Did you ever make or download a brush and wonder, "why is this running so slow?" This is your guide on how to make things a little faster.
Checking Basics
The first things we need to get out of the way is the rest of your computer. This includes checking to see what other programs are using up space in the background. Do you accidentally have 400 tabs in your browser open? Are you downloading a really big video game? Do you have a 3D modeling program open in the background when you don't need to have it open? Check your computer or tablet’s performance in general.
Preference Menu
If all of your Clip Studio Paint experience feels slow, go to "Preferences" from the [File] menu. You will see a list of preferences pop up. Here is where you can do everything from adjusting the memory allocation of CSP to the tablet input preferences. You can check the manual for more details.
You can also take a look at Clip Studio’s Optimization FAQ:
Brush Settings
Now, let’s talk about things you can do to make your brushes faster.
In general, Clip Studio Paint will take more time to calculate large sized brushes (about over 700px depending on your PC or Tablet) and stabilization (the higher, the slower). These fixes are for brushes that are slow no matter the size or the stability.
Gap
The [Gap] of the brush is how much space there is between one instance of the tip being put down & another. The bigger the number, the more space. The smaller the number, the less space. I know that’s simple, but it’s important here. The smaller the gap, the more times the program has to place the brush tip. This makes the program take longer to place each tip. Normally it isn’t noticable, but if you set it to the lowest settings, it can actively slow down the brush.
From “normal” to “narrow” is your average speed, but when set to 0.1, large brushes slow to a crawl.
This affects Pen Pressure gap too:
While the 100% setting will always be what you set it to (68.4 here), the bottom 0% will make it 0.1. This also applies to Tilt & Velocity.
Fortunately, the fix to this is easy: just adjust the bottom dot to be slightly higher, or set the minimum value a little higher.
What if you want a darker line, but your brush tip is too light at slow speed?
First, try increasing the brush’s density. If that doesn’t work…:
1. Place your brush tip itself (the material) on the canvas.
2. Duplicate it.
3. Adjust the opacity of the duplicate.
4. Merge it.
Now you have a thicker tip! Just be sure to clean up any edges.
But what if you have the opposite problem? When your brush always looks like it is multiple overlapping shapes and never actually one continuous line?
Generally, this means you have some stray transparent pixels. This means you need to look at your brush tip material with “Border Effect” on: this will catch all the transparent pixels. Then, use your favorite eraser to erase all the edges you don’t want.
Can’t find anything on the layer? It might be how the brush tip was saved.
Selecting a drawing on the layer with a lot of space around it will save it with the same amount of space you select. This is great for making floating patterns & spaced out tips, but bad if you want one solid line.
By making sure there is no selection & no stray pixels on a layer, you can have a brush tip with no space in between. This lets the material layer better.
Top is no space, bottom is saved as material with space selected.
Left is the tip that was saved with space: see how it is harder to connect? Right is the tip saved as is: much less of a gap is shown.
Continuous Spraying
In the last section, I talked about how it takes more time for CSP to calculate many tips at once than it does less. So if Continuous Spraying is active on a large brush…
…you can slow your computer down! 😅
I suggest you keep “Continuous Spraying” away from large brushes or brushes with the “spray” property. Continuous Spraying works great at sizes under 100px on my PC, but each PC & tablet is different. Experiment and see what sizes your computer or tablet can handle. :)
Color Mixing and Running Color
In English, the middle setting of “Color Mixing” is called “Running Color”. This setting can give some fantastic bluring, but it can take the program a while to mix it properly.
One of the best ways to drop your framerate and slow everything down is by having “Automatic” chosen for “intensity of blur”. The program has to take a bit of time to mix each pixel exactly as they should be, and calculates it by the size of the brush. So a brush that changes size in any way + running color + automatic will go slow.
This isn’t a bad thing, but a thing you need to be aware of. Waiting that time can be worth it if you’re trying to make the smoothest image possible. You can always make a softer brush with low brush hardness or low density & use a different color blending mode if you cannot stand the brush lag.
For all Color Mixing brushes, setting the mixing mode to “Perceptual” with “high” brightness correction will make blending slower. For those unfamilar with the difference, Perceptual blends colors closer to how they work with real life paints.
Left is perceptual, right is standard. Notice how the Left one has more greens and the right has more greys. I usually compromise by setting it to Perceptual & medium. It is up to you how you want to adjust it - I love it since I’m a traditional painter first, so I hate turning it off. ;w;
Another setting that affects all brush blend modes: color strech. Usually, you don’t need to set color stretch too high anyway, but if you do set it higher it can lag. Sometimes, the lag is worth it for making some really weird brush effects like below:
This is “Running color” + “Color Stretch 100” + “Fixed Blur: 1.0”. I’ll upload a brush with the settings later so you can try it yourself.
The Material itself is too Big
So you took a neat photo you want to use for a brush texture? Or you scanned in an image at 600dpi to use as a tip? Cool, but… please shrink it before you use it!
As an example, this photo is 4000x3000px. It’s low quality, but it is comically large.
I (lazily) convert it into a non-repeating texture using “convert brightness to opacity”. The 10% color preview is in the corner to show the scale of the image.
If you’re not aware of the Convert Brightness into Opacity function, take a look here. It is perfect for taking dark lineart from a white background!
Back to the image. So I register it as both a tip & a texture, then use it on a new brush…
…and then I shrink the texture down to 39% anyway. When I click on it, it takes a second to load both the big tip & the big texture, even though I’m using them at a small size. If I exported this brush, it would be a ridiculous file size!
If you have a large image, just shrink it. Usually, you don’t need a brush tip bigger than 500px, and you don’t need a texture larger than 1,000px. This reduces import & export time as well, and saves space on your computer. I redid the brush on the left and while I changed the angle, I got the same results as the original brush.
Too Many Brush Tips
Look at that scroll bar!
Lastly, try not to use too many brush tips at once. The program will take a second to load them in every time you click on the brush, and the brush itself will be a comically large size. Personally, I suggest no more than 10 tips on one brush. The rest of the variation can usually be achieved by adjusting angles, flipping tips, & general randomization.
Wrapping Up
Remember: the more work the program has to do, the slower your brush will be. Clip Studio Paint can handle a lot as long as your device has the memory for it, but some things will still take time no matter what. Experiment and see what is best for you & your workflow. :)
I uploaded a few of the brushes I made in this tutorial if you’d like to play around with the settings yourself. Experiment with them if you’d like!
You can also take a look at my gumroad ( https://saturnsday.gumroad.com/ ) if you’d like. Beyond that, be good to yourself, be good to your computer, & thanks for having a look. :D
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