Painting with the Paint Tool

The main tool you will use to paint your drawings is the Paint tool. The Paint tool can be used in several different modes, and can be customized in the Tool Properties view.

The Paint tool only paints closed zones and vector drawings. If you have gaps in your lines, you must close them using either the Brush, Pencil, or Close Gap tools.

NOTE: The Paint tool only paints vector drawings. To colour bitmap drawings, use the Draw Behind mode—see Draw Behind Draw Behind.

To paint with the Paint tool:

  1. In the Timeline or Thumbnails view, select the panel and layer on which you want to paint.

  1. In the Tools toolbar, click the Paint tool, press [Alt] +[I] or select Tools > Paint from the top menu.
  1. In the Colour view, select a colour.
  1. In the Stage view, start painting. You can either click to paint a zone or trace a lasso or marquee selection to paint several zones at the same time.

Paint Tool Properties

When you select the Paint tool, its properties and options appear in the Tools Properties panel.

Lasso and Marquee

The Lasso and Marquee options let you choose how you will select areas to paint by clicking and dragging the cursor to paint on drawings. The default selection mode is Lasso. Whichever mode you choose, everything inside the selection will be painted.

Lasso: Lets you draw a selection are around the zones to be painted.

Marquee: Lets you draw a rectangle selection box.

NOTE: Hold down the Alt key to switch to the opposite mode of your selection.

Painting Modes

The Paint tool has three different modes: Paint, Paint Unpainted, and Unpaint.

To access the paint modes:

In the Tool Properties panel, click the Paint tool. You can also find these tools in the Tools toobar and in the Tools menu.

Paint Mode

The Paint mode paints everything it touches, including empty and filled zones.

Paint Unpainted Mode

The Paint Unpainted mode paints only empty zones. Any line or filled zone will remain unchanged.

Unpaint Mode

The Unpaint mode unpaints everything it touches, including empty and filled zones.

Automatically Closing Gaps

The Automatic Close Gap option has four modes available: No Close Gap, Close Small Gap, Close Medium Gap, and Close Large Gap.

The Automatic Close Gap option is used while painting drawings with small gaps. Instead of having to close them manually either with the Brush tool or Close Gap tool, Storyboard Pro will analyse the drawing and close the gaps while you paint according to the selected mode.

The automated gap closing should be done using the zoom function setting of the Stage View. If your eye does not see the gap, Storyboard Pro will not either.

To access the Automatic Close Gap options:

In the Tool Properties panel, click the Automatic Close Gap button.

Selecting a Colour in a Drawing

While working in the Stage view, you can use the Dropper tool to pick a colour from your drawing without going to the Colour view. When picking a colour with the dropper, the colour is not added to the swatch list. It is becomes the current colour.

To select a single colour in a drawing:

1. In the Tools toolbar, select the Dropper tool, press [Alt] +[D] or select Tools > Dropper from the top menu.
  1. In the Stage view, click the desired colour.
If you are using another drawing tool, such as the Paint tool, you can temporarily hold down the [D] key and click in your drawing before releasing the key to pick your colour. Once you let go of the key, you will return to previous tool you were using.

To select a composite colour:

1. In the Tools toolbar, select the Dropper tool, press [Alt] +[D] or select Tools > Dropper from the top menu. When enabled, the dropper picks the RGBA values of all the layers combined. When disabled, the dropper picks the RGBA value from just one layer at a time.
  1. In the Tool Properties view, click the Sample All Layers button.
  1. In the Stage view, position the dropper tip over overlapping strokes and click to select the colour.

The new colour is displayed in the Colour view and becomes the current colour.

To select colours with/without transparency:

1. In the Tools toolbar, select the Dropper tool, press [Alt] +[D] or select Tools > Dropper from the top menu.
  1. In the Tool Properties view, do one of the following:
Click the Do Not Pick Transparency button to select colours at 100% opacity, ignoring the alpha value.
Do not click the Do Not Pick Transparency button to select colours and retain the alpha value of the stroke.
  1. In the Stage view, position the dropper tip over a stroke and click to select the colour.

The new colour is displayed in the Colour view and becomes the current colour.