Supported from Clip Studio Paint Ver. 1.9.14

 

The Fill tool instantly fills an area with a single color.

If the clicked area is white, it will fill all the white area as its range.

 

1. Apply to connected pixels only

Apply to connected pixels only is a good option when there is a different color around the area you want to fill.

*In the default settings, this setting is turned on automatically for the Refer only to editing layer and Refer other layers sub tools. You can find this setting in the Tool Property palette.

 

 

 

When Apply to connected pixels only is turned on

 

When Apply to connected pixels only is turned on, the selected area is filled until it reaches a border with a different color.

For example, in the illustration below, a line drawing is black on a white background.

In this case, if Apply to connected pixels only is enabled, the color of the lines is different from the target area’s color, and therefore, the area will be filled up to the lines.

If you want to fill a single area surrounded by a line or bordering another color, check that Apply to connected pixels only is turned on.

 

 

 

When Apply to connected pixels only is disabled

 

If Apply to connected pixels only is turned off, the Fill tool will fill all areas in the selected color. In this case, all white areas would be filled in.

Conversely, even if the selected area is surrounded by lines and other colors, if Apply to connected pixels only is disabled, you can fill in every area with the same color that you have selected.

 

To summarize:　

• When you want to fill one area, turn on Apply to connected pixels only

• If you want to fill all areas of the same color, turn off Apply to connected pixels only

Although in most cases it’s best to keep Apply to connected pixels only turned on, you can also fill efficiently in some cases when it’s turned off.

 

2. Refer to Multiple Layers

The Refer only to editing layer sub tool will fill by referring only to the image on the selected layer.

 

By turning on Refer multiple, you are able to refer to content of other layers.

With the Refer other layers sub tool, this option is enabled by default.

 

You can also set which layers to refer to.

 

Note: Refer multiple only refers to visible layers.

Hidden layers cannot be referred to with any settings.

 

 

 

When Refer multiple is off

 

Since the red and blue lines are on other layers, they aren’t referenced. The inside of the red frame and the blue frame will also be filled.

 

 

 

When Refer multiple is on and set to All layers

 

The Fill tool refers to all layers, so the areas inside the boxes are not filled.

 

 

 

Refer multiple is on and set to Selected Layers

 

Only the selected layers (in this case, black and blue lines) are referred to when filling.

 

Note: Please note how layers are selected

When using the Fill tool while multiple layers are selected in the Layer palette, make sure the pen symbol is shown next to the layer you want to fill on.

First select the layer you want to fill on, (in this case the “black” layer), and then select any additional layers to use for reference (in this case the “blue” layer).

 

 

 

Refer multiple is on and set to Layer in folder

 

The Fill tool only refers to the layers inside the selected folder. The layer that will be filled and any referenced layers must be in the same folder.

 

 

 

Refer multiple is on and set to Reference layer

 

This setting allows you to set layers as “reference layers” beforehand to use them as a reference for filling.

 

3. Excluding layers from reference

When referring to multiple layers and setting which layers to refer to, you can also set layer types to exclude.

Tap the “+” next to Refer multiple to open the setting.

If the sketch layer, the line drawing layer and the fill layer are separate layers, setting Refer multiple to All layers will also reference the draft layer and affect the filled area.

You can hide the sketch layer, but sometimes you might want to keep it visible as a reference.

In this case, set the sketch layer as a Draft Layer from the Layer menu in advance.

Then set the excluded layer types for the Fill tool > Refer multiple setting to Draft layer.

You can exclude the following layer types: Draft layers, Text layers, Current layer, Paper layer and Locked layers.

The Fill tool is set automatically to exclude draft layers and the paper layer.

 

4. Area scaling

You can automatically shrink or expand the fill area when filling with the Fill tool.

Use this option to cleanly fill areas drawn with anti-aliased lines.

Anti-aliasing refers to when the edges of a line are slightly blurred so that it looks smoother.

If you fill in lines drawn with anti-aliasing, you may see some gaps where the semi-transparent areas are not filled.

In this kind of case, it’s best to fill on a separate layer underneath the line layer, and expand the fill area so it fills underneath the semi-transparent parts of the line.

Turn on Area scaling for the Fill tool and specify how much to expand the fill area.

Next, tap the "+" icon to open detailed settings, and set the Scaling method to To darkest pixel.

The To darkest pixel setting makes the fill expand until it reaches the darkest part of the line drawing.

While a flat expansion range could go past the lines, this option stops the fill area from extending further.

 

You can see the expanded area more clearly if you view the fill layer above the line drawing layer.

If you use the other settings for the Scaling Mode, the fill area may overflow.

Particularly, if the line has differing thicknesses, expanding with a flat value may result in overflow at areas where the lines are thinner.

 

How to use area scaling

Although Area scaling is useful when filling in along an outlines, you can also use it to intentionally create overflow or to underfill an area inside the lines. Try different settings for your workflow and style.

 

5. Tolerance

You can use the Tolerance setting to specify how close a color has to be to the originally tapped pixel in order to be treated as part of the fill area.

When filling with anti-aliased lines or lines with shading, you can adjust the Tolerance setting to fill more cleanly.

 

6. Close gap

Close gap

 

When filling inside a line drawing, the color can sometimes overflow if there are even small breaks in the line.

If Close gap is turned on for the Fill tool, areas will be filled cleanly even if there are small gaps in the lines.

The numerical value represents the size of the gap that can be ignored. Gaps smaller than this value will be considered to be closed.

 

 

 

Fill narrow areas

 

When you use the Close gap option, in addition to line breaks, places where lines are close together can sometimes be treated as “gaps”, leaving behind some small unfilled areas.

In this case, use the Fill narrow areas setting to quickly fill these.

This option does not appear in the Tool Property palette by default, but it can be shown from the Sub Tool Detail palette.

Open the Sub Tool Detail palette, then turn on Fill narrow areas under the Close gap setting.

• If you want to add this setting to the Tool Property palette, tap the left-most icon to display an eye and make the setting visible.

 

When Fill narrow areas is on, narrow areas where lines are close together that been considered “gaps” according to the Close gap settings, will be filled in as well.

 

7. Magnetic Lasso

From Clip Studio Paint Ver. 4.0, sub tools that have the Input process option set to Lasso, such as the Lasso fill sub tool, can now attach to line art with transparent backgrounds set to reference layer.

Enable Magnetic lasso in the Sub Tool Details or Tool Properties palette.

Increasing the value of the indicator gives priority to the shape of the line on the reference layer, while decreasing the value makes it easier to reflect the shape of the line enclosed by the stroke.

 

Note:

The larger the indicator value, the heavier the process will be, making it harder to fill in the gaps when filling in detailed parts.

Therefore, a larger value is not necessarily better.

 

Note:

If a layer is not set as a Reference layer, the tool will attach to the drawing on the edit layer.

 

Please see this article for information on how to set line art as a reference layer.

Magnetic Lasso fill sub tool

You can use the Lasso fill sub tool to fill in the area you want to color by dragging the tool.

This tool is useful for quickly painting shadows and patterns, but if you turn on Magnetic lasso, you can also use it for base painting like you would with the Enclose and fill sub tool.

 

Even if there are large gaps in the area you want to paint, you can fill them in by dragging.

In this image, the red line indicates the area connected to the reference layer, while the blue line represents the supplemented area.

8. Fill up to vector paths

The Fill tool cannot be used on vector layers, so you can draw your line art on vector layers and fill it on a raster layer.

When filling vector lines, Fill up to vector paths is a useful setting.

The center lines of vector lines are called a “path”.

Filling vector lines with the Fill up to vector paths turned on means that the fill will go up to the center of the vector lines (path).

This setting is useful for filling anti-aliased lines, as well as for filling the space between open brush tip images such as Decoration brushes.

 

A line with spaces like the image below may have breaks from gaps and therefore may be difficult to be fill accurately.

Even in cases where the gaps between the brush tip images is small enough to be covered by the Close Gap setting, the area cannot be painted accurately due to its complex shape.

You can easily fill up to the center of the lines by using Fill up to vector paths, even if there are large gaps between the brush tip images.

• Note that if the line itself is not closed, the line will be considered incomplete and the color may overflow.

Make sure to close the lines completely.

 

9. Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing lets you apply anti-aliasing to the edges of the fill area.

When Area Scaling is enabled, you can apply anti-aliasing onto the edges of expanded fill area.