Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

Updates to the Blur and Blend tools were added in Clip Studio Paint Version 4.2.1 and honestly they’ve solved some of the issues I’ve had with these tools for years! They do require a little bit of settings knowledge, so in this article let’s go over those settings and see what they do. 

Using the New Blend Settings

To find these new settings, we’ll have to select either the blend or blur subtool, then click or tap on the wrench icon in the lower right corner of the Tool Property window to open the Sub Tool Detail settings. Then choose the Ink settings to see the new options.

The “Blending Quality” option has been added, but we can only change this option to high quality if the “Color Mixing” mode is set to Running Color. If your Blending quality settings are grayed out, check to see if the Color Mixing mode is correct! 

The example below shows the Blend tool on normal quality.

And below is the blend tool on the High Quality setting. I think the blend is a little bit smoother and nicer looking!

One thing that I always hated about the blend and blur tools is that they blend in colors from other areas, such as the face color showing in the hair next to the eye, and that they can also cause the color to spill outside of the lines. 

The new update solves this by no longer blending in colors if there is an active selection, which is a fantastic change to be sure!

However, creating selections every time you need to blend or blur an area can be a time-consuming process. So instead, let’s use another new setting that’s been included in this update. First, let’s select the line art layer and set it as a Reference Layer in the Layer Palette. You can do this by clicking the lighthouse icon shown below while your line art layer is active. 

Next, open the Sub Tool Detail panel and click on the Anti Overflow category, then check the box next to “Do not cross lines of reference layer”.

This will make it so that Clip Studio will check the layer we set as a reference layer and will not cross over any lines on that layer when we use a tool, even if we’re on another layer! For example, on the left I blurred the eye colors without this anti-overflow setting on and you can see that the white from the outside of the pupil got blended into the edge of the eye color. However, on the right side, the blur tool had the anti overflow turned on. So even though I was not on the line art layer, the tool didn’t take any color from outside the line of the iris!

Conclusion

These are the types of features that you can turn on and just leave without having to think about it, and I love that! So long as you remember to set a reference layer each time you create an image then your blend and blur tools will never bring in colors that it shouldn’t again! 

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en  or https://graphixly.com