The setting of pigment is important in Pure ink in order to paint as you wish. Pigment does not mean color only. It is determined by three factors which are: 1. pigment wetness, 2. brush load, and 3. color, and they are controlled through different tools as shown in this figure.
1. Pigment wetness is the amount of water to dilute the pigment. It affects the concentration and thus the opacity of the pigment. Besides, dilute pigment diffuses more than the concentrated pigment. 2. Brush load represents the amount of pigment carried by the brush. It affects the continuity of strokes but not the concentration (and thus opacity) of pigment. 3. Color determines the color value. Light colors are less opaque than dark colors.
This table summarizes the combinations of different pigment wetness and brush load for different effects. The combination in the first row is particularly useful for pigment overlapping.
Wet pigment can diffuse. To maximize the effect of diffusion, maximize the wetness of the pigment in foreground and background.
The wetness value of pigment determines its concentration and thus the opacity. Low wetness makes pigment more concentrated and thus more opaque. This makes it easier to overlap on the other pigments and creates a sense of hierarchy.
Brush
Professional Brush produces stroke with various effects through all-round manual settings
Each Easy Brush produces one specific effect of stroke by presetting and locking most of the brush settings. Users do not have to set the brush by themselves for the effects.
Pure ink provides two types of brushes: Long-hair Brush and Short-hair Brush .
Ink artists mainly use wolf-hair brush to create various strokes by different techniques. Pure ink programs the mechanism to simulate vertical brush, side brush, inclined brush and broken brush.
Vertical brush is achieved by pressing the left button of the mouse.
Side brush is achieved through clicking the left button first, followed by clicking both the left and the right button. For Wacom pressure stylus, the button on the side of the pen barrel is equivalent to the right button of the mouse. Simply hold down this key with your thumb while drawing to activate side brush.
Inclined brush can be transformed from vertical brush by pressing 'Shift' key and rolling the mouse wheel together, or by pressing the 'X' key (also read 'brush adjustment').
Broken brush can be made by pressing the 'Shift' key while drawing to created broken strokes.
If mouse is used to control the brush, then the inclination, the size, and the rotation of the inclined brush can be controlled conveniently by using the 'Shift', 'Ctrl' (or 'Command' in Mac), and 'Alt' key.
If Wacom pressure stylus is used to control the brush, then the inclination and the size of the brush can be controlled conveniently by different keys on keyboard. For the rotation of incined brush, advanced pressure stylus can detect the rotation of the pen by itself. Otherwise, control the rotation via the rotation button on Pure ink interface.
By using mouse, pressure change on the brush can be achieved via different hotkeys to produce various effects on stroke.
By using Wacom pressure stylus, usually pressure change is automatically simulated through the pen.
The side brush can achieve a more flexible side-wiping effect between the vertical brush and the inclined brush. After the vertical brush is pressed onto the paper, the pen tip can maintain the bent angle for dragging. A stroke is initialized from the vertical brush and achieves the effects of inclined brush, making the lines more numerous and realistic.
In operation, first press the left button of the mouse to start by using a vertical brush. By taking the case of drawing "/" as an example, according to the general technique, the brush should first draw from top left to bottom right and then turn to bottom left. When drawing toward the bottom left, press the right button of the mouse (i.e., hold down the left and right buttons at the same time), and you can drag out a thicker line. After releasing the right button, the brush will automatically return to the vertical state and continue drawing.
If you use a Wacom pressure stylus, the button on the side of the pen barrel is equivalent to the right button of the mouse. Simply hold down this key with your thumb while drawing on the drawing board with the pen to produce the same effect.
By using side brush, we can practise Mogu (“boneless technique” in Chinese ink painting, to create form by ink and color washes rather than by outlines）in a better way in the software. For example, we can apply this to draw Orchid.
The brush panel provides detailed settings for the brush. Brush Release determines how fast the brush is released from the paper. Stabilizer controls the smoothness and roundness of stroke. Anti-alias is a function to either turn the stroke edge to be crispy or soft. Stroke with crispy edge is more suitable for freehand ink painting. Pigment Consumption allows the pigment in brush to be consumed continuously if it is unlocked and this adds variation to the strokes.
When the mouse button is released, the brush tip does not lift up from the paper immediately but gradually as the mouse dragges and this produces a narrow tail for a stroke. Pure ink considers the process from pressing down the mouse button to the moment that the brush tip leaves the paper as one single action for undo.
If the mouse button is pressed down again before the brush tip leaves the paper totally, the new stroke is still considered as the extension of the last stroke. Two strokes belong to the same action for undo.
To draw a nice stroke, move your brush with varying speed.
The brush in ink art is highly elastic and the paper for ink art absorbs water heavily. The speed of brush determines the amount of pigment being absorbed by paper and thus the shape of the stroke. A brush moving with varying speed creates dynamic stroke with interesting changes of shapes.
The brush tip and body can carry ink with two different concentrations or two different colors. Such a "One Brush Two Colors" approach is commonly used in Flowers and Birds painting. To do so, first of all go to select '2' in the Pigment panel (index 1 in the following image). Then individually select the half circle or the rectangle icon which represents the brush tip and brush body for pigment settings accordingly (index 2).
Brush tip and brush body have three independent pigment selectors, which includes the wetness, hue, and the color value selector (index 3). To make good use of "One Brush Two Colors", use inclined brush (index 4).
Easy brush and other assistant tools
The software provides multiple easy brushes with preset settings for different desired effects. Users do not have to set advanced items like wetness and brush load.
After selecting easy brushes, user can only adjust several basic features of the brushes (size, inclination, color)
If you want to fine-tune an easy brush, first select the easy brush and then convert it to a long-hair or short-hair brush. The settings that were originally set and locked for the easy brush will be unlocked for fine-tuning.
Washable Sketch is used for sketching, which can be washed out by pigment. All sketch can be removed at once by selecting "Clear Sketch" in File menu
Sprayer adds water on paper and make pigment diffuse more vigorously.
Dryer removes water from paper and stop pigment diffusion.
Color Flusher flushes pigment toward one of the four corners (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right). The Color Flusher from drawing toolbar flushes pigment in a small portion that is set by the size of the flusher. The Color Flusher activated by the Flush option in Diffuse menu flushes all pigment on the paper.
Lanting A.I. system of calligraphy
Select “Zhao Running Script” from the text panel at the top right hand corner of the interface. For the first time of running this system in every time of executing the software, the system takes ten seconds to three minutes of time for initialization (the actual duration depends on the machine). Then select either horizontal or vertical typing tool, click on the paper and start creating running scripts by Chinese input methods or by text pasting. The scripts will be stored in text layer.
For the Mac version, the Chinese input method is not yet supported by Pure ink, please use a copy-and-paste approach to input Chinese characters.
Transfer and tracing (with layers)
Only the paper layer can be painted. Image and text are placed on top of the paper as image or text layers.
Input image by ‘Import Image’ (figure 1).
Using horizontal or vertical typing tool to type text (figure 2).
Image, calligraphy, or text can be transferred to the paper layer with diffusive effect. The image or text that are transferred to paper are no longer editable but become paintable.
We can add ink style to any digital painting by this function. Firstly we finish a digital painting by other painting software and export the work as jpg or png format (including transparent png format). Then we can import it into Pure ink and convert it to an ink style painting by such function. Heidi Yip took this approach to bring the texture of rice paper (Xuan paper) and color diffusive effect to her digital painting.
Artist: Heidi Yip
Vivian Kwok is the artist of this example. She finished a quick sketch by other painting software first and turned it into a transparent PNG file. She then imported it into Pure ink and produced a strong diffusive effect on the sketch by the image diffusion function. After this she fine tuned the effect by different drawing tools in Pure ink to complete the work. This is another good example demonstrating the advantage of this function. Please be reminded that the success of this example is turning the sketch into a transparent PNG file first. This can maximize the diffusion effect of strokes in the sketch.
Artist: Vivian Kwok
By adjusting the opacity of the image or text layer, we can achieve tracing for image or calligraphy
The brush in Pure ink is primitively designed for painting. To write calligraphy, set the pigment and operate the brush according to the following suggestion
Export
Selecting 'Export Paper' only exports the paper layer as an image. Selecting 'Export All' exports all visible layers as an image.
For ‘High-res Output’, this function only outputs content of paper layer as TIFF image in high resolution. To include content of image and text layers in your high resolution TIFF file, they need to be transferred to the paper first.
How to ......
First of all we have to manage the size. Pure ink can export paintings in high resolution of 300dpi. In this example, we open a piece of vertical paper with size of 900 pixels x 3553 pixels. The print size of it after high resolution output is 30cm x 120cm and its corresponding image size is 3600 pixels x 14212 pixels. Based on this, how can we enlarge the print size but keep the print quality as much as possible?
The idea is to slightly tune down the printing density (i.e decrease the resolution) and slightly increase the image area (i.e. increase the number of pixels) in exchange for a larger increase in the printing area. We slightly reduced the resolution of the high resolution image exported from Pure ink to 250 dpi by Photoshop, we further increased the image area slightly by 11% to 3803 pixels x 15009 pixels, then the printing area could be increased by 60% to 38 cm x 152 cm. Since Pure ink can open four pieces of paper at the same time, we use this feature to create four parallel paintings in the software, that is, to create one large painting composed of four vertical paintings. The four vertical paintings were upscaled for printing as described above. The final combination of the four paintings results in a work of 152cm x 152cm, or 5 square feet (Figure 1).
We used the following computer configuration to operate, and the process is generally smooth:
OS: window 10
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.2GHz
RAM: 64 GB
Graphic card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
In Pure ink, we opened four pieces of vertical paper next to each other and randomly added pigments and strokes with different concentrations on them simultaneously. Figure 2 is the final look of this work in this stage.
We developed a landscape painting based on this by refining each area every time. We had to enlarge the paper covering that area and its side at the same time to add details and this could ensure continuity between two pieces of paper.
For example, by imagination, we turned the gray colors on the top left corner of the work to rocks according to the traces of pigments. We used an eraser to erase pigments and created rivers and waterfalls in the middle of the work. We painted trees at the right hand side of the work.
Since the print size of the work would be increased by Photoshop later. The richness of detail displayed on the computer screen at the original size still appeared sparse when printed on the paper. It is necessary to enlarge the drawing paper to double for fine tracing, so that the picture can have a rich sense of detail after printing. Figure 3 is the final look of the work in Pure ink.
After this, we outputted each piece of paper individually at a high-resolution level and enlarge their size according to the explanation above. To adapt the settings of the printer and the printing materials, the color contrast in the image of the work underwent a one-time color adjustment in Photoshop before being printed. The work was then printed on rice paper (Xuan 宣紙) through the technique of Giclee Print. Figure 4 - 6 are the details of the printed image.
Since the printing material is rice paper. Its softness allows us to mount the work as Chinese scroll by traditional way. Finally the four scrolls were hung side by side. Figure 7 is the final look of “To See the Vast Nan Xu, the Boundless Bei Gu”.
To evaluate the performance of Pure ink in ink painting, no hand drawn element was added on the printed paper unless the signature. Only a mouse and keyboard are used to do the painting. No pressure stylus is used.
The whole process is summarized as a video and put on top of this article
Use inclined brush to draw chapped stones, and set brush dryness and pigment wetness to low values.
Press hotkey 'x' to switch the brush to inclined brush (or press the 'Shift' key and roll the mousewheel together). After selecting color, set the wetness roughly to 0.18. Press number key '2' or '3' to set the brush dryness to 20% or 30% only. Rotate the mouse wheel so that the direction of the brush tip is roughly parallel to the direction of the cracks and then wipe back and forth along the dark side of the rocks. The pigment in the brush will use up. Put your finger on the key '2' or '3' continuously and press them to refill pigment when this happens.
set the size of the inclines brush to be very small (diameter roughly as 20 pixels). Set the brush dryness to be low as well. Since the brush is smaller, slightly increase the pigment wetness to, says, 0.4 for easy wipping. The direction of brush tip should be perpendicular to the direction of crack. Hemp-fiber crack consists of strokes in the shape of "3". Overlap such strokes with varying density in the dark side of the rocks.
Axe-chisel stroke is done by one single wipe to form a surface, unlike the hemp-fiber crack which forms a surface by overlapping a lot of strokes. Set brush size to be large (e.g. diameter roughly 98 pixels). Use inclined brush. Adjust the length of the brush edge to match with the surface width by pressing the "Shift" key and rolling the mousewheel together. Short brush edge is easier to use. Set the pigment wetness to be 0.2. Press the number key “3” to set the brush dryness as 30%. Place the brush at the top of where the axe-chisel stroke will be created. The direction of brush tip is perpendicular to the direction of the stroke. The brush moves toward the opposite direction of the brush tip a little bit first and then turns 90 degrees and wipes downward quickly and largely. Remember to release the left mouse button before the brush reaches to the end of the stroke to make the end of stroke more loose.
If we set the brush size to be small (says, diameter as 58 pixels), brush edge to be short and wipes downward slightly, we can have axe-chisel stroke in short size
In Pure ink, we can draw stroke by mouse and simultaneously adjust the brush dryness, the pigment wetness, and the pressing force on the brush quickly through the use of shortcut keys. This brings changeable effects on one single stroke and helps simulate the one-stroke painting of Ting YinYung, a famous ink art master. The two examples on the right side of figure 1 are the effects completed with one stroke by mouse in the software.
Step 1: To partially stain wet the paper
Use inclined brush (hotkey ‘x’), use lightest color, high wetness, press number key 8 or 9 to set the brush dryness to high level (means full pigmemt), randomly stain wet some areas on the paper so that the strokes that will draw on it can diffuse in different ways.
Step 2: To draw a cat by one stroke
Use vertical brush (hotkey ‘x’), set pigment wetness roughly 1.0, set the brush dryness around 6 or 7, do any of the following action(s) simultaneously while pressing the left key of the mouse to draw
1 press the right key of the mouse at the same time (i.e. pressing both the left and right key with two fingers together) to turn the vertical brush to side brush and this increases the thickness of the stroke. Releasing the right key turns the brush back to vertical. (figure 2.1)
2 press hotkey “,” or “.” to adjust the pigment wetness. This can make the pigment either wet or condensed (figure 2.2)
3 press number key “1” to “9” to change the brush dryness. This make the stroke either sharper or looser.
4 press the up or down key can change the pressing force to the brush and thus change the thickness of the stroke.
Finally we should beware of the dragging speed of the mouse. Dragging it with varying speed brings subtle change to the stroke. Besides, pressing left and right key can change the size of the brush.
Figure 3 indicates the changes that we made when we draw a cat by one stroke in Pure ink
Comparing with mouse, using wacom pressure stylus can achieve variable effects in one stroke more easily.
FAQ
The architecture of Pure ink software is specifically designed to achieve real time diffusion of colors and thus requires more computational resources to run when compared with other painting software. Besides, the software does not rely on the use of graphic cards. A computer equipped with a graphic card may not gain benefic in speed when running Pure ink. If Pure ink runs slow in your computer, you can:
set the paper size to be small (e.g. 500 x 500 pixels)
The wetter the paper, the slower will be the speed. You can set the paper to halfly or fully dry by selecting Diffuse > Quick Dry from the top menu bar if you don't need to keep the paper wet. This can improve the running speed.
Press the Tab key to pause the color diffusion. This can increase the running speed. After you finish several strokes, press the Tab key again to activate the color diffusion again.
Demonstration Videos
Short demonstration videos are available to guide you to paint different elements by using Pure ink. Some videos are narrated in Cantonese.
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