Hawk
Okay, so for those of us who haven't tried it, what does Sai do? I've partially gathered that it allows you to have varying line widths on vectorized pen strokes like Flash and Adobe Illustrator. But what else? Does it allow you bucket-fill with colors while still vectorized? Does it have layers? Does it have any features that might make it a good program for working on comics?
You can have two kinds of layers, normal "raster" layers and "linework" layers for vector lines. I've so far worked on about 15 layers most. You can do a linework layer, do the vector lines you want, then rasterize and bucket fill.
You can't letter in it and it doesn't support some photoshop things (no text layers or styles... styles just disappear, text gets rasterized).
Does it have any features for comics? Well, you can draw with it, haha. Seriously though, on my fairly old pc, in photoshop 7 I get a lag on the tablet, so if I try to draw fast curved lines, I get blocky, angled lines, no smooth curves. Sai? Almost flawless. It reacts to my hand perfectly, so much that I can even hold the tablet in my lap stabilizing it with my other hand and just draw like that as well as I do on paper.
From time to time Photoshop somehow forgets about my wacom volito2 having any pressure sensitivity and I have to restart it. SAI did that twice so far, and in both cases I just had to unplug and plug the tablet again.
mlai
For those of us who are Tablet-illiterate, can you explain in laymen's English exactly what this program does for you, and how it differs from using a Tablet with pressure sensitivity, and how it differs from standard programs like Photoshop or GIMP?
Well, I am using a tablet with pressure sensitivity (I just started to use vectors recently for the 6 page comic) so I can't really say.
How does it differ from photoshop? No filters, no guides, no grids, no tools to draw filled figures, no circle drawing tool (one thing it could use actually).
Good things? straight line/curve drawing tool that works AND MAKES SENSE as opposed to the flusterduck in photoshop. Best thing? I can zoom out, draw the lines seeing the entire picture... and then zoom in and adjust them by dragging the points to the exact spots where you want them.
It's quite memory hungry, but it loads fast, has smooth canvas rotation (and you can even "mirror" them to see the mistakes).
skoolmunkee
I'm afraid I can't some of those since I only use SAI to ink rather simply, and do everything else in CS3. The reasons I prefer it for inking:
1. Better default brushes (I can't be bothered making custom brushes in CS3)
2. Adjustable 'auto-smooth' option which reduces the effect of hand-wobble
3. Pressure sensitivity works better with my tablet in this program than in CS3 (easier to get the line width, taper, etc I want)
4. Ability to rotate the canvas on-screen without affecting the file's quality
5. Can save in layered PSD format (though text is rasterized)
Hawk, it's not vectorized. (Thus, you can bucket fill etc)
The comics linked in my sig are all inked with SAI, if you want to see how the default brush 'ink' looks.
SAI has a free 30-day trial so if you really want to see what it can do, there's no harm in downloading it and trying it out.
I agree, grab it and try it out :D
My current working process:
1. pencil pages on paper (I got used to that)
2. scan the pages in photoshop7 (preferably a batch), save in psd.
3. load a page into sai, draw on top of that (in 2-3 takes, basically tightening the lines as I go), in separate layers (I tend to keep any crosshatching/shading on a separate layer in case I see something needs changing).
4. Save as .sai (to keep any "vector" stuff intact), then export to .psd
5. load back into photoshop, color/letter/add effects.
I still have to mess around with colors in sai though.
