Processes & SAI brushes & thoughts about pen pressure control

Time to make a report of processes and share brushes! This month I went back to PaintTool SAI for gaining more control of drawing. So you might notice that the 2 WIPs have more detailed and dynamic forms. Here are the processes:
又到了交報告的時間(不如說已經遲到了)，這次是兩張WIP稿的過程和SAI筆刷，可能自我感覺良好，這次畫出來的造型看似沒那麼呆板，大概是SAI的筆刷容易控制的關係吧。

I use both SAI & PS for the Dante portrait and in each step you can see which program is being used by the mark in the corner. The PS brushes are the same set in my June's post.
蛋丁頭像使用了PS和SAI兩個軟件，每個步驟角落都有註記當下用的是PS還是SAI。所使用的PS筆刷可從上個月的帖子附件下載。

The SAI brushes are also attached in this post for you to download. But uh, it's always a pain to share SAI brushes, because you need to download the tips, textures, and then manually change each brush settings. Here are the settings:
至於SAI筆刷分享起來起來就有點麻煩了，各位得先下載筆尖和材質，然後依照下方表格手動調整設定。P.S. I'm using version 2 updated on 2019-01-29. I'll update it to 2019-07-29 soon. All custom brush tips and textures are downloaded online long ago and the original link is probably missing.
附註一點，我現在用的是今年一月底下載的2.0版，應該不久會更新到七月的版本。客製筆尖和材質都是幾百年前抓來的，現在已經找不到源頭啦囧

But why not using Paintstorm Studio? Personally, I felt its brush texture and opacity rendering are somehow still lacking. This is what I thought of brush behavior between Photoshop, SAI, and Paintstorm:
話說為啥是跳槽去SAI而不是Paintstorm Studio(PSS)？總地來說，個人覺得PSS的筆刷材質與不透明度表現不是很理想，所以決定使用整體來說更陽春但材質表現還可以的SAI。以下是個人對PS、SAI、PSS三套軟體的表現比較：

• Texture 材質: Photoshop > SAI > Paintstorm
• Opacity 透明度: Photoshop > SAI > Paintstorm
• Pen pressure customization 筆壓控制: Paintstorm > SAI >>>> Photoshop
• GPU acceleration 顯卡加速: Paintstorm > SAI > Photoshop
• Brush rendering speed 下筆速度: Paintstorm = SAI >> Photoshop

A decade ago I had also used Painter (Metacreation version) but it's been worse after being sold to Corel. Slow brush rendering, poorly optimization, weird layer overlay, and never-improved compatibility to PSD format make it almost unusable.
許久前我曾用過Painter(metacreation版)幾年，但自從軟體被賣給Corel後就越改越不堪用，致命缺點有：筆刷極度lag，可悲的優化表現，圖層效果和其他軟體衝康，許多效果會和psd格式打架等等。

The pen pressure control is the most essential feature for my drawings. And PS is probably the worst one when it comes to pressure customization. I've tried settings in Wacom driver and a 3rd party tool called LazyNezumi but it doesn't help much since it only affects the universal pressure setting. Here is a comparison:
對我來說筆壓控制是最關鍵的一項設定，PS就這點來看，至今依舊不及格。至於W家驅動程式或第三方插件LazyNezumi並不能真正改善這個問題。下有圖表說明：

With the limitation of pressure control in Photoshop, which only applies one universal curvature, makes it very hard to control the drawing. You'll always need to switch between at least 2 kinds of brushes frequently or mashing keyboard shortcuts, which totally breaks the flow of drawing.
從圖表可見PS的筆壓客製能力特別陽春，作畫過程必須時時更換筆刷、或是猛按鍵盤快截鍵，甚至不管怎麼換筆就是換不到順手的筆，這些都影響了畫面構思的流暢度。

When dealing with rendering/painting, Photoshop is probably the best choice. By overlapping each brush stroke to gradually increase the values, I can create surfaces with rich value/texture transformation. In SAI or Paintstorm it seems very easy to blur everying together no matter the brush settings, so I guess it's probably more related to the brush rendering engine rather than pressure customization ability.
但當處理光影和灰度時，PS恐怕是表現最好的軟體。在SAI或PSS中，帶有透明度的筆觸互相交疊時，很容易就糊成一片，而PS會留下清晰的筆觸與材質顆粒，因此PS適合用筆觸交疊的手法處理細微的灰度與塊面交界。個人猜想這方面比較依賴筆刷渲染引擎、而非自訂筆壓的能力。

So, my solution by far is to switch between SAI and PS, constantly. Which is awkward to work with but tolerable. I am still working on the Dante portrait and hopefully this time I can make some breakthroughs.  😅
總之咧我目前想到的辦法，說來也挺腦殘，就是交互使用SAI和PS。我會繼續嘗試把蛋丁頭像畫完，看看這辦法究竟可不可行。都過N年了阿豆比遲遲不跟進追加筆壓自訂功能，也只好先用這招自力救濟啦。