Old Man Nack needs a trigger warning for stuff like this… There’s almost no better way for a Photoshop PM to break his or her own heart than to ship new painting features. I remember crestfallen Kevin Connor after Photoshop 7 introduced a ton of new power, and when we shipped the 3D Mixer Brush in CS5, we heard crickets again. Even amazing tech like MoXi, Fresh Paint, and Expresii, and Mischief never seems to find much of an audience. Most people can’t paint, will never paint, and DGAF.
But, what the heck? WetBrush looks cool, and the 3D extrusion looks like a good fit for the laser carving/printing techniques Russell Brown debuted a few years back.
[YouTube]
The good news is, after all these years, i’ve found an amazing, game-changing use for the mixer brush in my retouching workflow. It’s used on nearly all my images and has greatly improved my work-life. I haven’t yet introduced the rest of the world to this technique, but some day soon!
Oh, and i’ve been meaning to ask… are you and Mr Cox friends these days? He silently left Adobe back in June and many of us would love to know how he’s doing and what happened (if he can share the story).
I’d love to hear more. Meanwhile I don’t know a lot about what Chris is up to these days, but I’m guessing it’ll be interesting!
Frankly, looks cool, but I think is kinda gimmicky.
Most digital painters I know, simply want better (and for the most part SIMPLER) productivity tools in Photoshop: stuff like stroke smoothing, perspective rulers, crisper lines, brush MANAGEMENT, et cetera…
Besides, I think that most artists simply don’t know how (or are not willing) to create and mess with custom brushes creation. I love it, but every digital painter must contend repeatedly with the question “Which brush do you use?” (always followed by “Can you send me your brushes?”).
Heck, most people don’t know that “brush presets” and “tool presets” works differently.
Just pack in some “Art brush presets” (and maybe some classic pigment-oriented swatches) , implement some form of configurable stroke smoothing and a better way to manage dozens (sometimes hundreds) of brushes/tool presets and I think most artists will be really pleased with the changes.
Also (and I know that’s probably difficult): real time smart object feedback. It would be a huge deal to game artists everywhere.
I think we might have even licensed & bundled some really nice brush/tool presets. Doesn’t matter: can’t put talent/motivation in the (virtual) box.
Truer words have never been spoken.