"RTM" wrote in
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The pixel pusher works a *little* differently. PSP has a smudge tool too, AND the pixel pusher.
The smudge tool is described as "Spreads color and image details from the starting point and picks up new color and image details as it moves; the effect is similar to smearing paint."
The pixel push is described as "Spreads color and image details from the starting point but does not pick up any new color or image details." (descriptions from PSP’s online help)
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Ron
As a heavy user of both tools for many years, I’d go a bit further and say that they are quite different. However, to any casual observer who is calling every part of the cow "it’s just beef" I’d offer: To those not starving, or in a really big absentminded inexperienced hurry; there are rather major distinctions between hamburger, sliced tongue, steak tar tar, and those deep fried testicles.
When you want to shift to relocate/reshape small or large blocks of data (say to eliminate a double chin line for instance [you know, hike it higher up rather than try to erase or blur it] or to shove a thin upper lip out further to make it fuller) yet still have it all blend in nicely with those newer surroundings? PSPs native PUSH tool or that PUSH feature inside the warp brushes, is the ticket.
If you wish to blur and blend, without falling into some greasy smeary hazy bunch of finger painting demarcations? Then the SMUDGE tool (gotta learn your correct brush settings, of course) is the ticket. I always think of the SMUDGE more as a blending tool. Yes it will blur, but we’ve got lotsa ways to blur, so big deal there. It’s real strength and value is in its controllable blending of image data.
Nonetheless, most of this is perfectly meaningless, until you get in there and start using those tools for actual purposes. That’s when it starts mattering, and all these earlier somewhat vague distinctions, begin clearing up pretty damned fast. Essentially there is little difference in PSP’s native PUSH and its second PUSH found down inside those warp brushes. One is like a Volvo, while that other dude is more of a Lear Jet. Nonetheless, whenever I need to get down to the Circle K for a Twinkie fix, or even over to the airport to pick up Aunt Harriet? My trusty little Volvo still has it all-frigging-over my Lear.
The PUSH in PSP8 and the one in PS Liquify, are basically the exact same darned thing. I’ve used both extensively for quite a long time. Often on companion screens, bouncing the images back and forth between both applications, to get what I needed from each. Now I use PSP’s almost exclusively. Prior to PSP8 – and even while he was merely a tadpole who was not fully baked yet – my Liquify was pulling out of those garages quite regularly. Once these Warp Brush upstarts (PSP8) finally got themselves fully functional, my Liquify was sent into forced retired.
With the exception of a missing freeze option (I don’t personally miss it much since layers and erasers fill in there quite nicely – though freeze does offer major value) PSP’s warp tools are simply far superior in every possible way. From the PSP warp brush UI which leaves you right there on your original image and not locked inside another sub-application window, to the way undos get handled in general (hello mama, this is frigging fabulous), to that right mouse button’s timed undo feature, to being able to easily and effortlessly zoom the work in and out at any time, to more. Once the Warp brushes in PSP got stable enough to use, I began doing all my Liquify type warps in PSP8. I now much prefer to copy the image over into PSP from PS7 rather than even open the Liquify, which is obviously sitting right there. Everything (again aside from that missing freeze) in PSP’s Warp brushes is just better, faster, easier, and slicker. While there are some other features in Liquify that aren’t in PSP, it’s mostly a bunch of glitzy useless glitter crap that offers little actual value to most users in the first place, so no loss there. I was more than happy to toss every one of those things out in exchange for a more decent user friendly zoom. These new warp brushes delivered that, plus a whole lot more.
When it comes to PUSHING (whether he be of Volvo or Lear persuasions), a very happy pixel pushing camper lives at this desk. One who knows the woods.
Porter
