Mouse smoothing may not be a new concept to professional artists or image editors. But if you are new to illustrating, it may get frustrating when you try over and over to get that perfect line you desire. For this, we could use mouse smoothing software to help us enhance mouse movement to draw cleaner lines and prevent the jittery movements to transfer to the art.
Though mouse smoothing will not hone your skills, we all need a little help and push once in a while. There are multiple applications available for this purpose that support most art programs like ‘Silky Shark‘ and ‘Lazy Nezumi Pro‘.
Using ‘Silky Shark’ Mouse Smoothing tool
Silky Shark is a free, open-source software that provides mouse smoothing and stabilizing for applications and art software that don’t already have smoothing and stabilizing tools.
The program creates a software cursor that your desktop cursor starts following with a delay or lag that can be set by you. This helps you control your lines better, prevents the transfer of drag noise into your line and makes clean, smooth lines and edges. Imagine it as a flexible rope between your software cursor and desktop cursor that helps minimize imperfections in the line either from your shaky hands or from a low-quality mouse.
You can download ‘Silky Shark’ from the program’s official Github project releases page. Download the latest version by clicking ‘Silky.Shark.zip’ from the downloads page.
Once downloaded, extract the ‘Silky.Shark.zip’ file. Then from the two files that you receive, double-click/run the ‘Silky Shark.exe’ file to launch the program.
In case you get a Security Warning dialogue, click on Run.
Once launched, the application pops up on your screen. You can now use it on any of your illustrating programs by turning it on and adjusting the strength according to your needs.
To show you an example of how ‘Silky Shark’ can improve the lines in your drawings, check out the examples below.
Lines without mouse smoothing
Below are some samples of lines drawn using mouse without any specialized tools.
Lines with mouse smoothing using ‘Silky Shark’
Below are some samples of lines drawn using ‘Silky Shark’ at 100 strength and mouse smoothing enabled.
The difference is pretty impressive, right? The lines seem less jagged and smoother when using ‘Silky Shark’.
Note that the software creates a lag in mouse movements not just on the canvas you’re using it for, but the entire system. And it gets pretty inconvenient. Thankfully, the tool can be configured with ‘Hot Keys’ to turn its features on/off with keyboard shortcuts. Setup the hotkeys to save yourself from the terrible lag in mouse cursor this software creates when turned on.
Using ‘Lazy Nezumi Pro’ Mouse Smoothing Tool
Silky Shark works great for a free software, but it is too simple and limited in options to make your drawings better. Lazy Nezumi Pro is a paid software that not just helps with smoothing cursor movement, it allows lagged drawing and absorbs drag noise. This application has a lot more advanced settings that help you with very specific requirements. Apart from various smoothing options, it also has set rulers for parallel lines, ellipses, the golden ratio, isometric drawings, fish-eye perspectives etc.
You can download 15 days free trial of ‘Lazy Nezumi Pro’ from the official website of the tool linked below.
Click on the link on the upper right-side of the website.
Once downloaded, double click to launch the ‘LazyNezumiPro_Setup.exe’ file to begin installation.
Click ‘Run’ if you get a Security Warning dialogue on the screen.
Set your preferred language and follow the on-screen installation process, when asked to ‘Select Components’, make sure you select ‘Full installation’ along with all components the program offers.
Once installed, Lazy Nezumi Pro will launch automatically. To begin using it, you need to hook Lazy Nezumi Pro to the window of the program you are using.
Click ‘File’ on the program’s toolbar and then select the ‘Hook Window’ option.
A pop-up window will appear guiding you to use the ‘Hook Window’ feature. Click ‘Ok’ on it and then move your cursor inside the window you are using and wait 3 seconds. A red rectangle will flash in the window when successfully hooked. If not, you can also press Ctrl + F3 to hook it to your window directly without having to wait.
Once hooked, you can explore and try much more advanced tools that help you draw better. Here are some options on the free trial that you could explore.
Lines with mouse smoothing using ‘Lazy Nezumi Pro’
Here are some line samples drawn with the help of ‘Lazy Nezumi Pro’. Notice the massive improvement over ‘Silky Shark’ ?
Here are some other tools that you could try on Lazy Nezumi to draw smoother objects easily.
Conclusion
If the drawing software you use doesn’t offer in-built mouse smoothing and stabilization features, then save yourself from the trouble and use free tools like ‘Silky Stark’ or the more advanced ‘Lazy Nezumi Pro’ to draw smooth and beautiful lines using mouse or a pen.
Member discussion