I haven't been getting email notifications that there were more replies to this thread, I guess I should just check it anyway every day. Tried to follow all the posts you guys put up here after my last one, but most of it went over my head. No matter, it'll be quite awhile before I need to know all that!

I believe on the Smith Micro website it tell us that Clip Studio Paint is just the name they give to the downloadable version of MS5. I'm not 100% sure on that, but from what I read it's not much different than MS5. Maybe the downloadable version just adds a few more reference files or something.

Gimp didn't work very well on Win 7, overall it wasn't bad, but there were a few glitches, and sometimes the program would just crash when I tried to do a simple thing, like increase or decrease brightness and contrast.

I know this is a newbie question, but I wish someone would explain exactly what the uses are for masks, and why. I can probably find the info on wiki or something, but like I said before, my use of Gimp was very basic. I'm much more of a musician than a 2D or 3D artist. Funny, because I know I'm using masks, just not sure I know enough of the "why" to take full advantage of them.

If that snapping procedure you're talking about Pumeco is so important, it is kinda strange they would leave it out.

After talking with the support tech, he said the folders he mentioned to uninstall manually were for Clip Studio Paint. When I looked for those folders I didn't have them, so I'm not going to have to uninstall anything manually, just a basic uninstall.  I may just continue to use the program since there was only that one glitch, if I find more things wrong then I'll just do a fresh install. For now I'm not doing any major project with it, just trying to learn all the tools and experimenting. I'm also trying to learn Anime Studio at the same time, so I'm going back and forth, and it's going to take me some time, watching tutorials, trying things, etc...

I've used Gimp for a few years, when I got Windows 7 and installed Gimp 2.8 I began having problems with the program getting hung up on loading fonts, and it was taking a very long time for the program to load. Eventually it would load, but it was just buggy like that with Win 7 for some reason.

So it does have auto update, maybe that's what happened. Tech support said he thinks I have a corrupt installation and I should uninstall and do a clean install. Seems like there's an awful lot of folders that have to be uninstalled manually. Guess it's worth a shot.

Good advice RorrKonn, been doing that (moving on) lol. I'm not too concerned about the names of the tools as long as it works. Unless Manga Studio 5 has an automated update that I don't know about, I didn't manually update the program, so unless it updated itself that probably wasn't the cause.

Someone on the Manga forum said to try going into the preferences and adding a shortcut next to Selection Launcher. I did that and it does seem to work now, although all the tools are still named "Marquee", but the strange thing is the shortcut key that I created doesn't turn the toolbar on or off, but now when I go into the View menu and uncheck or check Selection Launcher, it does turn the toolbar on or off. At least it works now, even though the shortcut itself doesn't work, just adding it fixed the operation in the View menu. Maybe a glitch in the program, or maybe something I did by mistake.

Oh, ok no problemo! ;-)

Smith Micro tech support also told me to check to see if Selection Launcher option was unchecked in the View menu, and when I looked it was already unchecked. So maybe it's another setting I have to look for to change ?   pic attached......

Sorry about that line Pumeco. And sorry for the long delay in replying, I never got an email letting me know someone posted. :-(

Thanks Helos, I have since figured out the Panel issue, and apologies for my terminology not being accurate. I figured it out by doing what you said and using a panel template from the Manga Materials folder.  I used to use Gimp once in awhile, but only to edit pictures, etc...never really got into using the drawing tools or layers much. So there is much of this that is still very new to me, working on it. ;-)

I still haven't figured out why my Rectangle Selection tool has been replaced by Rectangle Marquee. If you look at Teyon's post in the previous page (link below), he posted a screenshot of the selection tools, and that is exactly how mine looked at first. Once I began using it I must have hit a keyboard shortcut by mistake or something and now my selection tools say "marquee" instead of just "selection". I never did any re-naming or anything like that, it just happened.
https://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2889546&page_number=4

You can see what I mean in my screengrab (below)  where mine says "marquee".(Rectangle Marquee, Ellipse Marquee, Lasso Marquee, Polyline Marquee, etc....) as opposed to (Rectangle Selection, Ellipse Selection, Lasso Selection, Polyline Selection), as mine used to be, and as Teyon's is in his screengrab.

When using one of the Marquee tools to select an object, it will have a row of icons at the bottom when you select an object (you can see that in my screengrab also), whereas the "regular" Selection tools like the ones in Teyon's screengrab did not have the icons when I used one of them to select an object, it only showed the dashed line around the selected object. There must be a way to change it back to regular Selection tools, no? I haven't found anything in the manual or anywhere else for that matter. Has to be a simple solution I would think.

Lol, why do you say the forum is aggravating?

Anyway, I changed my measurement to "inches" and made my new canvass template 10 inches X 8 inches because that will be big enough for a simple 4 panel comic strip, and it will fit on a sheet of 8 1/2" X 11" paper, which is the size I'll be printing on. (when I finally get there! lol). I was going to change the dpi to 600, just didn't make that change yet.

I think I'm not quite understanding the making panels thing yet. If the canvass I made is 10" X 8", and the purple is the same size, and the frame/panel I drew is smaller, but the whole purple mask moves with the panel, then I've lost my 10 x 8 canvass that I was using to measure my location of everything by. I think when I move a panel that I've drawn, I'm expecting to either see the white 10 x 8 canvass still remain there underneath, or I'm expecting that the purple mask also being 10 x 8, has now replaced the white canvass. I don't know, there's probably something I'm missing here, I'm just not that far into learning this program yet, eventually I'll get it locked in.

I will have to try what you said about making the panels, but will have to be tomorrow. Going to sleep now so I'll be off for awhile and will pick up where I left off later in the day  tomorrow. Thanks again for all the help. ;-)

Here you can see the "Marquee" sub tools that seemed to replace the "Selection" tools, and what it looks like when I draw a rectangle selection with this "marquee" tool as opposed to what it looks like when I drew one with the rectangle "selection" tool. When I had it as just a "selection" tool, it was just a dotted box with no menu below it.  And I can't get it back to where the tool says "selection". There must be a way to change it back so that it looks like the subtool picture you posted, no?

This is the frame I drew per your instructions. I've indicated what I want to do with an arrow.....Can I move that frame (just the white area) to the corner of the purple area? Btw, my canvass is 10 X 8, and the purple covers the whole 10 X 8 canvass area. When I select that layer you told me to select and then use the move layer tool, both the purple and the white move together. My thought is if I can put four panels side by side for a comic strip, but I need to be able to move them, size them, etc so that they are where I want them to be positioned, similar to what they did in the video tutorial (link I posted earlier). I must be doing something wrong.

Hey Teyon, regarding what you said about the selection tool....."I don't think there's a way to rename the tool."

The first time I used the rectangle lasso selection tool, I saw that it was named "selection" in the sub tool menu, (rectangle selection, elliptical selection, etc.....) and now they're all named "marquee", and I never renamed anything. Also the tools behaved differently too. When it was the lasso rectangle "selection" tool it just formed a dotted box around the object, now that it's named "marquee", it's a dotted box with other command icons attached below it.  I don't know how it got changed from "selection" to "marquee", and I can't seem to find a way to change it back. I no longer have a "selection" submenu, it's all "marquee" now.  I don't think it's just a matter of re-naming it, because I never touched the name box, never entered a new name, this happened all on its own.

Regarding: "To move the frame, In the Layer pallate, select the Frame1 layer and then in the tool bar, select the  Move Layer tool (it's right about the selection tool). This will allow you to move the frame and all it's contents (as long as they're all in the same frame group)."

I think I tried that. The frame I drew is about 1/4th of the size of the whole canvass. The purple covers the whole canvass area. When I select that layer and use the Move Layer tool, the frame moves, but the whole purple canvass moves with it. I'm trying to move just the frame without moving the purple canvass. Unless that's the way it's supposed to be, and I'm not able to move the frame flush up to a corner of the purple.

Hey RorrKonn, cool picture! I have been reading the Quick Strart and Tool guides, they are helping. I will check out the custom brushes, but that is going to be much later. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this all works. Sooner or later stuff will begin to make sense.

Teyon, I'm going to try to make a jpeg screen shot in a little while and see if I remember how to upload it to here so you can see both the "marquee" name in the select tools submenu, and the frame I'm trying to move.

Ok, why does my "select" tool say Rectangle "Marquee" now?? In fact, all the sub tools say "marquee" now.  How do I change it back to Rectangle "selection"?

Oh boy, I keep getting myself in deeper here! lol

Teyon, thank you, thought I lost you for a minute there! ;-)  I had been looking for a basic arrow (mouse-style) pointer tool, I guess there is none. I did find and use that selection tool you mentioned, used the rectangle select and was able to delete, but the rectangle stayed on the canvass after I deleted the selection, and I couldn't seem to get rid of it. I guess it doesn't disappear along with the deleted selection until you go to select another tool.

Well that was kinda tricky, I was using the "figure" tool like it said to use in the manual, but I was using the one on the left hand side, selected that, then and then just drew on the canvass with that. I wasn't selecting the one on the left and then also the one in the sub tool menu at the top. Man, I gotta get used to this UI or I'm gonna be lost. I'm trying buddy, believe me I'm trying!

Now, how do I select that frame I drew and move it to a different position on the canvass?  I tried the rectangle lasso select tool, but I didn't seem to have a "move" option. The "hand" tool moves the entire layer or canvass no matter which layer I have selected in the layer list, I just want to move only the panel I just drew. 

I assume my canvass will remain purple forever now, or can I change that color? Setting up the frames for a comic strip is what I need to learn about here, sizing them, moving them around, etc......the video I watched on YT had someone drawing pencil lines first on how they wanted their panels to look, then they drew one line at a time to make each panel, then they sized and moved them around, cut one of them into a triangle shape too. They didn't use the standard rectangle tool like I just did. I guess it s similar, and the last half of the video can clue me in as to how to even the space between panels, etc...

This is the video I watched.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR3xiMzH9M8

Btw, is the "Paper" layer just another name for what all the layers will look like when rendered? Is it just a sort of "preview" of what a render will look like? I assume since it's on every new file I create, that it's not really for drawing on.

Helos thank you, I actually do have an old Bamboo tablet ready and waiting to be used, but for now while I'm getting to know the UI I'm just going to use the mouse. I'm really not ready to tackle any detailed drawing until I think I can get around the UI, and learn what the different tools do a little better.

Thanks again for all your help guys, it really helps to cut down on the amount of time it's taking me to get around the UI, much appreciated.

Couple of simple questions.....

1. If I draw two different things on the canvass, I know I can delete the whole canvass using the delete key, but embarassing as it is, I can't seem to find the basic selection tool to use if I only want to select and delete one object, while keeping the other one. Tried the operation tool but that didn't work.

2. In the manual regarding drawing a frame (page 609), it says this......
   Creating a frame border creates a [Frame Border Folder] in the [Layer] palette. A [Raster] layer and a [Fill in monochrome] layer are created
   in the [Frame Border Folder].
   Furthermore, the [Layer Mask] created around the frame border is displayed in purple.

That doesn't happen when I draw a rectangular frame, I get the frame, but that's it, the canvass stays white. In addition to that, no new Raster Layer gets created, no purple mask, and I'm not seeing a Frame Border Folder either.  I must be doing something wrong then?  I'm just trying to draw simple rectangular panels to use to draw in and make a comic strip. Guess I'll have to go back and watch that tutorial again.

Ok I will, sorry, I had forgotten about the posts he had put up early on. Thanks! ;-)

Looking back now I think the reason I had to rasterize the photo because I probably had that layer selected and was supposed to select the tracing layer, my bad.