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==Tutorial==

Here I want to explain you how I use my program. My goal for mypaint
was "scribble without thinking". I want as little distraction as
possible from the painting process.

If you are drawing with the mouse you might notice small problems
between the strokes. Mypaint is not really optimized for the mouse. If
you paint often I really reccomend a graphic tablet. 

==General==
[[shortcut.jpg|right|border]] 
Mypaint can save/load .png only (without alpha). Use the
[http://www.gimp.org GIMP] for final touch up, cropping and all the
"manipulation" stuff.

I paint with my left hand on the left half of the keyboard. That's how
the shortcuts are arranged, but you can easily change them.

==Brush Size==
To increase the size of the brush, press the '''F''' key. Press the
'''D''' key to make it smaller. Try to use those keys
instinctively. You can use them in the middle of a stroke.

However some brushes, especially the first two, change their size with
your movement speed. Changing the radius as described will not work
very well (because the speed is measured relative to the current
radius). You control the size of those brushes by moving faster or
slower. This works best when painting with small successive movements
instead of doing one straight stroke.

==Change the Color==
[[color.jpg|right]]
Press the '''G''' key to open the GTK color dialog. Choose your
color. Press '''G''' again to get rid of it.

Scribble around a bit with your new color, then press '''V'''.  The
color at the center is your current color. The horizontal stripe
changes the brightness only, the vertical one saturation only. The
colors around will look different every time. This is a very fast way
to get shades of one color. I prefer it over the GTK dialog except for
the very dark shades. It is hard to distinguish those dark colors from
each other before they cover a big area.

Finally, point at your painting and press the '''R''' key. This picks
the color at the cursor - no mouse click is needed. This is even
faster, but you get no color variation.

==Unlimited Canvas== 

The border of the screen is not the end. The canvas is always a little
bit bigger than this and will grow when you resize the window or move
around. In the '''View''' menu, read the '''Help''' text now. The
thing to remember is that zooming out can be dangerous. You will
probably notice a heavy slowdown before you run out of memory. Anyway,
try it while you have nothing to lose.

==The Brush Dialog==
Open the '''edit''' expander in the brush dialog.
The white space at the bottom of the graphical brush list is for
trying out your brush. Use it a bit.

[[redbrush.jpg|right|border]]

You can drag the brushes around in the list to reorder them. On
startup the upper left brush will be selected.

Now choose the redish brush at the top. Click on it once more to show
the bigger preview image. Try it a bit, I think it is a good one.

The first thing to note is that it gets more randomness when you
increase pressure. And it will grow when you move around faster. And
the brightness changes. You have to get a feeling for this brush
before you can use it productively. Especially, try what happens when
you move very slow and press very hard. (On this image the size was
never changed.)

==Create your own brush==
The rest of this tutorial is about making and changing brushes.

Let's say you like this brush, but not the fact that the brightness
gets changed. Open the '''brush settings''' window from the
'''Dialogs''' menu. So many settings! I have to admit that I don't
remember what some of them do myself. Look at the tooltip info for
'''color brightness''' at the bottom. A text will appear when your
mouse rests over the label. That must be it! But why is it at zero?
Well what you see here is the '''base value''', independent of speed,
pressure, whatever. Change it until it shows '''2.0'''. Change your
Color to black and draw a bit.

[[byrandom.jpg|right|border]]

OK, that was a bad idea, and it still does change with speed! Click on
the red brush again to restore the original settings. Click on the
'''X''' button right to the '''change color value (HSV)''' slider. The
'''X''' indicates that something interesting was changed here, in
contrast to the buttons labeled with '''...''' three dots.

Move the '''by random''' slider to the maximum, just for fun, and try
your brush. You could increase the base value a bit to make the brush
brighter on average. But now press all the zero buttons to get rid of
this stuff completely. Try it, it did actually work.

There is no need to alter the curve you see at '''by random'''
because its y-range now goes from zero to zero. This curve will not be
saved any more with your brush because it has no effect.

An useful helper when creating brushes is '''modify last stroke'''
from the '''edit''' menu. You can see the effects of your slider and
even curve changes immediately while modifying.

==Save your new brush==

[[brushdialog.jpg|right]]
Easy. In the brush dialog, click on '''add as new'''.  Your new brush
is at the upper left corner (remember, you can drag it around). But it
needs a different image! Press '''clear''' and draw something that
both shows your brush and is easy to recognize. Then press '''save
preview'''. If you improve the brush settings even more, remember to
'''save settings''' before you switch to another brush or quit.

It is also possible to draw the preview image with a different
brush. Remember: click once to load the brush settings, click again to
load its image. You can also change the preview (actually the settings
file too) with an external program. Mypaint will notice the changes
when you select the brush again. Maybe you want our
[[prev-template.xcf.gz|GIMP template for the labels]].


==Share your brush==

This goes manually, sorry about that. Look at the directory
~/.mypaint/brushes/, use the png images to find the number of your
brush. You can rename those files, as long as you keep the .myb
extension mypaint will find them. The file b???.myb is most important,
but you better get the _prev.png too for a nice preview. Wow, somebody
is actually reading all this stuff! Well, if you ever come up with an
own brush (or a whole collection) that you like and use often, please
drop me an email so I can include it into the next release.
