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I came across a tutorial late the other night (hence I can't recall where now) that shows how to slightly accentuate the texture of brush strokes, which would help them look better when they print in magazines. I notice that there is a definite softening in print than on my monitor with regard to stroke texture. If that sounds familiar to anyone please, I would love some help! I thought it might have been applying the Equalize Effect, which brings another question: I tried applying equalize to the canvas layer with wet digital watercolor and when I hit OK the effect vanishes and I am seeing no histogram either. Does that have to do with not drying the paint before applying the effect? I come across these frustrating occurences occasionally and have tons of reference books, Painter X help, the net and still the solution is not to be found.

Answering one of my questions: I did get Equalize to work and could see the histogram when the layers were all dropped. I did not try it after drying the watercolors, so I will have to try that next time to see if that is the case.

Hi Danno,

Welcome to The PainterFactory!

Others may give you better answers to the question of enhancing your brush strokes before printing, but here are a couple of things other Painter artists say they've done that you might try with a test print:

Effects > Focus > Sharpen

or...

Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture, Using: Image Luminance

 

The reason you were able to apply Effects > Tonal Control > Equalize to the Layers after they were dropped to the Canvas is that dropping the Layers automatically dries the wet Digital Watercolor paint.

I did a few tests this morning and noticed the result was quite different when I dried the Digital Watercolor without dropping the Layer to the Canvas, then applied Equialize from the result when I first dropped the Layer containing undried Digital Watercolor paint to the Canvas, then applied Equalize.

Test it yourself to see what I mean. You may prefer one method over the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Jinny. Equalize is an adjustment that is probably only done as a last step in an images creation as a finishing touch. Most of the time I do those adjustments in Photoshop when I'm doing final print prep for cartoons. I'm curious now that you say it reacted differently without dropping all. I just wish I could remember where I found that initial tutorial. It might have been on Marilyn Sholin's site but I can't seem to locate it.