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General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: oboe on May 06, 2004, 08:29:41 AM

Title: Photoshop question
Post by: oboe on May 06, 2004, 08:29:41 AM
How do you make curved lines?   I've been trying with the shape tool (set to ellipse) and then selecting "Stroke" 1px as a blending option to get color, otherwise it disappears when I rasterize the shape's layer.   But the curved lines always become real thick-appearing I guess due to anti-aliasing.

Thanks help!
Title: Photoshop question
Post by: Dux on May 07, 2004, 08:34:43 AM
I don't usually "draw" in PhotoShop, so I probably don't know all of the tricks.

But what you could do is draw all of your curved lines on a scaled-up copy of the master file, then scale it back down and copy/paste into the final file.*

Remember: there is no such thing as a half-pixel. If you want to represent something thinner than 1 pixel, all you can really achieve is the illusion of it being thinner.


*ps. don't scale your master file up and down, or you will end up with fuzzy pixels. The way that PhotoShop (and all bitmap editors) interpolates pixel data when resizing is something that can be very tricky. You can actually have a detail (for example, a panel line) that is 1-pixel-wide in high-res mode, and when it scales down to normal-res, that 1-pixel detail actually becomes 2-pixels. This doesn't make apparent sense until you understand just how the program is making its calculations.
Title: Photoshop question
Post by: rabbidrabbit on May 07, 2004, 09:08:14 AM
there are other programs that are designed to handle fractals better. one of them is adobe illustrator.
Title: Photoshop question
Post by: Echo on May 07, 2004, 01:54:39 PM
use the pen tool to pick points. those points will then have "handles" that u can move around with the white arrow tool to define the curve. there is also a tool in a "V" shape to change the type of curve at the point. ie............ bezier, or bezier corner, or just corner.

p.s. i cant open photoshop right now so just going off memory, but u may have to hold down the pen tool, then a list will pop down and u can choose one of the tools mentioned above. also i think if u click and drag with the pen tool u can define the curve to some degree. oh yeah once u get the spline in there u have to use the stroke function to make it draw a line. when u use stroke it will ask u what tool u want to stroke it with. pick airbrush or pencil, or whatever but make sure its set to the pixel thickness u want.