Brush Preview - Feature Request

Develop Feature Requests
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21

Sometimes it’s really hard to know how the brush will draw based on the icon alone. But in CSP and Photoshop the brush selector has brush stroke previews in it:

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Unfortunately, in Krita you don’t have that option, only having icons or icons+brush names.

Now, Krita already can render brush previews, for use in the brush editor window, so some of that code could be reused to make it render brush previews in the selector (though the previews could be cached for performance reasons). Having a brush preview would help see at a glance how the brush draws instead of just trying random brushes and hoping it is the one you’d want.

5 Likes
22

There’s an old thread discuss the same request earlier, I wonder if this somehow can merge together.

3 Likes
23

Seems like the same thing. Okay.

24

I think we should merge the two to not split the votes. Is it okay?

1 Like
25

Already said it was, lol.

26

Yes, I was just confirming about merging the topic.

I merged the two topics, the votes seems to be merged too so all good now.

In future please search the forum first before making a request :+1:t3:

3 Likes
27

I actually did and didn’t see that thread.

28

Im not against this, but to me its low priority.
I would want to have sorting and adding separators first, to help me find a brush amongst 20 or so in a tag.

1 Like
29

Any progress or news regarding this feature request?
I’d be down to chime in a few bucks for a bounty if that is something you do around here.

3 Likes
30

This feature was one of the big reasons why I picked Affinity Photo over Krita years ago when I was looking around for a Photoshop alternative for drawing. Since I am learning Linux now I am now returning to Krita to see what it can do, so it is a bit disappointing that it is only available when editing brushes and nothing else.

Please add this feature in. Makes it so much easier to see at a glance what a brush does than the square thumbnails. Also, please allow for manual sorting of brushes.

3 Likes
31

The brushes are sorted by name and tag, what else do you need? I am asking to know if there is a feature request, or if you are starting one.

32

I always manually sort my brushes in any art program I use. When having potentially hundreds of brushes I want to make sure that they are sorted based on their general functionality during the painting process. Certain brushes are done for specific line work while others are for sketching, etc. All based on a workflow order. To get them all sorted with the current method I would have to add alphabetical or numerical number prefixes just to sort them in this manner.

Tags are insufficient for this very purpose, since there are no subcategories available for each tag. It’s either showing just one single tag at a time or all the tags which just clutters the list with default brushes I would never use. Manual sorting solves all of this, though I could accept just having subcategories beyond just the tagging system.

1 Like
33

9 posts were merged into an existing topic: How is the Vote function/button done?

35

Hmm… :thinking: Sorting brushes then is a new feature request. either you create your own bundle out of the brushes you use and sort them as you need them. You can then disable all other bundles, currently on your system. At the moment at least. :man_shrugging: I would vote for that.

1 Like
36

Hi, Sorry for first posting being this way.
Love the program! Felt the need to add my two cents.
I migrated from PS and I’m finding myself increasingly frustrated at this not being a feature. As a digital artist and graphic designer 10+ I’ve become dependent on knowing if a brush was blurry/fuzzy or if it was hard edged. Simply being able to select the outline without having to see a preview or shape was an immense time saver.

No offense but it seems the icons with the psuedo preview really don’t serve a purpose other than cool looking UI, and maybe for educational purposes if people decide to migrate to physical mediums? Still trying to grasp that one.

I would say in my professional opinion that the UI would be better served with simple outlines, or just a single dot showing the size and edge hardness would be immensely more useful and efficient, allowing more time for creative flow rather than creative stamp hunting. This would also make the Ui more scalable and less clunky on smaller resolutions and tablets.

One possible solution would be to make this a simple option people can select under the drop down where you can choose thumbnails, have an option for “Brush Outlines Only”.

Thanks to devs for all the hard work, looking forward to more updates!

6 Likes
37

I did some things on how this could be implemented

So i guess it would be like the “details” option on the brush preset but instead of the name of the brush you’d see that stroke from the brush editor.

Here I edited the details tab because I think its useful to still see the thumbnail image for certain tools that aren’t that different. We can also keep the names, I blocked them with my screenshots (yes, to make this I screenshot-ed every brush’s stroke from the edit bush tab), so I’ll also add an example of Clip Studio, which does have the names but doesn’t have the thumbnail images.

As you can see I also added a small “brush engine icon” on the bottom right of each stroke, I think that can be useful too but its optional, of course.

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Maybe there could also be an option to select if you want to see the thumbnail image or the Brush Tip shape.
We can also, like clip studio, remove the thumbnail icon altogether and leave only the stroke, but I personally really like being able to add my own silly images as brush icons:

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This could also apply to the regular display of brushes:

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I would expect this to happen when changing the size of the window, it would become 2 rows (or even more) to acomodate to the width of the window:

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I believe this feature is important since its way easier to recognize how the brush is going to look on the canvas with a stroke preview, the image icon is useful and I like it being customizable to whatever image you want but there shouldn’t be only one option, I think the brush stroke is extremely necesary. For example when you create another brush from a brush that already exists and you keep the same thumbnail mage (because for changing it you have to make a new one and that’s not the best thing ever) now there’s no way of knowing which brush is wich unless you use the “details” display option which is very space ineficient. With this settings you can have brushes with the same image but still see what difference they have.

I hope there’s interest in this (I think there should be since photoshop and clip studio, the most popular programs, have the stroke as a default) and I also hope its not that hard for the devs to implement.

Thank you for reading all this, sorry if it was unorganized I don’t have that much time to do mockups and stuff I did this as quickly as I could, its not very refined.

19 Likes
39

Genuinely dig this, awesome!

1 Like
40

Krita need this ASAP.

I do like the thumbnails but honestly the brush preview for me is 100% better and more useful and your solution I think is just perfect since it just extends the functionalities.

Hopefully it will not be too complicated for the devs to implement :slight_smile:

7 Likes
41

I hope this gets noticed because is an very important feature to have.

Alot of art applications have this and is very clear why, we can actually see what the brush works like, and even if we have icons, this could help even more in both workflow and organization.

Also that way one doesnt get distracted with the different presets icon styles, since they can be abit annoying (atleast for me).

4 Likes
42

This would be such a helpful way to look for brushes. Without an accurate preview, I’ve noticed I tend to ignore the vast majority of my installed brushes. With only the stamps to go by, I stick to my few favourites and don’t really bother to use anything else.

When I do go looking for something specific or textured, I usually have to try over a dozen brushes to see/recall what they do or how they react to pressure. Half the times I find myself thinking, “Surely I didn’t favourite these ones because they’re not very useful,” and skip over several at a time. And when I do find the right one (sometimes in a group I skipped over), I don’t always remember to favourite or tag it before jumping back to my mains, which just means I’m less likely to go back to it in the future again.

A stroke preview list would be an immense timesaver, and would encourage us to try other brushes.

Honestly, watching certain non-Krita tutorials or painting time-lapses leaves me kind of envious whenever they pull up their app’s brush lists

2 Likes