Dear all, welcome to this tutorial! In just 14 minutes you will see
all the features you need to know to use the newest Krita 5, one of the
best and free painting software for Windows, MacOS and Linux!
Krita is one of the best free products to adjust images or make your own
vector illustrations - making it one of the best alternatives to Adobe
Photoshop.
When you open it you get a welcome screen with useful links to connect
with the Krita community and to open your most Recent Documents on the
left. Whereas go to Open File to browse for any project or image and to
New File to start from a new document. In this case pick any ready template
from the left or select Custom Document to set a custom orientation, width,
height and quality resolution starting from any standard template on
Predefined. At the bottom set the color code and other advanced options.
Switch to Content to apply a proper background color and transparency
level, shown as a checkerboard area.
As you click on Create the new document opens on the main workspace, under
its own tab on top. Around the canvas you get the main Toolbar on top,
several panels (or Dockers) on both sides and the Status Bar at the bottom.
On the right click on Workspaces to use another template or use the
options under the Settings tab to hide-show other panels, change the color
Theme or the overall Style.
The document canvas is the place where you work and draw. You can zoom in
and out with your mouse wheel and hold down the Space bar key to pan
around.
If the document size is not correct enable the Crop Tool and click and drag
to make a grid. You can move the grid, resize it with its nodes and then
apply it by right-clicking and going to Crop.
Let's understand the structure of any Krita document. This is the result
of several independent layers combined together, each representing any
image, your own drawings or advanced photo filters. You can check these
from the Layers panel on the right.
For example new documents show a Background layer - representing your
canvas - and a vacant Paint Layer collecting your future drawings.
If you open any image these are the Background layer you start from.
Now let's see how to correct images. Krita collects loads of adjustment
filters that you can apply by adding Filter Layers. On the left select the
correction you like most, adjusting its properties while checking the
canvas preview. You can reopen these by right-clicking on any filter layer
and going to Properties...
Each Filter Layer applies a single correction, so add others if you want
to apply further effects.
The Layers panel is very useful to manage all the layers of your document.
You can click on the eye to hide and show each layer to check the
differences and also click and drag any layer to change its position in
the list, adjusting the order of visibility. In this case you change the
final correction on the image since each filter affects all the layers
below it in the list.
By default these filters are applied on the whole image (or canvas), unless
you use the selection tools in the bottom left corner. With these dashed
selections you can define limited regions of the image in order to apply
filter corrections only within these.
You can drop rectangular and elliptical regions by clicking and dragging on
the canvas; polygonal ones by specifying each single vertex or any closed
region freehand by clicking and dragging. Other selection tools allow you
to click once to select all image parts that share the same color.
To remove any selection made press CTRL+Shift and A.
To correct imperfections from the image enable the Smart Patch Tool and
brush on it, adjusting brush size on top and advanced options on the
Tools Options on the right.
On the left you also get several brush tools to make drawings on the image.
Select its layer by clicking on Background, enable the tool interested
and click and drag on the image. These tools modify the image pixels
permanently, losing the original details of the image.
To avoid this you can create a new Paint Layer above it, so that you can
select it and draw on its level, leaving the original image intact.
Now let's see the how to use these tools. You can draw regular lines,
rectangles and ellipses by clicking and dragging on the canvas. Enable the
Polygon tool to make complex polygons by defining each vertex and the
Polyline tool to drop an open shape by double-clicking on the last node.
Whereas enable the Freehand Brush Tool or the Calligraphy Tool and click
and drag on the canvas to draw freehand. Switch to the Freehand Path Tool
to make smoother traces or the Dynamic Brush tool to make fast brushes.
With Multibrush tool you can draw a symmetric brush by taking the center
of the document as reference. Make sure to open the Tool Options to set
advanced options if you need.
If you make any mistake use CTRL (or CMD) and Z to undo or click on the
Undo and Redo buttons in the top left corner.
To change the brush color click on Foreground color selector on top or
select any color from the Advanced Color Selector. You can also pick any
canvas color by clicking on it while holding down the CTRL key.
On top set several brush properties such as its blending mode, opacity,
size (or stroke width) and flow level. You can also enable the Horizontal
or the Vertical Mirror to make mirrored drawing around a proper axis that
you can click and drag to move. Then verify the correct symmetry with
Wrap Around Mode.
Enable the Eraser mode to turn the current tool into an erasing brush that
removes all the paint drawings made.
Krita offers loads of brush styles collected under Brush Presets that
also show up when you right-click on the canvas. Choose any pen, pencil,
airbrush, eraser or other styles with their own brush properties ready to use.
For tool properties remember to open the Tool Options panel.
To make your own brush style click on Edit brush settings. Check it out!
Moreover you can enable the Gradient Tool and click and drag on the canvas
to drop a cool linear gradient. Pay attention that this overrides the image
or the paint layer you have selected, so make sure to drop the gradient on
a new layer to manage it on its own.
You can change the gradient shape from the Tool Options panel and the
gradient appearance with Fill Gradients above. Here each marker saves a
proper color and opacity level so you can make a custom gradient by moving
these markers and creating others.
Whereas enable the Fill tool to click within any area and fill it with the
foreground color chosen.
The selection tools just seen are very useful on images and paint drawings
as well. For example if you have any selection area and you enable any
brush tool, this works only within such region.
You can also cut, copy and paste this area with CTRL (or CMD) and X, C and V.
The pasted copy will belong to a completely new layer. With this
operation you can also cut and import a second image in front of another.
With the Layers panel you can manage all your drawings and images. Hide or
show any layer, change their order and copy, paste or remove any by
right-clicking on it. Whereas go to Layer Style... to apply several
effects on each drawing or image contour, such as shadows, glows, 3D
effects and overlays.
To prevent modifications from any layer enable the lock button.
Enable the Transform tool to manage layers directly on the canvas. Select
any layer from the right and click and drag it to move; drag from outside
to rotate around the cross point and use its nodes to resize.
You can also click and drag from the layer borders to skew horizontally or vertically.
Check the Tool Options to find further transform options you can apply.
For example you can choose Liquify to drag the layer pixels.
If you want to make drawings from scratch you may have to work with vector
layers. With respect to pixel layers and images, these never lose
quality since their shape is defined by an algorithm and not by rendered
pixels.
To start drawing vectors you just need to create a new Vector Layer and
select it before going on with any brushing tool. This way all your next
drawings will be vectorized.
All the brush tools seen work in the same way. Only some of these don't
work on vectors - such as the Smart Patch Tool, the Eraser Tools and the
Selections. Whereas Vector Layers can be managed exactly like Pixel Layers.
Indeed two tools are specific to vector drawings. With the Select Shapes
Tool you can select each single drawing within the current vector layer in
order to move, resize and rotate it as seen with the Transform tool applied
on pixel drawings. You can also remove the drawing with CTRL (or CMD)
and X.
From the Tool Options you can adjust several properties for the shape
stroke and fill. Apply any solid color, any linear or radial gradient and
set the stroke thickness, caps, line style and endpoints as you like.
Whereas enable Edit Shapes Tool to refine the shape through each single
node composing its sides and curves. Just drag and move each node or
curve and act on the tangent handles to adjust any curve as you like. You
can also add new nodes by double-clicking on the path.
Enable the SVG Text Tool and click and drag to drop text in a new dialog,
setting font family, style, size, color and distribution.
You can also customize the text shape by clicking on Edit Shapes Tool and
then on Convert to Path, under Tool Options. Pay attention that you won't
be able to edit its text properties any longer.
To save and export your document go to File, Save As... Choose .KRA to save
your Krita document and reopen all your drawings and layers; or several
image formats like .JPG or .PNG to render your whole document into an image.
You can also export any vector layer as an .SVG file by going
to Layer, Import-Export, Save Vector Layer as SVG.
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