Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

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noeinan
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Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#1 Post by noeinan »

Hey, all,

I was wondering who here uses vectors and who uses raster?

For anyone who doesn't know, vectoring is when you use something like the pen tool, making curved lines with points that connect them. Raster is when you use the paintbrush, or if you can zoom in and see pixels. Vectoring allows a picture to be scaled up or down without losing resolution because the picture is saved as a mathematical formula which can be reproduced at any size. (Basically you're making a pattern rather than just making the picture.)

I have been struggling with coloring lately and want to push myself more. I have experimented with vectoring before, but after I got my tablet I haven't really tried again because it makes freehand so easy. On the other hand, I am not getting the nice, smooth lines that vectoring brings. That doesn't matter much when you zoom out, but the ability to keep detail no matter the size makes vectoring super attractive. However, I'm worried about the amount of time it would take to do vector art as I don't have a lot of free time right now and can't afford to spend days on one picture.

For the record, I primarily used paint.net in the past, switching to Photoshop Elements 10 only recently (came with my tablet but never bothered until now). I have also tried GIMP and SAI, but couldn't really get into either one. (I also briefly tried out Manga Studio.)

I'd love to hear other people's opinions on vector/raster and what tools they use!
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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#2 Post by Auro-Cyanide »

I favour Photoshop over Illustrator for art. I find it quicker, easier and more intuitive. I've never been a fan of the pen tool, all the clicking DX However, I do the majority of my logo, pattern and text work in Illustrator because that is definitely when I want the fine point control and scaleability.

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#3 Post by Tempus »

I should preface by saying I'm mainly a 3D artist, but I do some 2D stuff. Personally, the thought of creating an entire image from scratch with vector points isn't inviting. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd go for large raster images when doing illustrations and save vector work for UI, logos and stuff like that. However, there's no reason you couldn't use a combination. For example, I'd imagine initial sketching would be quicker using raster methods or scanning in line art as a raster image. Then to get those perfectly smooth lines -- and the benefit of scaling to any size -- vector over it which, I assume, would be quicker than starting from scratch since you're essentially tracing. Again though, I don't do much 2D art.

Another good thing with vector art is you can also adjust the way the lines are drawn, add jitter, different brushes, etc. and if you screw up you don't need to ctrl + z (and hope it's not too far back in your history), you just have to change the settings. Vector is great for reducing the need to do tedious stuff too. I needed to create an Aboriginal dot painting style border around some art I did once -- all I had to do was draw a vector path around it and then stroke the path with a circular brush with slight jitter and size variations.

On a related note, the 3D equivalent of vector art -- in Blender, at least -- is curves and surfaces, with meshes being the parallel to raster. And just like you can bind raster images along a vector path, so too can you bind meshes along a curve, very useful at times.

Edit: Oh! And I use Photoshop and Blender. Though I've used Illustrator for vector work in college and would say that's definitely preferable to Photoshop's meagre vector tools. My final point would probably be that I think a lot of people like lines that aren't perfect and look drawn...
Last edited by Tempus on Mon May 27, 2013 8:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#4 Post by nyaatrap »

Raster is already part of vector in modern paint tools (SAI, Manga studio 5) anyway. In those tools, raster means rastered vector.
You need a full vector tool for logo and GUI but it's different matter.

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#5 Post by noeinan »

Tempus wrote:For example, I'd imagine initial sketching would be quicker using raster methods or scanning in line art as a raster image. Then to get those perfectly smooth lines -- and the benefit of scaling to any size -- vector over it which, I assume, would be quicker than starting from scratch since you're essentially tracing. Again though, I don't do much 2D art.
Tempus wrote:Edit: My final point would probably be that I think a lot of people like lines that aren't perfect and look drawn...
I pretty much always start with a hand drawn sketch, personally. I know a lot of artists draw purely on the computer, but I have a really hard time keeping with anatomy that way. Not sure why, though, maybe it just takes practice. The issue I would have is that when making the lineart I would need to trace over each line twice, basically, in order to vary the thickness of the line. Doing that makes the picture look hand drawn or inked. (Otherwise it's just the same thickness everywhere and the lines aren't tapered.) But of course, that takes a lot more time than just sketching over using a tablet-- the dilemma!
nyaatrap wrote:Raster is already part of vector in modern paint tools (SAI, Manga studio 5) anyway. In those tools, raster means rastered vector.
You need a full vector tool for logo and GUI but it's different matter.
Ah, I didn't know that SAI was rastered vector. I'll have to look up what programs I use that do that since it would be super useful.
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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#6 Post by LeonGuisti »

I always hated Vector because I had to use a mouse. When I got a tablet, it wasn't any better. Then I discovered the magic and wonder of the pencil tool in illustrator. Lines come out so perfect and clean every single time. I don't even sketch anymore...there isn't even a need!

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#7 Post by namastaii »

I think the best option is to hand draw (with a brush/pencil tool) what you want, then do the lineart/pen on top of the drawing (by tracing it and making those lines the smooth ones. That's how I simply look at it.

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#8 Post by MoonByte »

I'm definitely a raster guy.
I sometimes switch mid-image to vector, of a line just doesn't work (usually long hair), but I usually only use Vector for UI, font and sometimes for backgrounds (like building parts).
I find Vector simply way too impersonal. It's so sterile that its difficult to give personality. I can retrace the art of everyone with vector, there's no soul in it. But redrawing a image is way more difficult. So I usually prefer Raster.

Also, as the others pointed out, Vector can be a bitch (doesn'have to be though, I enjoy making UI despite using Vectors.

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#9 Post by VimislikArt »

EDIT: I just realized I contributed to a Necrothread, but I stand by my suggestions for tools and techniques below!

Raster. Vector tools are still available to me if I want smooth lines and shapes that I can adjust, but I'll usually use a lot of raster tools available to me to get the images the way I want them. I use Photoshop CC, and I also use a plugin called "Lazy Nezumi" that automatically smooths out lines as I draw them on my tablet.
daikiraikimi wrote: The issue I would have is that when making the lineart I would need to trace over each line twice, basically, in order to vary the thickness of the line. Doing that makes the picture look hand drawn or inked. (Otherwise it's just the same thickness everywhere and the lines aren't tapered.) But of course, that takes a lot more time than just sketching over using a tablet-- the dilemma!
If you want to cut out a step, you can use some basic tools to turn your pencil line art into nearly-final inks pretty easily. This video shows the basic gist to it, although the process may differ slightly depending on what program you're using.

I also use Photoshop plugins called Flatten Pro & Multifill to do my flats for line art, saving me a ton of time with color. Basically what I'm saying is that I am a very lazy person, and raster tools give me the capabilities to indulge that side of me :)
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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#10 Post by MoonByte »

VimislikArt wrote:I use Photoshop CC, and I also use a plugin called "Lazy Nezumi" that automatically smooths out lines as I draw them on my tablet.
I also use Photoshop plugins called Flatten Pro & Multifill to do my flats for line art, saving me a ton of time with color. Basically what I'm saying is that I am a very lazy person, and raster tools give me the capabilities to indulge that side of me :)
Dude, I usually work in SAI, but those plugins are AWESOME!
Thank so much for the links!

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#11 Post by Klawzie »

I'm using Clip Studio Paint (also known as Manga Studio) and using a vector layer is just as easy as using a raster layer. I used to spend a lot of time inking by hand because that was 10000x easier for me than inking digitally. Since using CSP, I have only inked by hand in my sketchbook. Inkwork in CSP is allowing me to fix faults in my inking that I'd never have bothered to do before because it was so difficult or I'd have to start over, or redraw the line a hundred times to get it to something I'd accept. Still fiddling around to play with different brushes for my inking (since with CSP you can use any brush and edit it) and having a blast.
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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#12 Post by SHiNKiROU »

I have tried to use Inkscape for digital anime art. I converted strokes to geometry so I can manually tweak line widths. I'm OK with the mouse because I have very sharp intuitions about cubic Bézier curves. The coloring and shading are very precise, and blending is doable with gradients and blurs. However, the end result looked too artificial.

Next time I drew raster on my iPad (Procreate app). It has no pressure sensitivity but I can use the eraser to tweak stroke widths. The coloring and shading might be imprecise on the edges. However, the end result looked great.

Before that, I have used SAI to draw digital art with a Wacom tablet. The hand-eye coordinate of drawing strokes is very difficult but I ended up with something decent.

For the scalability of vectors, I think if you draw your raster to high enough resolution (like 4K ready), then you won't worry about scaling: just click export and downscale. However, disk space and CPU limitations might affect how big you can draw.

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#13 Post by noeinan »

VimislikArt wrote: I use Photoshop CC, and I also use a plugin called "Lazy Nezumi" that automatically smooths out lines as I draw them on my tablet.


I have been using Lazy Nezumi Pro for a while now, too (though I hadn't heard of it when I started this thread initially.) It's super useful for smoothing out my inked lines, and only cost me about $30.

VimislikArt wrote:If you want to cut out a step, you can use some basic tools to turn your pencil line art into nearly-final inks pretty easily. This video shows the basic gist to it, although the process may differ slightly depending on what program you're using.


I am def. aware of this technique, it's one of the first ones I used before doing the lineart manually. Unfortunately, I found it's just not good enough for my digital art because of all the imperfections (like on the paper, or little juts and dots of the lines.)

I need my lines to be on a transparent background + completely clean so there aren't any pixels floating around outside of the lines. I tried just cleaning up the lineart with an eraser, but honestly it was not worth the work. Just tracing the lines with a paintbrush and my tablet is faster + easier.

VimislikArt wrote:I also use Photoshop plugins called Flatten Pro & Multifill to do my flats for line art, saving me a ton of time with color. Basically what I'm saying is that I am a very lazy person, and raster tools give me the capabilities to indulge that side of me :)


Thank you for the tip! These are a little expensive for me, but my goodness they look like they would save a lot of time. I might need to save up for it...

Lineart is more of a time sink for me since I learned some good tips via Sycra (on YouTube) that make coloring faster. (Using the selection tool.) But I do have to be careful to keep my lines thick in order to make it work reasonably well, and I can still end up with some blank space or problems with aliasing/the fill tool. This seems like it would fix those problems and make it a lot easier.
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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#14 Post by Noire »

Raster all the way. I tried vector-styled art though, and I'm not a big fan - sure it's usefull, just not for me :)
These days I mainly use Paint Tool SAI for drawing characters with a slight tweaks in Photoshop.
If it comes to backgrounds I use only Photoshop, because of variety of brushes.

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Re: Vector or Raster? What Art Program Do You Use?

#15 Post by helloar14 »

I mainly use vector, with only final post-processing stages done in raster.
BUT, I only use Animate CC (previously Flash) because it has quite a different approach in vector drawing.

Like most people above, I also hate the pen tool passionately because it is slow; but in the other hand, I'm quite an OCD person
so unless I can zoom to 2000% just to adjust *that* one line by 0.05 pixel, I wont be satisfied.

Below is myself doodling an anime styled eye using only line, select and circle tool.

https://youtu.be/a9uC5HHpDTg

As you can see, a bit different from other vector drawing apps :)
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