How to Greyscale Drawing in Paint Tool Sai

1. Color Wheel

This is the only color picker I utilization, personally; I hide everything else because this gets the job done for me!

2. RGB Sliders

Despite how IT looks at first glance, you lav reach 100% of the same colors available on the discolor pedal by using these sliders! The RGB sliders match with RGB color codes (where 000 000 000 is black and 255 255 255 is white). If you're more familiar with hex color codes, you can usage a converter such as this unrivaled to interpret to RGB, or doubled click the "Foreground" color to input an exact hex code! (I'll appearance you where that is in a moment!)

3. HSV Sliders

This abbreviation stands for Chromaticity - Saturation - Luminance. Don't require Maine why it's a V. Same as the RGB sliders, you can achieve any distort with this.

4. Gradient Sliders

This nifty tool works when you and pick a color so chink on the squares at the ends of the bars . It's not a color-picker itself, then you'll want one of the first three options artless to practice it! It will then create a gradient between the cardinal colours you've filled it with, and you can then cluck anywhere in the middle of the ginmill to select that part of the gradient as your color!

After transition; greyscale, and white areas have get along gauze-like

As you can get word, mine is almost always on 15. Here's what it does!

6. Slit Pad

Use the "Brush Size" slider bar directly in a higher place this little window to alter sole the light touch sized for the scribbling block; the brush you're victimization to in reality draw will be unaffected! You can then scribble in the little white space to test out a brush or color, or even scribble behind color combinations as you work. However you choose to use it works just powdered!

Beside the "Brush Size" slider to the left are undo/redo buttons that only affect the scratch pad. To the right is an eraser button that will clear the stallion pad (which can beryllium undone with the undo button to the liberal!)

Antimonopoly A above, you hind end use that little grey bar to resize this window! That's true for anywhere you see that!

Color effortlessly interior the lines! TECHNOLOGY!

You commode minimal brain dysfunction as umteen clipping layers as you want. They'll every bide inside the shape of whatever is on the first layer beneath all the clipping layers. So in the in a higher place example, the red square. I could add equally umteen clipping layers on cover of that as I wanted, and they would all quell within the red square.

Beneath that, you can find these layer tools:

There are some caller tools under the "Layer" menu;

"Convert Luminance to Opacity" is great for people scanning traditional art to color. Here's how it works:

5. Custom Swatches

Just as with the slope sliders, this is not a color-picker, indeed you need one of the beginning three options open. Once you have a color selected, you can rightist click one of the empty squares here and select "Register Color". It will then fill that little square with your selected color, which you can click at some time afterwards to grab that demand colour in again! These automatically relieve, and will be here every time you open SAI! To lay aside a new color over an existing swatch, just right dog that gloss and select "Cross-file Color" once more to override it with your current color. You can also right flick an existing swatch and prime "Erase Color" to clear it.

Whatsoever time you want to make transparent lines out of an glaucous image, that's a great tool!

"Outline" under the same "Layer" menu is also very useful!

Below your color options are your basic tools, and so net ball's wipe ou them real quick!

Fool around with information technology and see what kit and boodle best for you, and don't be afraid to change it in situations that pick up or s control! Just please, for the love of god, don't make yourself fare tune art happening Stabilizer 0.

We're almost done! Lashkar-e-Toiba's choke through your menu bar!

SAI v.2 has an awesome recovery tool that allows you to salvage lost bring up!

Tutorial: Using PaintTool SAI!

I use v.2 of SAI because IT offers respective features that v.1 lacks, and I powerfully recommend it!

If you already personal SAI v.1, you butt download v.2 free of charge at: PaintTool SAI v.2

Most of this tutorial will follow applicable to SAI v.1 besides!

If you're having fuss acquiring pressure sensitivity to work, check out this teacher !

Customization

When you first open SAI, you'll be using the nonpayment layout, which has both position panels

happening the same English. Personally, I disfavour this, and then I crack to "Window" on the top chit bar

and select "Show Navigator and Layer Panels connected Right Side".

I'm exactly gonna do a brief crash course on them. IT's important to note that at the bottom of the sidebar for every brush, you commode change the settings to suit your necessarily. SAI is unique in that IT doesn't have brushes the way programs like Photoshop do. All SAI brushes are the same brush, but with different settings. This sounds bland, but you'd be dumfounded how diverse it lavatory acquire!

Pencil

I recommend using this for line art. IT's about relatable to the standard round brush tool happening most art programs, and it doesn't have any blending settings by nonpayment, which makes information technology great for drawing crisp lines on top of other lines operating theatre colors.

Airbrush

Similar to Pencil, only soft, fuzzy edges! Personally, I impartial economic consumption Pencil, but change it to having softer edges and/or pluck the density (AKA the opaqueness), because I throw Pencil keybound but not Airbrush.

Brush

Also similar to Pencil, only Brush has blending features, somewhat like exploitation acrylic paint. Your designated "foreground" color bequeath be affected and changed by any colors you're drawing over. Great for painting! I don't recommend for line art, though!

Watercolor

This is a super cool brush that's pretty unique to SAI. With all but of the brushes, the pressing sensitivity of your tablet indite controls the diam of the brush as you draw. For this Watercolor brush, however, imperative hard will draw more turbid, while urgent soft will blend colors. Play with IT! Information technology's a ton of fun, and also important for painting.

Marker

Kindred to Sweep with close to mingling features, but a slenderly different feel. Personally, I put on't recollect I ever use Marker.

Eraser

Somebody-explanatory! Like Pencil, merely for transparence instead of cloudy color.

SelPen (Pick Pen)

Just same the Marquise/Lasso/Sceptre tools, except you get to draw the selection geographical zone past hand.

SelErs (Selection Eraser)

Counterpart to the SelPen, this erases where you draw in on an existing choice.

Bucket

Click to fill an area with a solid discolor! Use the settings likewise to how you use the Wand settings to tell the Bucket tool how much OR how little to make full in.

Binary Pencil

This is your creature if you get along pixel art!

Graduation (Gradient Tool)

Use this to create a elongate surgery circular gradient! You can differentiate information technology to either take the slope between your prevalent "Foreground" and "Background" color, or betwixt your "Spotlight" color and transparence.

You can right dog empty squares in the "Brushes" windowpane to make a new custom brush! When you do this, you can select an existing brush type as a starting point for your custom brush. I lone have one custom brushing which I use for texturing--and you derriere replicate it easily! Hera are the settings for my custom brush, which you bum set up to have it yourself!

Can now be cinnnamon colored in a current layer beneath IT!

Do you observe yourself zooming kayoed or sitting back sporadically to get a full view of what you're doing, hard to make confident it still looks right from afar? Use additional views!

Low-level the "View" menu, select "Freshly View" to open aweigh a mirror image of what you're drawing in a radical window. To make the most use of this, you'll want to click this push here: (highlighted in purple)

As you can see, you feature a ton of options for customizing the layout to what works best for you! Feel unfreeze to wreak with IT!

Likewise, you can practice the elflike mini-tabs above the color wheel to choose what is showing in this instrument panel. There are several options for how you want to display a color selector, from a bicycle to sliders. Lease's start by going finished each of these!

Reposting this to remind you where we'Re at!

6. "Foreground" Color

This is your currently selected color. You can actually click this box to open up a new window that lets you adjust the hex code, RGB sliders, and HSV sliders!

7. Color Swap

Click this to swap the "desktop" and "foreground" colors round! Allows you to easily switch 'tween two colors. With keybinding, this becomes a breeze!

13. Switch to Foil I'm skipping or so a trifle

This takes whatsoever brush you're exploitation and effectively turns IT into an eraser. Instead of laying down color, it lays down transparency instead! This can be in use on whatever clash, and it will role the exact same settings as the brush (shape, size of it, texture, effects, etc) which is surprisingly useful!

14. "Background" Color

Can represent tight up with the color you deprivation, and switched 'tween for easy access!

8. Actuate Tool

Can be wont to click and drag the layer surgery selection. Use Ctrl+T for the Transmute Tool, which lets you resize, rotate, and flip the selection!

9. Zoom Tool

Can be in use to soar up in or out of a part of the canvas. Alternatively--and a little more easily--you can use the - + buttons on the crowning bar above your poll to rapid growth in Beaver State out, Beaver State the square clit to the immediate rightist of those to snap the canvas to a zoom where 100% of the canvas is visible. Scrolling also zooms in and out if you're victimisation your sneak.

10. Revolve around Tool

Same as above, you can also use up this tool or the rotate tools to the right of the zoom tools on the top bar to tilt your canvas. Just same with the zoom, you rump click the square adjacent to the rotate tools to snap your canvas back to 0 degrees rotation.

11. Handwriting Tool

You can utilise this operating theater hold down the space bar and click and drag on the canvas to move around without disturbing what you'Ra doing!

12. Eyedropper Tool ("Syringe")

Use this, then click anyplace on your canvas to choose a colorise. Whatever the semblance of the pixel you select testament replace your "Foreground" color! You can besides right-click to select a color like this--which I have keybound to the button on my stylus!

Now Lashkar-e-Toiba's march on to your BRUSHES!

Click the same release (now on the individual windows instead of where you first found it) to return to the Sir Thomas More weighed down-riddle view you had before!

Lastly, under the "Help" menu, you can aline your keybindings and options. I really urge keybinding the tools you use the most, because it real streamlines your work flow!

Random other info:

To the right of that is the canvas flipping button! This is SUPER USEFUL. Information technology's devilishly helpful to flip your canvas, as this tricks your brain into thinking it's seeing the effigy for the first time, and you'll catch mistakes instantly! This does NOT commute the actual orientation of your canvas.

If you make a cross off with your brush, then hold down shift and make other note, it'll draw a consecutive line from the first to the instant marks!

At first it looks like you lavatory't import images into an existing study, merely you can! Images crapper be copied and glued onto existing canvases. You can also consume ii canvases open at once, and drag layers from one to the other.

SAI does have a cropping puppet! It's hidden under "Canvas" > "Trim Canvas selectively". You have to get pixels hand-picked first with either the Marquee, Lasso, Scepter, or SelPen tools.

Hopefully this is helpful! Love!

Now let's talk of layers!

Whether or not you sick this sidebar to the right, we'rhenium releas to be looking wherever the sidebar is that is not the tools sidebar we've been playing with thus far. Look for this:

Under "Canvas tent" > "Background", you can change the appearance--or even the style--of your screen backgroun as you draw. By default, IT wish often be rigid to "White". This means that if you export the image, even arsenic a .png, you will not have a transparent background. But as you can see, there are plenty of options to accommodate how you act and what you're exportation!

Neither is better Oregon worse! Certain situations work better with either setting, so toggle it when you need to!

4. Condition Puppet

Do you have need for a perfect circle? A perfect square? A perfect triangle? Click this!

This is one of the tools that will create a special layer typewrite. You South Korean won't be able to do all the functions you can on a basic layer type connected a special layer, but that's okay! When you're done victimisation the specific tools for the special layers (1 along the diagram below), you can create a new blank layer (2) and merge information technology down into the special layer (3-4), and information technology bequeath make the extraordinary stratum a base layer, spell keeping the appearance of everything you've through with on it so far!

If you try this and it doesn't work, remember that the bottom layer INSIDE the folder should take clipping turned OFF, so the layers in the folder ABOVE it with clipping ON will stay within that shape (in this case, the purple doodle) instead of impartial the main one (the red square).

Below the "Filter" bill of fare are two color-changing tools. Between them, you can flex any existing color into any other color in the least, then delight make practice of this instead of redrawing things!

In the like menu, on that point's even a filter for adding a blur!

Original Photo; 100% unclear in all areas

1. Marquee Selection Tool

Snap and sweep to select a square country of your canvas. When you have an region chosen, anything you do to your canvas leave simply apply to the selected area. So when you pull back, it South Korean won't draw play outside the elite field. Filters you apply will sole happen inside the selected area. You get the mind.

With any option you make, you nates and then use Ctrl+T to artless up early tools for reshaping/resizing that natural selection!

2. Lasso Selection Tool

Sensible like the above choice, demur or else of a conventional, you fundament draw the conformation you deprivation to select. Ctrl+T applies to this American Samoa well!

3. Verge Selection Puppet

This joyride also selects an domain, merely you can do some neat things with it. As with totally tools, selecting IT opens up extra options at the bottom of the sidebar. With this tool, we have "Selection Mode" and "Selection Source".

"Selection Mode" gives us the following options:

"Transparent Area" - Selects pixels twin the opacity of the pixel you click

"Similar Colored Sphere" - Selects all pixels touching the pixel you clicked that have the same color

"Whol Similar Colored Pixels" - Selects completely pixels on the entire visualise that get the indistinguishable color you clicked

Bring with these options to find which whole caboodle best for what you demand in any billet!

Beneath those options is a slider marked "Range of Similar Color". You can use this to increase OR decrease the threshold for what SAI will consider "the Same color". For illustrate, having this range set at 0 means only that literal color will be selected. Increasing it adequate will admit slender variations in the color in during the selection. Again, play with information technology until it works for you!

At a lower place that is "Selection Source", which gives us trio more than options:

"Current Level" - Selection will only consider pixels along your current layer (a good default)

"Specified Layer" - I'll be honest I have no musical theme how this works :)

"Merged Image" - Selection will regard all pixels on the entire image, crosswise all layers

Below that are ii more gibe boxes.

Opposing-Aliasing is First-rate IMPORTANT! With this turned off, the edges of your selection will be hard, because the edge pixels will all be at 100% opaqueness. With this connected, the edges will allow a trifle of transparence, which softens the feeling.

5. Text Tool

This is something that isn't included in SAI v.1! It's a nice, basic and fairly someone-instructive tool. Just like above, it will create a special layer typewrite , which you can merge with a normal layer when you're cooked to tolerate normal functions happening the layer over again (you don't wealthy person to DO this if you have no need to).

Beneath the text options, there's a checkbox that says "Fit Outline to Picture element Control grid". I've ground that checking this results in crisper lines happening the text, just find free to play with it and see what you prefer!

Beneath this, you take in your options for fonts. SAI accesses the fonts installed to your computer, then whatsoever that you download testament show over here! (You have to close and reopen SAI for recently downloaded fonts to show improving!)

Information technology volition open up a new mini-window within SAI, as you can see preceding, that updates As you draw connected the archetype, which is great for keeping caterpillar tread of how things look as a whole. Don't wish having the original view perplexed inside SAI like that? Select "Untested Floating View" instead, and it'll pop out as an independent window that you can drag anyplace happening your monitor.

Moving on to Stabiliser!

You can find this sorcerous godsend of a tool in the high toolbar towards the accurate:

You can mouse over them and they'll tell you what they behave, indeed I'm non going to blow time here reiterating information technology.

Important things to note:

A "Linework Layer" is another one of those limited layer types and allows a ton of neat control over your line fine art. Open it ahead and play with it!

The "Create a Layer Folder" option tush be part of a clipping! So you can use this to make a clipping layer inside a clipping layer!

Now, once more, I'm just going to consume the crude fundamental principle.

Stratum Personal effects

Kind of limited, and not something I commonly use. Probably best to keep up this condensed to save blank space.

Mode
This is where you rear select every your Multiply/Overlay/Dodge/Tan/etc layer filters!

Opacity

Self instructive!

Lock

I only use the first and last options here. The foremost (far left) being a pixel lock. This agency drawing on this bed will only affect things that presently have opacity. In other words, you could drag a forge, then turn this lock on, and past color all sorts of things and it would never go outside the lines. It's very similar to a press cutting level, which we'll get to momently.

The other ringlet, on the far rightist, prevents any changes from being successful to the layer at all (in case you need to prompt yourself not to mess with something important).

Clipping Group

This will save your aliveness if you've never used it before! A picture's worth a thousand words, so here:

How to Greyscale Drawing in Paint Tool Sai

Source: http://www.daarka.com/tutorial-sai.html

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