Prep for Painting in Corel Painter X
How I prepare for painting from a photo reference in Painter
January 2009
by Jeremy Sutton
This summary reviews my workflow for preparing to paint digitally using a Wacom tablet and Corel Painter software. Digital painting is just a part of my overall creative workflow which includes adding traditional paint to my digital paintings, which I output on canvas. Theimages shown here were part of my presentation at Imaging USA in January 2009.
Before doing anything else I customize my Wacom tablet settingsfor convenience and comfort.
I load in extra brushes and art materials into Corel Painter X to expand my range of marks. I also optimize the Preferences and palette layout ion Painter. The details of how I do this are all spelled out in my books and DVDs. Having set my tools up for action I am ready for selecing a "paint me" image to paint from.
After a shoot I will typically preview images in either IView Media Pro or Aperture and select Primary images that can form the foundation basis ofa composition, and Secondary images that I can use for subsiduary collage elements, textures etc.
I take RAW images and tyically pump up exposure, saturation and contrast in the Adobe Photoshop Camera RAW window.
While in Photoshop, I may also add Adjustment Layers for Levels and Hue/Saturation to further pump up the image for painting.
I then experiment with crops, seeing what will produce the most effective composition. I may also at this stage add extra colored canvas if I feel that is needed.
Once my main composition is settled I set the physcial dimensions in inches, keeping the file size contant (i.e. not yet resampling the image).This physical dimension reflects my goal in what I envision the end result will be.
Only after setting the physical dimensions do I then look at the pixel size and decide whether to resample to a higher resolution, thereby adding pixels to the image. I typically print at 150 dpi and try to strike the balance between having enough pixels in the image for good details yet not so many that my maximum brush size is limited and the program slow.
Finally I flatten my image and save it as a TIFF for opening in Corel Painter. Note that Painter does not support Adjustment Layers and that is why it is important to flatten them.
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