Thinking of switching to Clip Studio Paint? CSP first impressions

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As an Photoshop user for the past 20 years, I've gotten a bit set in my ways. But Many of you have suggested that I try Clip Studio Paint. This was my first painting done in the program, and these are my initial thoughts as a Photoshop user.

PO BOX - Aquatic Trent 26895 Aliso Creek Rd, B1031 Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
Intro song #1 = "Salgre" by Jimmy Fontanez
Intro song #2 = "Blue Moon" by JVNA

Games I've worked on -
Fortnite (Environment concept art)
Overwatch (Environment concept art + Sprays artwork)
League of Legends (Character design + Environment concept art, UI + Icons)
Diablo 3 (Character design + Environment concept art)
Hearthstone (Illustration)
Burning Crusade(Character design + Environment concept art)
Wrath of the Lich King (Character design + Environment concept art)
Indivisible (Environment concept art)
Final Fight Streetwise (Voice Acting + Character Design + World Design + Cutscene Direction + Co writer on script)
He Man GBA (Pixel Art)
Terminator 3 GBA (Art Direction + Pixel Art)
CannonBallers (Character + World design)
Ikeda: The Scrap Hunter (Programming + Art + Design)
Goblins and Gnomes (Concept Art)

Books available-
CreeD Re:Imaginary (2021) - 2 part Comic series
Twilight Monk - Return of the Ancients (2021) - Illustrated Novel
Twilight Monk Secrets of Kung Fulio (2020) - Illustrated Novel
Escape from Giants Crown (2019) - Illustrated Novella
World Of Twilight Monk Vol 1 (2019) Art Book
The Man and the Moonken (2019) - Illustrated Novella
The Beast of Tuksa (2018) - Illustrated Novella
Twilight Monk (2012) - 2 Graphic Novels
Nova Colony (2009) - 1 Graphic Novel
CreeD (1993-2007) - Comic Book Series
Ghost Rider (2000) - Comic Book Series
The Fuzz (1997) - Comic Book

[isuckateverything]

Csp didnt have the liquify tool and it was a huge disadvantage, but now csp have liquify and its one of the best softwares out there now.

[ZeeboonInc]

That "saving recovery information" isn't normally a crash. It's CSP saving the autobackup of your file, it saves up to a couple copies of your files in case of your computer crashing or the file getting corrupt. (already doing a better job than photoshop in that regard) However on big files it can take a little while and freezes the program, so you might want to lower the frequency of them happening.

[RinzyOtt]

Definitely dig more into those settings! A lot of the complaints you have, like not having the brushes just be a pop-up, are settings that you can fiddle with and change. I use it on iPad when I'm on the go, and I was able to basically collapse everything down into a couple of bars, with everything just being a pop-up when I need it.

[flafdraws]

Don't forget the instant canvas flip.
Because it flips the view rendering only instead of all data structure from the layers.

[FeldiArts]

I think the best features in CSP are
the asset store that are stocked by the community
And the cel animation feature. The latter combined with
the vector layers just makes animation feel like improved Adobe animate.

I've been using Clip Studio Paint for years (Since back when it was still called Manga Studio)
and whitnessed all the good updates that always make me giddy when I see them.

[justarandomtomato_]

Just passing to point out somethings you missed but are actually present.

First thing is about the separate pencil, brush and pen panels. Although separate, you can just merge them together. To do this, you just have to grab then and drop onto the panel you want them to be in - I personally merged everything into the brush panel.

Persistent brush menu: you can just hide the menu and attach a key to it. To do this, grab the brush window, disattach it from the panel column and click on [X]. Then you can activate it every time by pressing your key of choice - in my case, I binded it to V. Feel free to resize the window as well.
Ps: you can do this with every single window, hence the costumization you were talking about.

The zoom: there is a zoom tool in the tools menu, - the one in the far left with all the icons in vertical alignment - which you can recognise by the augmentation icon (it is actually the first icon), that works in a similar fashion as your Photoshop one.

Clip Studio crashing. The pop-up menu you saw is the backup configuration. It backups your file every 15 minutes or the time you selected. It freezes the canvas because it is saving, so it takes a while. If you want, you can just deactivate it

The cluttered interface: I absolutely agree with you, that's why I changed my interface completely. This is the kind of thing you get the grip by using the program. Just mess a little bit with the menus, columns, shortcuts and you will have your own thing - my setup is basically a column for essential things, one on its side for brush costumization and the rest I just bind to a key.
Ps: you can also create your own tools.

[SmileyFaceEmoticon]

On the top some panels (idk how to word it) sometimes there are 2 arrows. The one icon with 2 arrows completely hides the panel. So if you want to hide a specific panel you can just click that icon. The tools one (the one where it has "pencil" "pen" "brush" and so on) can be hidden like this. Doing this give you more space and you can hide basically all the panels like this. There's also just pressing tab but that hides all panels.

edit: There's also a imo better shortcut for zooming in and out. try the "?" key on your keyboard and it works similarly to the zoom tool in photoshop.

[avgchoobafan]

I love CSP, when i started i thought that the software "crashed" too often, but it just was the autosaving that froze the whole program for a solid 10 seconds, i think 30 minutes between each autosave is a good setting

[rebelangel]

ive been using csp for years and im still learning new things...

[ravinduruwanpathirana]

I've been using CSP almost two years now.
You can change the brush size easily by dragging the cursor while holding the right ALT key or left CTRL+ ALT.
Also you can zoom in & out in the same way as PS.(Although, I can't remember how I set that up in the settings now😨)..

Also, recently I bought a numpad and set some hotkies to numbers. It just so much easier now.( You can set things like reset rotation, gradient maps, or anything else onto your numpad that saves more time when you paint).

Furthermore as I've been kinda obsessed with your art style, I think you'll enjoy the oil brushes in CSP very much. Just change the brush tip to square.😃

[mcaro]

You've gotten a lot of comments here so I don't know what all has been mentioned but on the topic of hotkeys: Not only can you customize your normal tool/menu hotkeys but also change how modifier keys (CTRL/ALT/Shift ..whatever they may be in apple lol) to behave the way you want, with some very useful parameters. You can also save/back-up you info to the cloud (included) and so you wouldn't have to redo the hotkeys on another computer you would just have to log into your account 👍

For the Screen and menus, you were right on the money with how customizable it is, including making your own menu (quick access) where you can pin the things you most use.. you can collapse the menus into buttons that pop them up temporarily when you hit the button and collapse again once you click away

I hope you take the time to really sink into the more technical features, a lot of people "review" the program on a very superficial level and miss a lot of what makes this as good as other professional programs, either way thanks for the video

[tobylee]

I was using CSP when I went through your tutorials, and had no problem following along. For the one or two features I wasn't able to replicate, I used Affinity Photo to bridge the gap.

[MrSimonEskildsen]

I feel you when I heard your final verdict. It feels a bit uncomfortable at first coming from photoshop. But I’m about 3 or 4 years in now, and almost every aspect of the painting feels better than photoshop for me. Text is not the best though.. I use affinity for that sometimes.

[lohancruz]

the fact that I learned something from him just trying out the main program I use is insane. I didn't know you could see the shape of the brush....

[Raven]

I'm happy that you're trying Clip Studio Paint!! I was quite wistfully hoping that you would. Oh. They now have liquify tool! Major selling point for me: excellent on Android. I run it on a Samsung galaxy tab s7. I get professional results.

[daidnz]

Up the top on the right, next to the navigator, that vertical column of buttons - the first button with the round circle, you can set up custom pallets with your most used brushes, fills, tools, etc. You just drag your brush or tool over from the brush pallet and it's like you're making a shortcut there. It's really a must.

[pfschuyler]

Tab key hides interface, and Quick Access palettes allow you to consolidate all types of commands into one list. The cross-platform thing is really cool, too. So is companion mode (use phone as controller).

[dillytodds]

I'm sure someone will beat me to the punch, so, apologies for duplicate input here, but regarding the cluttered workspace experience: you can collapse the tool/subtool sidebars. the little fast-forward/rewind-looking arrows at the very top of the left side there will give you more workspace, and will be much more useful to you once the hotkeys are set/become more familiar so you don't need to hunt for every little thing like we always have to when we get our hands on new programs

[akamucrimsidae]

For glow effects I've used a duplicate layer underneath - apply a gaussian blur from filter tab with a bit of fanagling of the brightness/contrast setting. Might be better ways to do it, but this has worked for me

[tallowick]

Awesome to see more people trying out CSP!
The menus are a tad big, definitely, but you can hid them by just hitting tab, or individually minimize them.
The animation feature is also amazing, and vector layers make the inking process so much smoother. Plus the regular updates always add a ton of new functionality to an already powerful program.