# What is so special about paint tool SAI?



## benanderson (May 14, 2010)

I tried it in boot camp and started doodling some randoms and did some line art as well.

It just felt like a watered down version of Photoshop Elements. Is there some kind of super special button inside it that makes you toast or something? :|
What tools inside it are making people go bat-shit crazy over it?

I just don't get it...


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## Runefox (May 14, 2010)

It happens to be pretty good with pressure sensitivity, and it also has the option for vector lines ("linework" layers) and stroke smoothing (removing "jitters" in strokes). It also allows for rotating the canvas, also good for tablets, though I haven't figured out how to map it to my Intuos4 yet. Still, I prefer Inkscape myself, but I may well find use for it with my tablet.

I'm not terribly fond of the interface, though; The tool palettes in my opinion are rather unnecessarily wide and diminish the available canvas screen space.


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## ShaoShao (May 14, 2010)

Runefox said:


> I'm not terribly fond of the interface, though; The tool palettes in my opinion are rather unnecessarily wide and diminish the available canvas screen space.



This gets on my nerves as well, but like Photoshop you can press tab and get rid of all the palettes for a while.


For me, I use Sai because I like how the appearance of strokes with different tools look. The Pen tool produces a strong, smooth line which doesn't show signs of breaks if you stop, erase a bit and then add to it. Photoshop requires fiddling with settings or making a custom brush to do this.

Some of the painting brushes make nice effects for fur or watercolour imitations. Again, you'd have to search about a bit to get the same thing on other programs (EDIT: actually, I lie, obviously ArtRage and the like have watercolour tools of similar or better quality orz).

And it has a colour wheel; so much easier to pick colours out with one.

If anything, Paint Tool Sai is convenient to me. It loads quicker and can do bits and pieces of the task neatly and effectively without much hassle.


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## Ibuuyk (May 14, 2010)

Uhh, it has the name of a Naruto character?  I dunno.


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