Photoshop is ok, just make sure to disable any softness-inducing features such as auto-anti-aliasing, feather, etc.
Use the pencil tool, not the brush; eraser in pencil mode.

Layers and history are invaluable, as well as the possibility of having 2 windows of the piece open at once (one large for working, one small for checking).

i always use photoshop...

*spam link removed by jal


Edited by jalonso - 07 August 2010 at 5:46pm

thanks for the idea

I usually use PS, but it is a pain for colour correction and animation, unless you're going to (and you know how to) use adjustment layers.
If you're a beginner and you want to feel comfortable with these features that in PS are not so friendly, I suggest you to try GraphicsGale. It's a WIN software but it can be easily set up for OSX via WINE BOTTLER.

EDIT: Graphics Gale is free for basic functions; if you want to save animated gif files (and some other minor formats) you have to buy the complete software (it costs about 20$).


Edited by Mis-BUG - 19 August 2010 at 8:12am

@Manupix: How do you color correct in PS? 

Imho color selection and paint bucket are not an easier/faster alternative to adjustment layers. It depends on the piece you're working to, but they are both too many steps processes. That's why I prefer GraphicsGale way more than PS for colour management on pixel art. The only thing that PS can handle easier is isometric on big scale, because you can modify and move every single piece of the scene on a proper layer.
Maybe I'm just too much used to use PS for other raster graphics and photography to use it for something low spec like pixel art... Maybe we should ask the alternatives to someone else ;)

I couldn't agree more that making pixelart using PS makes you better for other PS uses.
Sometimes I'll use the lasso (tolerance 0) to pick a color and make a new layer with just that color and use that layer to correct,shift to easily see variations by turning layer on/off. This works great when I'm reducing my palette and have to find the right shade on bigger pieces.

@jalonso: I don't know if pixel art in PS made me do better graphics on PS, but I'm pretty sure that pixel art made me better graphics on a more generic level.

@oneK: mmmh color replacement is not always so precise, so I can understand the lasso choice.

ok, i see... i guess... sounds very complicated tho

anyway.....i also have to say my photo-editing/ retouching skills have highly improved from PA.... i think im working much more precise, like a few years back i was mostly working on 6,25% (etc) view, not knowing what terrible things can happen on pixel level and then result in terrible prints, i was not even caring about compression and stuff, unfortunately a lot of beautiful pictures i took a while back when travelling are f**ked up from saving them 100x in jpg.
but also sometimes i tend to be too precise, like working on 3200% on a 4000dpi negative scan for hours , then zoom out and see no difference at all x_X...
also color editing has improved a lot i guess

Edited by onek - 20 August 2010 at 12:46pm

There's Pixen (http://opensword.org/Pixen/), although being free and a couple of nice features I wouldn't really recommend it--there are way too many bugs for my taste!   

Edited by ptr - 17 September 2010 at 5:02am

Yeah, I use photoshop (on a mac) for everything, because it's just got so many dang features. Especially all of the selection tools are incredible time savers for pixel art. For example, I can decide that I only want to modify, say, 3 colors; so I tap W, shift-click all three, and boom - I've masked the image so only those 3 will be modified.

This makes some jobs like AA, which is normally a bear (having to meticulously plod through, pixel by pixel, and place each AA point) very quick, because I can mask one of the two colors, grab an intermediate, and do most of the AA across the seam in one brushstroke, with only a little cleanup after the fact.

Same for rotation, and warping; photoshop can be set to pixel-art-friendly "nearest neighbor" interpolation, and you can bend around an image to suit, for example, the animation you're making, and then can easily clean it up afterwards. The obvious caveats about "select and slide" apply; you need to redraw any new surfaces that are revealed, and obscure surfaces which would become obscured, but in the hands of someone who knows what the hell they're doing, these are an enormous timesaver when you're doing animation and such. Especially if you're doing, say, cloth which flutters in the breeze, or something.

I also heavily use photoshop's "L*a*b" color mode for one specific use: if I hold L constant, I can switch around colors a lot without really disrupting my picture (since luminance is so much more important to human perception than chromacity).




Photoshop is a very bloated, bloody mess of a program, but there just aren't many decent competitors. There are a few up and coming ones; Pixelmator is starting to get there in terms of featureset, and is relatively similar in UI. Acorn is another one, which takes a rather simpler tack at UI.


Regarding pixen; it's a shame it's so unstable. Sadly, making it stable would probably be some invasive, "engine replacement" type rework, because I'm guessing their problem is something to do with memory management, and that's very non-trivial to fix.

Edited by Jetrel - 16 October 2010 at 10:10pm

QFT.

Every time I use a dedicated pixelart program, I find myself dying to have a whole bunch of photoshop's features. Not just one feature, but something like half the program.

That's not to say there aren't other valid working methods, I just think photoshop has struck a few "immortal chords" in its design.