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Keep it Organized With Painter Layers!The Painter Layers box is essential to keeping it organized. And like I implied before, what separates a good art program from a bad one is the addition of layers. You need them for almost everything you do.The similarities between the Photoshop layers box and the Painter layers box are very slim. Both have very similar functions but just named differently. Still, don’t group them together as they are completely different beasts in some functions, such as the lack of styles in the layers attributes, in the Painter program. Let’s explore the Painter layers box in more detail, shall we? 1. Breaking the layers box downWhen you start up the program, you will see the layers box automatically assigned to the bottom right hand side of the screen.
Just like the Photoshop program, there is a default layer that you work on. It is named “canvas” rather than “background” like in Photoshop. Of course, it comes automatically locked. That means you can only paint on it without doing any manipulations to the canvas layer. And that’s permanent! You can’t even manipulate the canvas layer, by copying the layer and turning it into a regular layer, like you can in Photoshop. This means you must have a canvas layer for everything as it is the backbone of your painting. But it’s not a bad thing at all. It sets you in the state of mind that you are working on a canvas just like in real life! 2. Layer commandsThe fundamental difference between Photoshop and Painter begins here. This is where the beast starts to growl! At the bottom of the screen is an icon that looks like pieces of paper levitating on top of each other. It is the first icon on the bottom left if you read from left to right. The functions and its explanations are:
What does this mean? Well, if you group and ungroup layers, they are reversible. However, if you collapse the groups, the layers are unrecoverable unless you hit the undo function. Drop just merges everything into the canvas layer. It also can’t be undone! This is why you have to be careful. If you merge a group or drop all the layers and then you exceed the 32 undo commands, the layer that you want to separate from the group is gone! Other than that, you can add layers easily by clicking on the icon with a + in it and delete layers by hitting the trashcan. 3. Similarities of the layers boxSimilar to Photoshop, you can lock the layers (by hitting preserve transparency) so you can paint with the shapes in a given layer, without worrying about distorting the shape.As well, you can change the opacity to your liking. It is a simple as scrolling to the right percentage that you want. The Painter layers box also has blend modes incorporated. If you click on the arrow where it says default, the following blend modes are available for you to play around with:
That’s a lot of blend modes! You will discover that some are similar with Photoshop’s blend modes. But again, you don’t need to know all of them. They aren’t important when developing your skills as an artist. Play around with them and use them sparingly. Other than that, just stick it on normal and paint away! 4. Conclusions about the Painter layers boxJust like Photoshop, use the Painter layers box as a guide to help you keep it simple. Create as many layers as you need to keep organized. But group them when you think you don’t need the individual layers anymore. Another thing to keep in mind is that Painter doesn’t have a history box. While in Photoshop, the history box and the layers box is intricately linked, you have to depend on the trusty and basic undo command in Painter. Is this a bad thing? Again, not at all! All this means you have to plan your paintings ahead of time! As well, you need to develop your artistic skills as Painter doesn’t have any layer styles that you can depend on. Just in case you forget, the layer styles are mathematical equations done on the whole layer to create specific effects such as a drop shadow, gradients, inner glow, etc. The only available options, when you double click the layer, are leaving notes and naming the layer. It’s not much but it will help you develop your skills as you can leave notes to what you’ve done to get that effect. It’s very essential to your learning! Again, for beginner artists like you, use the Painter layers box to organize your thoughts only, while letting your motivation and imagination do the rest!
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