neato!

hank you, im really glad you like it! I usually use SAI to draw and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 (yes its absolutely ancient i knooow) to add certain effects i cant quite recreate in SAI

to get that fuzzy effect, i have the entire image on one layer and duplicate it, changing the opacity of the copy to around 30-40%

then i hide the copy for a bit, and select the background. there, i apply the “diffuse” filter found right here:

the “lighten only” mode, creates a base to get that “scanned pencil lines” look which helps to make it look more like a screencap of an older anime. 

(i found that this works best with clear lines and cell shading)

then, still on the background layer, i get a gaussian blur filter going, found over here:

a radius of 1-2 pixels blurs the whole deal out a little to make it look like its a good ol low quality screencap

then i go back to the other layer and, using the same gaussian blur filter but a radius of 15-20 pixels, get that foggy feel going!

this step is the most important as it creates that dreamy, foggy feeling which helps to make it look like ye olde animes

lastly, i clean up some highlights that might’ve gotten washed away by all the blurring, and we’re done!

of course you can always do more things like add a texture to make it a little grainy, or resize the canvas to fit the average dimensions for most old animes, or do something difficult and technical with the colors which i know nothing about, but i feel like this process is a pretty alright method to satisfy those ~ a e s t h e t i c ~ cravings!

(quick before/after)

Simple lineart trick by Looji

i personally prefer to use S-4 for default drawing and S-7 when i need to draw really long smooth lines. this is what it does:

this is where you find transparent brush:

when you enable it, you can use your currently selected brush as eraser. this is what it does:

this is where you find clipping group:

you have to have at least two layers, the base layer and the one for the colors. when you draw on the layer with little red bar on side, the stuff you put on the layer appears only on top of the things you have on the base layer. the effect is p much same as preserving opacity except you dont change anything about the base layer and you can still use layer textures and effects. this is what it does:

Hey dudes this is a FREE extension I just finished for Windows after ages and ages of reverse engineering of Painttool Sai. It provides thumbnails for the .sai file type from right within explorer so you can preview the contents of .sai files and it even works for .sai files within folders like this folder full of .sai files and with Window’s built-in preview panel