Comments on: Is Photoshop’s Pencil Tool Worthless?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:35:51 +0000

It is still used quite extensively in video game design for systems such as the DS that use a lower resolution and still rely on ‘pixels’.

By: Jet

Jet — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:43:11 +0000

Yeah, I’m a pixel artist and I -exclusively- use photoshop, because photoshop has a lot of helpful features (selection, layers, animation, color-selection) that make it faster to do, compared with dedicated ‘pixel art’ programs.

Also, as a professional game artist, the point to pixel art in my mind isn’t the challenge of doing it that way; it’s precisely to achieve that specific look. I’m not doing pixel art to brag about having drawn something ‘the hard way’; I do pixel art because old-school games, which are still quite fun to play (e.g. Saleable) on platforms like the iPhone, need pixel art. It’s beneficial from a workflow (especially animation) standpoint, it’s beneficial from a compression and program size standpoint, and it just looks a lot crisper and more professional than drawing small game sprites with the brush tool. I also do it just because I personally love pixel art.

Here, though, is probably the lament of photoshop; it’s complicated because so many people, with such radically different usages, use it as their only tool, and thus it has a ton of complicated baggage which has nothing to do with that use-case. A prepress guy wants nothing to do with photoshop’s painting tools. A CG painter couldn’t care less about the slices and webdesign stuff. A web guy couldn’t care less about all the print functionality. Etc, etc. And yet we all use the same program, and complain about all the bloat from the stuff we don’t use.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:59:22 +0000

Two words: Pixel Art.

By: pi6

pi6 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:12:53 +0000

photoshop isn’t just for photos!The pencil tool is absolutely necessary for webdesign, technical drawing, and for editing trapped line drawings. Its mostly used by technical renderers. If you’re wondering why there is a pencil tool, you probably haven’t discovered the wonders of being able to toggle the anti-alias box!

By: peleken

peleken — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:41:40 +0000

It's essential for isometric pixel art.

By: ron

ron — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:40:36 +0000

what else are you going to use to fix the corners of a stroked border or filled selection after doing select -> modify -> expand?

By: George

George — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:21:34 +0000

I use the pencil tool regularly for correcting occassions where Photoshop gets it wrong or I need to apply highlights or other graphical devices. I am primarily a web designer and I would be lost without this tool.

I disagree Sir!

By: victor menzes

victor menzes — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:23:10 +0000

So many of Photoshop tools are worthless. Somebody can easily write a small book documenting the functional overlaps. And, Adobe is bent upon making the application even more complex woth each new version. Come on guys simple is powerful too. The writer of this article is spot on about the pencil tool.

By: David Chamberlain

David Chamberlain — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:19:13 +0000

I use the pencil tool a great deal. I’m both a photographer (wet stuff and digital) and an artist come illustrator. I don’t want it to go! Oh no!!!

By: Gary Jones

Gary Jones — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 17:42:15 +0000

I came across your site during a google search on a similar topic concerning a pencil tool in Photoshop.
I do have to disagree with your statement as to the worth of the pencil in Photoshop. Photoshop, though it’s geared towards photos is also used in designing interfaces and web graphics. The pencil tool is very useful when applying it to these types of design work.
If Photoshop did not have a pencil tool, they wouldn’t do too well in the interface design arena.
Another area of worth is the growing market for Manga and Anime art. Try hand drawing a city in Photoshop where crisp lines are needed without the pencil.

In short, every aspect of digital design should be explored before making the statement of somethings worthiness.

Regards, Gary

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 05:33:34 +0000

I agree. I almost never, ever use the pencil brush.

the airbrush however works well. After you hit the brush palett in upper right corner and click airbrush when you paint with the airbrush puts a nice overspray effect plus if you sit in one place for too long it will puddle up and amass lots of paint.

Peace,

Robert

By: Jeremy Schultz

Jeremy Schultz — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:07:08 +0000

Dafresco asked how to make a pencil line 10 points wide. I’m not sure about points, but the Pencil Tool can be enlarged to various pixel widths like other brush tools. That will get you a line 10 pixels tall.

By: Chuck Spidell

Chuck Spidell — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:25:10 +0000

I agree with Lucian, the Pencil Tool does serve purpose. I also design most of my websites using Photoshop. The Pencil Tool is great for pixel-based design. It’s quite responsive, especially when making 16×16 pixel icons “old school” style.

You won’t get that type of response using a 1px brush with the hardiness set at 100%. It still adds extra pixels for anti-aliasing. So the Pencil Tool still deserves its place.

By: Dafresco

Dafresco — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:09:57 +0000

The funny thing is: I want to get that old skool jagged line but i dont know how! I would like to make a big 10 point jagged line. Any idea’s are more then welcome.

By: Glenda

Glenda — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:18:18 +0000

“you click with it, and it puts a dot down the size of your tip. Thereâ€™s no subtle tones, no soft edges. Itâ€™s either 100% color in that pixel or nothing at all. I canâ€™t think of a reason nowadays to plunk down a dot of flat color.”

PERFECT!! It’s taken me half an hour of searching to find out how to do this in Photoshop!

I design rubber stamps – the rubber either touches the paper or doesn’t when you use a stamp, so all artwork has to be pure black, flat, no grey.

I’m currently cleaning up a batch of stamps which require a hand drawn dot (zoom in and they are all random shapes) to be replaced by a perfect small black circle. I’ve been cutting and pasting a circle made with the ellipse tool – what a pain, but the pencil tool makes it a breeze. Certainly improved my productivity.