Why Digital Painting Software?

In less than 25 years, digital media, including Digital Painting, has evolved from the poorly-rendered, rough illustrations and images produced in early programs like MacPaint and PCPaint to the rich, noteworthy mixed-media and digital illustrations made capable by programs like Corel Painter and AutoDesk Illustrator. With these programs, graphic designers, digital artist and mixed media artists have been able to incorporate digital painting programs into their conceptualization and creation processes or even, in many cases, place them at the center of the design process, putting aside the paints, brushes, palettes and easel in favor of the ease and speed of a digital painting software program.

With Digital Painting programs, graphic designers, visual and mixed media artists can use old methods to new effect or break the mold completely with frontier new media tools and features that can be used to innovative and experimental ends, and ideas can be taken from inspiration to finished creation in the time it would take to ready a palette of paints and prepare a canvas. Whether employed for use in concept design, cart blanche illustration or used to supplement or expedite a photography or "wet media"-based workflow or design process, digital painting software programs are an instant asset and an indispensable tool. More importantly, they are the perfect mode for trial, error, experimentation and development--all critical to artistic development and the conceptualization and creation process as a whole.

What's more, with a Digital Painting software program, graphic designers, visual and mixed-media artists can export completed projects, printing them directly to a well-endowed ink-jet or photo printer for a portfolio or publishing them online on an artist page or gallery. For the working, developing or emerging artist, this can sometimes make the difference between a scholarship, grant or, in some cases, gallery hosting, particularly if few of the artists' sold or featured works are viewable online or has a well-developed portfolio in circulation.

What to Look for in a Digital Painting Software Program

Digital Painting software has, traditionally, been limited to only a handful of software programs. In recent years, however, several developers have begun offering closed and open source applications and small EXE. files to the public, more often than not for free. The problem is: these programs and web apps are typically limited to only a handful of tools and features and is an unlikely, improbable and, moreover, underpowered substitution to any wet media workflow and pale in comparison to the several proprietary digital painting software programs. The disparity between digital painting software programs doesn't end with web apps vs. software programs, however, even among the standard digital painting programs like Corel Painter, AutoDesk Illustrator and ArtRAGE, there are vast differences, varying functionality and an even more divergent, in terms of quality and architecture, in workflow and finished product.

Below are some of the features and attributes that should be considered when purchasing a Digital Painting software program:

Drawing & Painting Features
Obvious, yes, but far more complex and nuanced than its name implies. Many software programs, namely image editing and photo editing, offer some tools and/or features that could, ostensibly, be used for illustration purposes. However, by and large, these software program types lack the features and functionality to paint, sketch or design entire projects from scratch--and do so well. When considering a digital painting software program, the breadth of drawing and painting features, as well as their quality, should be given the greatest attention. These features include not only brush sets, media palettes and suites and composition tools, but the overall process by which artistic projects are rendered. Does the software program effectively mimic brush strokes made upon a tablet? These are important factors that should be considered in addition to the drawing and painting features themselves.

Brushes
Digital Painting software programs should provide a large variety of wet media and dry media brushes and tools. These brushes and tools should correspond to their wet media and dry media counterpart, such as round, flat, bright, angle, filbert, fan, mop, rigger and spotter for wet media and pen, pencil and charcoal for dry media. Some programs, such as the top-rated Corel Painter, even allow users to combine and create brushes to achieve a desired effect.

Brush Quality
Of equal importance to the brushes themselves is the quality of the executed brushstrokes. Digital Painting software programs should render all brushstrokes with precise detail and effect. For artists that use a external hardware tablet in the creative process, the digital painting software program should be able to reproduce the intensity of a brushstroke, enabling artists to implement effects such as shading.

Ease of Use
Drawing and painting features, brush selection and brush quality are entirely dependent on the program architecture. Good digital painting software programs should provide its users with a clean, well-organized user interface with well-located, easy-to-find tools, features and palettes and a workflow that expedites and enhances the creative process from concept to creation. The best digital painting software programs allow users to modify and customize the user interface and workflow to meet the needs of a given project or to suit their own personal styling.

Input/Output
Digital Painting software programs should support a variety of image file formats for both import and export purposes. As Digital Painting software programs are often used as a supplement to other software programs, such as Adobe Photoshop and others, the ability to support various image file formats and seamlessly transfer to and from other digital painting software and image editing software programs is crucial. Though many digital artists, illustrators and graphic designers use a given digital painting program as their sole creative vehicle, mixed-media functionality, which largely is a matter of import/export compatibility and support, lends strength and flexibility to any program.

Help/Support
Digital Painting software programs, like other design-intensive software program-types, are fairly complex, with a broad range of tools, features and suites whose operation can range from the familiar and implicit to the unfamiliar and complex. Manufacturers should provide a variety of resources to digital painting software users, such as a FAQ section, knowledgebase, tutorials, user forums, program manuals and other means to gain program insight and instruction or troubleshoot technical issues. Other contact information, such as email addresses and telephone numbers, should also be listed for additional technical support or program assistance.

These criteria are discussed in-depth for each respective Digital Painting software program reviewed on this site, including "TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award" winner Corel Painter.

At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To™.