# What art program(s) do you use to do your digital art?



## Lomberdia (Jun 18, 2015)

Just wondering what everyone is using and which ones are more popular and why. I know many folks have tried many other programs before finally settling on one or two. So, which program(s) do you use when you do your digital art? and why?

I use Paint Sai and Gimp since sai lacks the features Gimp has but I can't so all I like in Gimp like I can in Sai. So I'm constantly importing/exporting between the two. One day I'll find a program that has the best of both worlds!

Edit: I dun goofed. Forgot to allow multiple votes. Just mention your list of programs in your comment and vote on your most used program.


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## xofrats (Jun 18, 2015)

I use a program called Fire Alpaca. I have tried Photoshop and gimp but my tablet works best with alpaca


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## Sylox (Jun 18, 2015)

SAI. I'm too cheap to buy Photoshop


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## LegitWaterfall (Jun 18, 2015)

I use ArtStudio for the iPad.


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## X_Joshi_X (Jun 18, 2015)

For drawing: SAI

For the rest of my art: Blender, sometimes mixed with GIMP for post processing


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## Zenia (Jun 18, 2015)

Mainly SAI, but I animate things (after using SAI for the frames) and add text to things with my old version of Photoshop.


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## Loque (Jun 18, 2015)

Using Sai, i like the stabilizers and yay the 2.0 beta has a text tool! Funny thing i found an old bundle disc of PS CS2 and was quite surprised what you could already do with a 10 year old software...


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## Willow (Jun 18, 2015)

I use SAI for most everything but every once in awhile I use Photoshop for things like gifs and to make pictures transparent.


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## Gnarl (Jun 18, 2015)

Lets see now, I have Corel-Painter 2015 love it but there are issues with the program not opening. I have a trial version of Photoshop. I have Auto desk sketchbook, and Anime Studio Debut.
I have no idea how to use the Anime program and the Autodesk I get the feeling was designed for kids.


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## Twopaw Tarnished-Silver (Jun 22, 2015)

Good eve, chummers and berks!

First off, I haven't used my tablet for much at all, for all of my pushing myself to do so. It's not like a body buys a $700 Intuos with their previous computer and hardly used it in the ten years he's had it, is it? o_o I need to get in practice in actually doing drawing work with my WACOM; I've gotten past the 'hand-stylus' psychological/physiological disconnect point, but I haven't gotten up off my duff to draw anything, something! ._.

Right now, my 'habit' as it were is to scan in my work (pencil or pencil & ink) on my EPSON Perfection flatbed, and pull it into CorelDRAW or GIMP and ubertweak it. I still don't colour a good amount of my linework (which I'm planning on changing, along with using my tablet to do it or at least help it along) but I've gotten a lot better with said colouring if I do it. My first 'industry' graphics program was Corel Photo-Paint 8 (I think it dated from 1998 or so) although I've gotten myself the CorelDRAW X5 and X6 suites along the way, and a friend gave me a spare Photoshop CS2 install disc (though I haven't used it in some time; Corel is definitely my primary) her father had; uber Apple pundits both (but my loving them no less!) the install disc worked with both Macintosh and Windows (the latter my lengthy usership of) so it went in just fine.

I'm tempted to pick 'Scanning In Drawings' in the poll, but I still marvel at how much can be done with and to a drawing afterwards! ^_^

-2Paw.


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## RailRide (Jun 22, 2015)

A real dog's breakfast of applications. Inkscape is one of them, but it's not my primary digital art program:

*Paid*:
Micrografix Picture Publisher: My main go-to. It's ancient (Win 95/98/NT era), so you've never heard of it. But I've been using it for years and I know its tools well, although its missing a lot of features that are taken for granted today (canvas rotation, brush stabilizer, etc)

--Autodesk Sketchbook Pro: Bought it (ComicCon discount code), haven't used it yet. 

--Clip Studio Paint (i.e. Manga Studio 5 EX) Bought it during a publisher discount promotion. Haven't done anything with it yet.

*Free/Open Source:*
--Inkscape: My go-to for vectorizing or just really smooth digital inks. (Who needs a stabilizer when you got real vectors?). Have inked many pencils and some photos of pencils, did one near-photorealistic piece by sampling colors from a photo.

--MyPaint: Did two pics completely digitally with this one.

*Free/ Proprietary:*
--Smoothdraw: Kind-of like MyPaint with a different feature set.

--Canvas 8 (Deneba/ACD): A really old version from PCFormat magazine, Dec 2005 CD. Technically not a _free_ application, but it and the previous version did appear on some UK magazine CD's after they were obsoleted by newer versions. Vector + bitmap and even a GIF animator. Some of my earliest color pics on FA were vectors done in Canvas 7 (before I understood how to work with them)

*Considering (Free/Open Source)*:
-- Krita. Aiming squarely at Photoshop in terms of look, feel and function. Frame-by-frame animation capabilities are under development.

---PCJ


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## SkyeLegs (Jun 22, 2015)

I usually scan my drawings/inks on paper, colour and shade with SAI, and adjust/add finishing touches in Photoshop. I haven't tried too many others programs, but I notice the free ones don't usually stack up.


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## Fallowfox (Jun 22, 2015)

I use GIMP because it's free.


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## Centradragon (Jun 22, 2015)

110% Photoshooop, because it's pretty good.

Sai is good too (a bit crippled by small canvas size and RAM limits), but the lack of Mac support means I rarely get to use it.


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## Sunrise (Jun 25, 2015)

I use Krita when it comes to drawing directly on the computer, but I use the 3DS app Colors!3D as it's much easier to draw with a stylus than a mouse. (My avatar is an example of the latter~)

I'd love to have Photoshop or Illustrator, but I don't know if there's any free versions of them out there. (I doubt it for Illustrator. I did use the program in a graphic arts class last year and had a blast with it, though.)


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## RailRide (Jun 26, 2015)

Sunrise said:


> I'd love to have Photoshop or Illustrator, but I don't know if there's any free versions of them out there. (I doubt it for Illustrator. I did use the program in a graphic arts class last year and had a blast with it, though.)



As for Illustrator, a possible candidate would be Inkscape. It's a open-source vector-drawing application. I usually use it for digital inks, but I also produced this color image during a crash course in coloring vectorized photos. Frankly, I always wondered how this sort of image was possible in vectors...till I went and did it. (the description goes over what I learned)

And oftentimes you can get away with using a mouse since most of your work doesn't involve directly drawing or sketching the finished image, but establishing straight line segments (lineart) or straight-sided filled shapes (color), then pulling/pushing the outlines into the desired curves (usually to match an image on a layer underneath). 

---PCJ


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## Mayonnaise (Jun 26, 2015)

I use PTSai, GIMP, Inkscape, Mypaint, and Firealpaca.


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## PlusThirtyOne (Jun 27, 2015)

Sylox said:


> SAI. I'm too cheap to buy Photoshop


Pffff! Who _pays_ for Photoshop?!
i'm using an old CS2 license from school still.
i use Photoshop, Open Canvas 3 and MSPaint (XP version).


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## pheonixbat (Jun 27, 2015)

I've used Photoshop and Sai in the past, Sai seems the best of the two. Krita is also good, just it's still being worked on. Right now I'm using Manga Studio 5.


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## Charrio (Jun 27, 2015)

pheonixbat said:


> I've used Photoshop and Sai in the past, Sai seems the best of the two. Krita is also good, just it's still being worked on. Right now I'm using Manga Studio 5.



How is that one, Manga Studio?
Been pondering buying it


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