Many people know that I’ve phased-out Sketchbook Pro in my workflow, and now use Photoshop instead. In this video, I’ll show a few of the new CS4 features that made the transition possible. More details after the jump…
I can’t say enough good things about the improvements made for Photoshop CS4. The implementation of Open-GL graphics alone was enough to sell me on the upgrade, but it certainly doesn’t stop there. Specifically I’d like to look at some of the features that impact my day-to-day work: rapid sketching and visualization.
Top CS4 improvements for digital sketching/painting:
- Open-GL anti-aliased zooming makes sketching silky-smooth at any zoom level.
- Holding “Ctrl-Opt” allows for dynamic brush resizing. Just hold these keys with any brush selected, and then drag to adjust the brush size! Secondarily, brush hardness can be adjusted in the same manner by hold ing “Ctrl-Opt-Command”. (Note that the Windows shortcut is different, and involves the RIGHT mouse button.)
- Canvas can be rotated on the fly while painting simply by holding the ‘r’ key and dragging to rotate.
- Improved brush smoothing and performance allows custom brushes to behave almost as well as Sketchbook Pro brushes, and with much more flexibility.
- Improved “Workspaces” allows for the creation of cleaner, nicer UI designs specifically for your sketch workflow.
- Adobe Configurator–though limited at this time–allows for the creation of custom panels and palettes.
Here are some files to help you get started:
- SketchBox: A simple Configurator panel with only the tools I use most, all out in the open. To install, place in the Adobe Photoshop CS4/Plug-ins/Panels folder and restart Photoshop. The panel can now be accessed in Photoshop through Window>Extensions>SketchBox.
- SketchBox_Presets: This contains all of my custom brushes for the brush and eraser tools. To install, save expanded file to Adobe Photoshop CS4/Presets/Tools/, and then within Photoshop open the “Tool Presets” palette (Window>Tool Presets). From the menu at the upper-right of the Tool Presets panel, select “Load Tool Presets…” and navigate to the file.
- SketchBox_Actions: This includes three actions: delete, BlackToAlpha, and scanCleanup. I’ll leave it to you to experiment with them and see what they do. Save these to Adobe Photoshop CS4/Presets/Actions and from the menu at the upper-right corner of the Actions palette within Photoshop (Window>Actions), select “Load Actions” and navigate to the file.
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Adam O'Hern is an industrial design consultant specializing in visual brand languages, and has designed products ranging from laptops to power tools, classroom toys to bathroom fixtures, and robots to lint rollers. He has published with 3DWorld Magazine, CGTuts+, and Luxology, and works with Josh Mings of SolidSmack.com on EngineerVsDesigner.com. |
Okay after a painful hour of digging around here is the Windowx 7 (vista?) fix if you get “to close all panels or to restart Photoshop in order to get the security configurator”
1)Remove the file from the plugins/panels folder.
2)open up Adobe Extension Manager using rightclick Run As Administrator
3) File>Package Extension>SketchBox click it
4)Save as SketchBox.mxp
5)Click install, navigate to the .mxp file and click on it.
6)It should work now.
7)Try it out
awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!
Great set of tools. I have wanted to set up something like this but have been to lazy. The only thing is that I can’t seem to get the “Sketchbox panel” to work with the 64bit version of PS on the PC. When I try to load it quits. Works great with the 32bit version though.
Eric
Glad to be of use. Thanks for letting me know about your issues with 64 bit. Have fun!
Hi Reed:
The second one from the left is a little fiddly anyway; I don’t really recommend it anymore. The main thing to have is the brush presets. Glad to be of help!
Adam
Great video,
I downloaded your setting and i got everything but the bar 2nd from the left, could you tell me what is on it or maybe is there another download for it. I had the same problem as Gregor but i downloaded the configuration thing from adobe and then your stuff worked for me.
Thanks
Well, seeing as though I haven’t exhausted your toolset, I don’t have a particular request, for now…
I’m not in industrial design, I’m into fashion design, and right now I’m doing my switch from analog to digital… I’m no established designer, I’m merely on my path of learning. :)
I think your own story from analog to digital could help, and as far as things in common between ID and FD, patternmaking is nowadays done in CAD software, but I’m not really supposed to know that right now…
Like I said, I subscribed to your posts RSS so whenever you post something new, I’ll read it. :)
Mate, you have done the internet a huge, HUGE favor!
I’ve been using your tool presets, as well as the Configurator panel for about 30 minutes now and I have to say Photoshop blows Sketchbook Pro out of the water. Of course, the two could never compete, but Photoshop just feels better. With your GREAT GREAT tool presets, I can finally have a great pencil tool that isn’t SBPs’.
Thank you once again for your contribution and if you ever tweak them, add more, or do any kind of change to your setup, please post about it. Subscribed to your RSS. :)
Thanks for the enthusiasm, Dan! Will do. Let me know if there’s ever anything else I can help with.
Adam
Thanks for the video – the dynamic hardness control was new to me! Very cool. I’ve mapped the brush size control to the bottom button on my wacom pen, and the color sampler to the top button.
I built out a custom tool panel in configurator for sketching – you might find it useful:
http://nkurence.com/blog/2009/06/nks2-natural-media-tool-palette-for-photoshop-cs4/
Will be posting a vertically oriented version in a couple days.
Thanks again for the vid.
Many thanks for the tips though! I didn’t know about the ctrl-opt / ctrl-opt-cmd +drag shortcuts (so much nicer than pulling up the palette, and not constrained to steps like the [ and ] shortcuts), or ‘R’ for rotate (the only shortcut I had found for rotating was the multitouch gesture on the trackpad…which I disabled because it happens unintentionally all too often).
I’ll definitely give Photoshop another shot as a sketching tool after reading these tips.
The difference between the Mac and Windows versions of this shortcut is it’s biggest disadvantage. I’m a cross-platform user, so I always have to hunt around for the correct version of the shortcut depending on what computer I’m using. I wish they could have found a way to standardize. I’m hoping CS5 will clear this up.
There’s no such combination of keys as control-alt-command. If you’re using a Mac, it’s called ‘option’, not ‘alt’ (despite the *secondary* ‘alt’ label at the top of the key).
Not just being pedantic here; it matters because Windows doesn’t have a command key. In place of it is a Windows key, which is not available as a modifier key in apps…so it’s misleading to mix Mac and Windows modifier key names.
“Holding “Ctrl-Alt” allows for dynamic brush resizing. Just hold these keys with any brush selected, and then drag to adjust the brush size! Secondarily, brush hardness can be adjusted in the same manner by hold ing “Ctrl-Alt-Command”.”
These don’t work for me with Windows Vista. Holding those keys and dragging moves the background layer. Anyone know how to do dynamic brush resizing with the mouse on Vista?
Try various combinations of ctrl-alt-shift and RIGHT click on the PC version. I can’t remember what the correct one is.
Hi Jeffry. Glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do some more videos sometime soon.
The one major thing that still makes me crazy is the lack of true dynamic zooming via mouse-drag. I’ve been nagging John about this for a while, and I haven’t made much traction. It’s a big shame!! I wish that command-space-click would do what it currently does (zoom in one step), but that command-space-DRAG would let me dynamically zoom in and out by dragging right and left respectively. For some reason whenever I bring this up with the Adobe folks, I get a cold silence. It’s weird! Anyway, I’ll just keep hoping. :)
Adam, Good stuff. Thanks for sharing your workflow. It’s always fun to see how people are using the product.
Agreed, Photoshop CS4′s new features that you mentioned above make sketching and drawing in Photoshop very excellent.
I googled “make photoshop more like sketchbook” (since I don’t have Sketchbook at work) and found your post. Thanks so much for posting the tool presets & actions, they’re perfect for what I’m trying to do.
Hi Christy! So glad to hear they’re a good starting point for you. I’d love to see what you do with it!
The future looks bright for those who wish to do sketching and painting in Photoshop :)
Hey mate. Cool post and video, but I Cannot get your tools to work for me. I’ve just upgraded to CS4, so it’s all fresh. I’ve got your Configurator panel folder in my Plug-Ins / Panels folder, and also the contents of the folder duplicated there outside of their folder just to be safe in terms of detection.
I try to turn it on through Windows – Extensions, but I just get a pop-up saying to close all panels or to restart Photoshop in order to get the security configurator. Whether I do or don’t restart Photoshop, I don’t get any new options relating to your Sketchbox panel – it lists all the same options as stock.
Any ideas? Thanks mate, peace
Hi Gregor:
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble! I have to admit I’m not sure what the problem might be with the configurator panels. As for the presets, you may have to open them manually. Open up the “Tool Presets” palette, click the little menu at the upper-right of the palette, and choose “Load Tool Presets”. Then navigate to the brush presets file. This should load up my brushes at least. If that doesn’t work, let me know right away and I’ll look into it further. Best of luck!
Adam
hi adam,
could you prepare this tutorial in HD version and a bit slower ? you give perfect tips but i barely see in this video.
Could you post a jpeg image which show your special sketch brushs in PS with detailed settings ?
maybe you should add the same tutorial for sketcbook pro…
please inform me via mail when you have time to answer these, take care…
Hi Akin:
This was meant to be a demo, not a detailed tutorial. I’d recommend downloading the brush files (linked above) to see the detailed settings for each brush. Best of luck!
Adam
Hi Adam,
just discovered this little gem and your site in general. (just out of uni after an ID course, seem to have become increasingly confused by the tools out there and what I should be using, spent more time at uni dipping in and out of new software than creating my own workflow) jack of all, master of none springs to mind. Anyway, backtracked on your blog to an old photoshop rant, couldn’t agree more, CS4 has come a long way, its the little things that seem so obvious, dynamic brushes yada yada. Great presets by the way. Anyway when you talk about ‘rendering this puppy to the nines’ would love to see your method on something like that, your take on something like Scott Robertsons Industrial design bicycle classic…. except no bicycles please!
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you enjoy the content; let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see.
Doing a tutorial on “how to render in 2D” would be like doing a video called “how to paint”: there are a million ways to do it, and as many different possible outcomes for any given subject matter. The way I render a laptop is totally different from a power tool or a bathroom faucet.
That said, I think you may be right: the time may have come to attempt to do some more serious sketching/rendering tutorials. I’m not Scott, but then again that’s probably all the more reason to provide a different point of view.
Keep in touch, Matt.
Adam