Another silly question

[Kate12345]

I dont know what cursor to use as none of them seem to be right for what I want. The strange magic brush one is just weird. The circular one I can never hit the spot I want to with the paint as it is so imprecise. The precise X one is better for painting what I want, but I can never work out what size it is as there is no indicator. I can't find a size slider, and the little cross stays the same. I can only tell my brush size by painting a strip with it and altering it then, not the most time effective way of doing it. TY (again)

Oh, and remind me where the canvas panel is?

[markw]

Hello Kate,
Myself, I prefer the Outline cursor, as it give an indication of how big a paint stroke you can potentially make.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve been using AR for a long time now, but you do kind of end up just knowing where the centre of the outline is.
But yes, I can see a good case being made for an option to always show the cross-hairs at it’s centre.
You should post a request for that in the Suggestions section of the forums for that.
Incidentally, I also have Magnify Precise Cursor selected in AR’s preferences for those times when an outline for a tool is not possible.

True, there are no sliders for setting tool size and I find using Shift+Left Click & Drag on the canvas the quickest, and least interrupting way, of changing tool size.
The % size for tools is shown in Classic mode in the Tool Picker down in the bottom left corner of the screen.
And in Docking mode it’s up in the toolbar at the top of the screen.
Again this is something I have got used to glancing at if I need to know the exact % size of a tool.

The Canvas settings panel can be found under: View > Canvas Settings

[Somerset]

Hi!

Two hints from me for this: you can quickly change between the cursors by pressing the keys "1" (precise), "2" (outline), "3" (Tool cursor) or "4" (bigger precise cursor). So if you want to hit a certain point precisely, press "1" or "4", and if you need to see the size of the brush, press "2". The tool cursor is expendable, I think. But the big precise cursor is verry useful, because it's sometimes difficult to see the small cross on textured grounds.

The second thing: you can also scale the brush with shortkeys. I use to set the key "." (period) for "increase brush" and "," (comma) for "decrease brush" in every graphic program I work with, if possible, because this was the standard as I learned Photoshop about 16 years ago. Today it's "(" and ")". Don' know why - period and comma are much better to reach.

[nekomata]

Hi Kate,

the precise "+" cursor will show your current brush size if you hold shift.

if you hold shift while dragging the cursor around, the outlined brush size will follow accordingly.

this is the cursor I prefer to use for painting in artrage.

I understand that transitioning from photoshop might feel a bit awkward at first, but artrage is actually very intuitively crafted in all aspects of its UI.

not every other painting application out there has that!

[Kate12345]

Thanks everyone, I guess its just a case of finding what works best for me. I like AR and love the oils, but it definitely does take time