Wish list for the next ArtRage

[hypotaxis]

Please can the opacity "button" on each layer in the layers panel be a slider rather than the button. I find the button very tricky to use with a Wacom pen.

Brett

[kurt_hectic]

hmmmm imo it's very easy to use - try up and down. I like this circles.

[Steve B]

I personally agree with Kurt, in that I like the little circle that I drag from. Still, it's good for everyone to express their opinion. I'm sure the Artrage guys will only cull the ideas they are good from it all anyways.

[kurt_hectic]

onces again:

-skew, distort, perspective,warp transformations
-perspective tool (http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-illu...spective-grid/)

[sashagb]

1. I want to be able to rotate layers after I have already set them

2. I want to be able to make the background of any given layer transparent

Other than that....I'm very happy.

Thank-you.

[Someonesane]

1. I want to be able to rotate layers after I have already set them

2. I want to be able to make the background of any given layer transparent

Other than that....I'm very happy.

Thank-you.

ArtRage 2.6, AR Studio, and AR Studio Pro allow for users to do all of that.

[muddpuddle]

CAUTION: Long-winded ADD post ahead!

So, After my 30 day trial of Painter 12 and a quick test of PD Howler 7, I have come to a couple conclusions about them and ArtRAge.

First, I am quite positive that Howler 7 (and ultimately 8 coming out this summer) is not for me. It is filled with so many things from simple painting to adaptive motion something-or-other for film and animation that I'm not really sure any one thing has been perfected. At least in the demo of Howler 7, I felt as though painting (which is all I'm really looking for basically) was way too complicated and way under-developed.
It just didn't feel like an art program which is odd since PD has been developed by an artist.
Nope, PD is not for me.

So, on to Corel Painter 12. Let me start off by saying that I recently bought Corel's Paint Shop Pro X4 for touch-up and postwork. I was a long time user of Photoshop Elements which for some reason kept having weird issues on my system (it kept warning me that features were not available for some odd reason or another). Rather than upgrade to a newer Elements or even CS6, I tried out the demo of PSP X4 and was hooked. For only $60, I am very happy and it is a powerful and easy to use program.

That last part - the powerful and easy to use - is why I kept going back to Painter 12. You'd think there would be consistency throughout Corel's product line but I'm pretty sure that the development team behind PSP is not the same as the team behind Painter. That and the ridiculous price tag of $350 had me thinking I must be missing something. It should be powerful and easy, and more important, fun.
And I suppose it is powerful. Easy? Depends what you are trying to do. Fun? I'll get back to that one.

The new watercolor brushes are pretty cool but you have to be patient. Really patient. And the standard set isn't really all that exciting. To really get an idea of what the new "real" watercolor brushes are capable of, you have to download some free custom brushes made by a guy that looks like santa - he seems to be the authority on Painter 11 and 12 brushes. A couple of his brushes have drips that are really cool.
But the "real" watercolor brushes are not worth $350 and I'm not really sure how often I'd use them. They'd be more for texture which I can get just fine with the amazing stencil system in ArtRage.

The rest of the brush selection is just OK. Nothing that really had me excited. If anything, I was and am more excited by the cool variety of brushes in the free and open source programs My Paint and Krita. Makes me wish that ArtRage could import brushes from those programs.

And the UI? There are elements of the UI that were OK but nothing special. The ArtRage UI is very nice and totally unique. I love it. And I love the way the various elements of the UI in ArtRage will disappear if you are working close to them - they automagically get out of your way! In Painter 12, I always felt like I was fighting with the UI. Yes, with the click of a key I could make it all go away and come back again when needed. But its just not the same. The ArtRage UI is simply better (IMHO).

So let's get back to the idea of having fun with your painting software. The only thing I really had fun with in Painter 12 that I wish was in ArtRage - the Kaleidoscope. Yep, sadly that was it. Nothing else really stood out. Certainly not with a $350 price tag. But the kaleidoscope certainly is fun.

My conclusions about ArtRage? Well, I certainly appreciate it now more than ever. It is simply the best painting program out there on the market. Nothing quite compares either commercial or open source. Sure, we always want more, bigger, and better things (at least I do), but ArtRage is and will be my Art program of choice for a long time to come.

I sure will miss the Painter kaleidoscope when my trial expires...

[kurt_hectic]

I highly recommend to add improvement to "touch zooming" :

Zooming by pinch should zoom not to the center of the document but to the place where we are zooming (like in sketchbook pro)

[Steve B]

The new watercolor brushes are pretty cool but you have to be patient. Really patient. And the standard set isn't really all that exciting. To really get an idea of what the new "real" watercolor brushes are capable of, you have to download some free custom brushes made by a guy that looks like santa - he seems to be the authority on Painter 11 and 12 brushes.

Hahahaha! So true! It's such a shame that Corel can't seem to develop these themselves.

[Wossnim]

Calligraphy tool?