Posts by nika

Open - ctrl o
Save - ctrl s
Copy - ctrl c
Paste - ctrl v
Cut - ctrl x
Undo - ctrl z
Select all - ctrl a
Un-select - ctrl d
Switch colors - x

Move canvas - space
Move layer - ctrl
Manual rotate - space alt
Reset position - home
Zoom in - pg up
Zoom out - pg down
Rotate - end/del

Straight line - shift click
Eye drop/Pick color - right click or alt click
Change brush size (manual) - ctrl alt
Increase/decrease brush size - [ or ]
Change brush opacity - 0-9
Swap transparency - -
Clear layer - d
Merge layer content down - f
Flip canvas - h

When you double-click on a premade tool, it will bring up this window:
[img width=510 height=229]http://i1258.photobucket.com/a…/desandted/EditTool-1.png[/img]
Going to Help/Config > Key config Inserting something into the "key" section will bring this window up, which will pretty much allow you to customize all Sai shortcuts.

Right-clicking on an empty box in your brush box will let you create new brushes/tools from a preset.

Or, you can right-click on an existing tool, duplicate it, then switch the settings around.

Default Sai will be set like this:
[img width=510 height=271]http://i1258.photobucket.com/a…ndted/DefaultSai-Copy.png[/img]

By going to your Window tab (or pressing W) in the toolbar, you can move the panels around ("Layer panel to the right", etc)
[img width=510 height=17]http://i1258.photobucket.com/a…6/desandted/Windowtab.png[/img]
Depending on which way the panels are set, the canvas may appear at different spots in the screen.
The things on the panels can be moved around too.

The first section of the Window tab does the exact same thing these little icons.. your color tools.

The most common would be the color wheel but there are other nifty tools too.

Turning off/on these color tools will determine how much space you have left for your tools/brushes, unless you have some really huge screen (I don't so I only keep one or two up)

This is what each color tool looks like after being activated.
[img width=142 height=510]http://i1258.photobucket.com/a…ndted/Allcolortools-1.png[/img]

Customizing your SAI layout can clear up some space and make things more comfortable for you. However if you find your canvas section too small, there are a couple temporary ways you can fix it.

1. Pressing the tab key will hide all the panels, allowing you to have a fullscreen canvas space. Until you need tools and layers again - but if you know your shortcuts enough, maybe you wont even need the panels anymore (or not as much).
2. On the second section, deselecting the last three options can enlarge your canvas vertically.

Okay, so I talked briefly about the color tools in the "Layout" part, but here I'll get more in depth about them and what they do.

But first a brief recap about the color tools:

Color tools are pretty much what they sound like, you use them for choosing/testing colors.
These are what the color tool icons look like (you can do the same thing in the first section of the Window tab as well)

This is what each color tool looks like after being activated.
[img width=142 height=510]http://i1258.photobucket.com/a…ndted/Allcolortools-1.png[/img]
I'll be going through them in order in the way they appear.

Color Wheel
Color wheel is pretty self-explanatory. You use the outside wheel to choose what kind of color you want and in the center square, you can choose what shades of that color you want.
Grays are always on the left, while the shades go from lightest (top) to darkest (bottom)

RGB Slider
I find this color tool to be my least favorite and hardest to work with and explain what they are. Pretty much, you click/slide different parts of each bar to mix the color you want.

HSV Slider
The HSV bars are like the color wheel, but put into bars and use less space. The H bar lets you select what kind of color you want, the S bar lets you choose how light you want it, and the V bar lets you choose how dark you want it.

Color Mixer
Using the color wheel, you can pick a color and click on the little square to the left of a color bar, and it will change the bar to that color. After that, you can choose how light you want that color to be.

Swatches
You can save your colors in this box by using the color wheel and picking a color. While clicking on the color you want to save, press shift, then click on an empty box in the color box. Your color will then be saved. To remove a color, right-click on an already saved color and a menu will pop-up. Press "Remove" or R and it will be deleted.

Scrachpad
This color tool is not really a color tool because you don't use it to get colors. It's a blank box and you can draw/color in it. I often use it to test what my brush/color will look like and blend colors to see what they look like.

Okay, so we all know that when you open one or more files, you'll see them at the bottom of the screen in this handy dandy bar:

I use references a lot when I color or draw, but having to always switch back and forth between files can get annoying but there's a way to solve that problem!
You see these 3 buttons under your minimize, close, etc buttons?

If you click the second button, you'll minimize all your files so you're able to see them all at once.
[img width=510 height=295]http://i1258.photobucket.com/a…esandted/Sidebyside-1.png[/img]
Allowing you to put much less effort on your goldfish memory.

Smoothing/Stabilizing
If you have a wobbly hand, no worries; Sai has a way to fix that. On the quickbar, there is a button that says either "Smoothing" or "Stabilizer"

Clicking on that button will give you a menu with a bunch of numbers. The higher your smoothing number is, the more precise and sharp it will look, but it comes with a price. The higher it is, the more the line tends to delay.

Swap Transparency
One bad thing about the eraser tool is that it's often fuzzy and doesn't erase as precise as the pen tool draws. There's a way to fix that.

The Swap transparency button is located under your primary and secondary colors:

Clicking on it or tapping "-" activates it and basically turns whatever tool you were using (airbrush, pen, blur, water, etc) into a temporary eraser, all while maintaining the settings of said tools. Not only is it handy to just tap quickly, but it's much simpler, so leave the eraser tool fuzzy, and use the pen with swap transparency for hard erasing.

Brush Size Bar
Holding ctrl + alt brings up the brush size bar, which you can drag. However this is shortcut is more interesting due to the fact you are able to manually drag the diameter of your brush larger or smaller:

This is a great way to change your brush sizes, especially if your screen is too small to fit all your brush settings.