ColorPlus: a plugin to simulate watercolor painting

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Edit: The plugin received a major update on April 13, 2025. Much of the information at the beginning of this thread is no longer accurate. Be sure to download the latest version for Krita 5.2.9.

Hi, I made a plugin which allows to paint in watercolor style, in a way similar to Rebelle.

Basically, with this plugin, strokes “merge together” instead of overlapping, until you decide to “dry the paper” by pressing a shortcut (default is D) .

Edit: See this updated video for an illustration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpJodkOphM0
(note the auto-mix feature is missing from this video)

Plugin and documentation are here: GitHub - seguso/KritaColorPlus: Krita plugins providing shortcuts to mix color, get last color, and pick color

The plugin also does other things: mix color, pick color, switch to last color. (see documentation and video.)

Edit: new videos illustrating another workflow to mix colors:

Briefly: you make a stroke, you adjust layer opacity until the color looks just right, you do other strokes. When you’ve finished a shape, start a new layer (shape) by just moving the stylus on of the canvas and then back in.

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Update: here’s a timelapse done entirely with the plugin: Frankenstein room - YouTube

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Beautiful art result.

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Update: In order to optimize the “dry paper” shortcut, I have since separated the shortcut in two. So now you have to press D often , to create a new wet layer, and G once every few minutes to merge all layers that have been created. I will update the docs and make a new video as soon as possible .

I have also added other features like: saving and restoring window positions and their always-on-top state; auto-focusing windows on hover. This will be in the video too.

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Will this work with the previous version of Krita? I can’t update because I am on Win7.

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I believe so, but I haven’t tried. :slight_smile:

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I managed to make a video illustrating almost all the features: KritaColorPlus explanation - YouTube

My English is far from fluent, but I hope it’s understandable :slight_smile:

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FYI: Current Krita works fine on Win7 here.

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That’s good information. I thought it only worked on Win10. Thank you.

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Tried it and it won’t open for me. Now I need to uninstall and try to find a previous version again. Oh well!

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@raghukamath @AhabGreybeard @sooz
Maybe split krita/windows version posts into a dedicated topic? :slight_smile:

Grum999

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@Grum999 Isn’t this problem specific to this particular plugin?
Has it been shown that other plugins have the same problem?

Would the new topic be about general problems with using Windows 7 vs Windows 10?

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The subject is over. The problem was originally about this plugin and a new subject has been created elsewhere concerning win7 and Krita versions. No point in fussing, just get back to topic.

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Please give a link to that topic for the benefit of anyone who is interested in that.

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Grum999

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Sorry, I should have thought of that.

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Hi folks, I’ve just updated the plugin:

  1. added a docker which offers the most important features as buttons, so you don’t have to use shortcuts :
    immagine

on top, the docker shows the current target foreground color (useful when auto-mixing, because the palette changes color constantly)

the dials allow you to determine the amount of background color that is mixed (or auto-mixed)

  1. added a single-layer mode, available via the menu , where the plugin stops automatically creating layers when you pick colors. This is useful if you are not interested in the watercolor simulation, (which requires to learn a new workflow) but only on other features such as color picking and mixing.
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Does this work on Linux? Can someone confirm?

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I haven’t tried :frowning:
the subwindow auto-focusing part might not work… depends on Qt.

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Thanks to the amazing @rvanwijnen and @urzeye , the plugin now uses spectral logic when mixing (and auto-mixing) colors. This means mixing blue with yellow makes green, and mixing with white produces more saturated colors. See illustration video here: auto mix spectral - YouTube

or screenshot here:

immagine
immagine888×691 168 KB

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