost.

Well.... if it were snake skin or anything with scales, you could use an action (do a search on free Photoshop Actions)that create a metalic look on each individual scale.... or you could use a filter like Eye Candy Chrome to make the scales look metallic or go to the FARP website I believe there is a tutorial there on painting metal (there may even be one here LOL havent looked) With any of these methods though I really reccomend working on the scales individually, most filters will wipe out something like scales when applied, just keep your lighting all going the same direction and it should turn out nice looking. Hope that was helpful

Attached Link: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/farp/

Like jayarraich said, you need Image Ready to make the animations. I am more familiar with Photoshop than with the animated GIF creators, so I waste a lot of time setting up my animations in Photoshop..... meaning you can create each individual frame of the animation in Photoshop..... but you will still need an animated gif program to compile all of the images into an animation. I dont really reccomend you do it this way as you can achieve the same results with a lot less work creating your gifs in a GIF program. If you dont have a GIF program, check out Twocows.com or Download.com it seems like there are some shareware versions of Uleads GIF animator out there.

hmm Well, you could try the different level adjustments in Photoshop, I dont render straight out of Poser but I think I understand what you are talking about. Try going to Image / Adjust Levels, Curves, Brightness and Contrast etc.... play around with them a little and see what you get. You may also try asking in the Poser Forum about more natural lighting conditions, I think I recently saw where you can buy presets for natural lighting conditions at Daz3D.com. You may also want to try playing around with Photoshops lighting tools.... Filters/Render/Lighting Effects. It sounds like you are producing moving images though and if you dont want to do this frame by frame and have access to Adobe Premiere you can also change things around in there and apply it to the entire movie or to parts of the movie, works a lot like Photoshop in being able to change the hue, contrast etc. Hope that helps some.

I dont quite understand what you mean by "look" .... can you elaborate ?

Attached Link: http://thepluginsite.com/resources/brushes.htm