as a linux user Krita is like a gift from GOD itself. we don't have much option, but we don't need to, since one of the best digital painting software is there.
When I read "We" in the title, I was hoping for the much anticipated daughter return, but alas. Just your big beautiful head, which is also glorious to behold!! Nice list! Did not even know there were over 15 painting software out there! But after watching this and recognizing them all, I guess I knew, but never really put it together like this.
I switched to Krita years ago because with each Windows version... my outdated Photoshop's UI kept getting smaller. At the time I stopped using Photoshop, I could barely see what I was trying to click on (although the increased real-estate to actually draw on was nice). The only downside to switching to Krita was that I've been unable to duplicate my "quick shading" from Photoshop (4 layers set to different blending modes). But that's okay because I don't do much quick shading these days anyway. Naturally I've also used MSPaint. Heck, I'll admit my age. And I've used Painter before Corel picked it up. But weirdly I've never used GIMP. I was _aware_ of GIMP all the way back in the 90s (it was hard not to be aware of it when every fan page had "...just get GIMP. It's super easy to use..." somewhere near the bottom), but I was already using Photoshop and had no reason to try GIMP.
I did get Corel Painter from a Humble Bundle, but honestly - I'd just rather use Krita. More options for keyboard shortcuts, it's quicker to browse brushes and change their size, not to mention I can actually pan the canvas with a button on my pen, no switching tools necessary. The brush engine of Painter is really cool and I wish I could use it more, but when a free tool beats it out in terms of ergonomics... Even my traditional-art-trained sister found Krita way easier to use. Also, Krita has many more translations than any other painting program. That's the power of open source! About GIMP - it is not a painting program. It can technically be used for that, but you can tell it isn't good for that. It's right there in the name - it's the "GNU Image Manipulation Program". It's an interesting split: Krita is way better for image creation, but I'd say that GIMP is still more powerful for image editing.
Krita is truly a fantastic piece of software. I think their form of monetization is the most appropriate, I bought it on Steam, although I've been using it for a long time on Linux. Paying/donating in dollars or euros is very prohibitive in Brazil. Other software companies will treat you like a third-class customer, even if you paid for their software.
Paint Tool Sai still have the best blend brush in the business and is so light that you can run in a potato computer. I still use it daily for my cartoon illustrations. But for loose sketching i prefer Photoshop.
CSP was my first drawing program since it came for free with my Intuos back in 2019 (got 2 years for free!) but I got an iPad in November last year mainly for Procreate, and truth to be told, Procreate is an amazing program, I love the brushes on it but for some reason it doesn't feel the same for me.. same with ArtStudio, both are so good but I guess just not for me, I got 3 months for free on CSP but will have to buy the sub soon which sucks (will choose the yearly one since it''s not so expensive on sale at least) Rebelle was my favorite one on PC, wish they had it on iPad as well, would spend all my money on it for sure! still I guess I'm stuck with CSP for life, not complaining since it's a great program, only thing missing for me is the Photoshop mixer brush
Once you get the hang of Krita, it's fantastic and leaves nothing to be desired compared to other programs. The ability to integrate it with Blender, use the 360-degree rotating light brushes, the integrated G'mic filters, and the many layer blending modes surpass those of most programs. However, in my opinion, where it still falls short is in the text tool, layer organization, and the use of clipping mask.
Yeah, non-Krita users don’t believe me when I say it, but Krita is the best program I have ever used in my opinion. And I am saying that as someone that’s used Photoshop professionally for over 20 years. As a painting platform first and foremost, Krita has no real competitor in my book.
The Clip Studio Paint subscription model is only for getting updates early. Otherwise you can either opt out of getting the updates, or buy them in a lump sum when they are finished. For instance I went to version 2 with a single payment. I don't pay a subscription and can simply wait for version 3 to finish and buy it if I wish. So it's not as aggressive as it seem, unlike Photoshop.
@@MrJBARRON I only got Pro, EX seems to mostly be geared towards if you intend to do animation, as Pro is limited to very few animation frames, 24 I think it was.
In my opinion Krita is the best drawing software. I have been drawing in it for 3 years. It is my first drawing program and I love it because of brushes and because of nice feeling while drawing. The greatest disadvantage of Krita is its lags. Krita has a lot of lags...
i used to love corel painter, but it is hard nowadays because it is not a pratical program, i always have to comeback to photoshop or clipstudio to do some manipulation, even the canvas size isn't intuitive to change, and that is kinda sad cause for me painter has the best realistic brushes, i prefer clipstudio for overall stuff almost no need photoshop when use it, i'm not a fan of krita but i going to try again since you defended it with such a passion.
Bonjour ! Je pense être en accord avec votre liste, et j'ai un faible très marqué pour Rebelle 7 et Krita. Je pense qu'avec ces 2 logiciels on peut presque tout faire. Photoshop est pour moi essentiel dans le traitement de l'image de sa qualité de sa colorométrie, mais il ne m'inspire aucune envie de création : c'est juste une boite à outils bien remplie (trop remplie) . En tout cas merci! 😁
I switched over to Affinity Photo for painting for the simple reason that I used to paint in photoshop. I often do photomanips for composition And a lot of my shading and colouring gets done with photo editing tools & masking, which is something I often miss in other art programs. I'd have to overhaul my whole painting process. And definitely, the brushes are not the best you can get and it has an issue where it goes really slow when you use a big brush. However photoshop has that issue too, and much worse. Also, Affinity has a more intuitive Ui and the price point... Yeah. To me psd is now a C tier at most (I only use it at work because I have to, but at home? Nah. Never again)Affinity Photo is an A tier, because of the editing features. But if you use ir solely for painting? I agree with B. Still looking for my personal S tier, tbh. 😂
Dude. I like your content in general, but you're still completely wrong about Painter not having blending modes until recently. I started with Painter 11 (circa 2010/2011) and it had blending modes then! Painter has faults but this isn't one of them. Corel Painter is an "A" in my book, admittedly probably a "B" overall, but definitely higher than "C". Really? It's just slightly better than GIMP or MS Paint? Corel Painter's biggest issue now is with the company (Alludo) seemingly all but having dropped it's ongoing development over the last year. :( Rebelle is definitely the one to beat now for supported natural media emulation in a paint program, but it's slow with large brushes compared to Painter and caps the brush size to something smaller than what I sometimes need. Here's hoping they can tune that up over time.
Rebelle is fantastic for painterly illustration. Much better engine than PS. Painter has great tools but it is bloated. Rebelle takes the best of Painter and creates a streamlined, easy to use UI. CSP is really good to, but again the UI can be overwhelming. Honestly, Rebelle and PS can make a great combo for illustration and image editing. Rebelle has a great support for PSD file format too. As a side, Fresco has come a long way and it is actually very capable with its animation capabilities.
Putting PS and Corel Painter at such a low level does not make any sense. Infinite Painter is better than PS and Corel Painter? Come on man, be serious. And why didn't you even consider ArtSet, Heavy Paint or Adobe Fresco on the list? Honestly the video seems like just an advertisement to promote Rebelle. By the way, my list in order is Photoshop, Clip Studio, Rebelle, Corel Painter, Procreate and Artrage
You may be only thinking about features, but this classification also takes cost into account, something which is very important for the majority of people. For example, the Adobe's subscription model and its greedy practices highly penalise the PS classification, as it should be. And the absurdly high price of Painter does the same. Both are very good programs, yes, and the video clearly says so, but any useful classification must take cost into account.
Procreate brushes are totally rubbish. Even the engine causes inconsistent lines for me. It has a great GUI but definitely requires too much work to keep anything from looking plastic.
I effing love rebelle. I dropped painter and photoshop so fast for it. I still use Krita for the sweet as perspective assistants but the color mixing and impasto in Rebelle are to die for.
Clip Studio Paint! Once I tried it 12 ish years ago, it has become better and better, and a reasonable (kinda cheapish) price! I'm 56 and have used this stuff for a while now. ( results vary vary!)
Thank you for your, as claimed, detailed subjective list. My finalist would be Procreate and Rebelle. For digital illustration, I would rank Corel Painter higher than photoshop.
Hey Wes, I've been spending some time creating brushes in Rebelle. I was wondering what you meant about Krita and Clip having "wet flow opacity hard and soft round brushes"... I bet I can make that in Rebelle. I just want to know what you mean.
Hey there! So it's actually slightly hard to put into words, but there's a certain "exactness" to hard and soft round brushes and how they behave between different brush engines. Rebelle actually has some "digital" brushes with hard and soft round, but even when editing the brush pressure and other settings, it doesn't *quite* feel as responsive as something made natively in Krita or CLIP Studio. It's definitely a "feel" thing moreso than an "exact look" thing, so it's pretty subjective. If you want to make a crack at it, I'd love to try them out!
when i first started digital art i got krita and it was a really good and useful program after 2 years i bought csp ex and i think both softwares are superior to anything elsei still dont really understand how people use photoshop to draaw since its a image manipulation software /:
I am using Photoshop, but even on my Mac each new version has more and more glitches. Also, to be honest, I see that the brush engine of Photoshop sucks in comparison with Krita. You are absolutely right that Photoshop goes in some other way, not that one he should.
I used to be a CSP evangelist but they’ve really diverged from what I loved about them over the years. I’ve barely touched it since version 2 released. Rebelle has pretty much taken over as my new pet art program.
Same here. Their subscription model is not super expensive but it's very clunky to find out what you need, tailormade to confuse customers. Combined that with the stupid machine based license (with limited changes) made me buy Rebelle 7 Pro and I have zero regrets.
Why does everyone else have a great experience with Rebelle except me? Don't get me wrong I love what they're trying to do with the program but I've literally never been able to finish ONE illustration on it because it crashes so....damn....much. It's insane.
@@willfenholtart that sucks indeed. I even run Rebelle on my old laptop. It always says I have limited undo steps because it only has 8GB memory, but other than that I have never had it crash on me.
@@ReginaldSprinkhuizen Must be something about my pc build that causes it . I have no problems at all with any other software though. I mean I almost never close CSP. I’ve got 32 GB of ram on NVIDIA RTX 4090s.
@@ReginaldSprinkhuizen if you wait on major releases you can get clip studio paint pro 1 device for around 10 euros a year. Usually I despise subscription models, but when they’re this affordable I don’t mind. Comparing it to photoshop in my country, instead of one year with photoshop I can get 15 years of clip.
I am somewhat new to digital art and art in general. I have a subscription to PS but once that ends I'm done with rentware. I am using Rebelle and also have and use Sketchbook Pro, as the name implies, which for me is good for quickly sketching out ideas which I can then save and import as PSD into Rebelle. and for $20-$25 it is not that expensive.
Do you have any advice for switching from photoshop to another program such as clip studio or krita? I've been using photoshop for digital painting for almost 15 years now I think, like since I was 6 or 7, and I just cannot tolerate any of Adobe's BS anymore. But I'm finding it almost impossible to try other programs- I've been trying to pick up krita since December 2022 and I still cannot do anything with it, I'm finding it extremely unintuitive and hard to navigate. I've been trying csp for the past few days and I can't tell if I'm using it wrong, but everything is extremely pixelated no matter what settings I use and I'm finding the brushes damn-near impossible to control or make do what I want. Perhaps this is all just a me problem, I do have a handful of learning disabilities so maybe its just a skill issue lmao, but you seem to be one of the more knowledgeable people on this topic so I might as well ask. Regardless, very helpful video!
Thank you for the awesome comment, and know that this EXACT scenario is something I'm planning some videos about! Just know that you're 100% not alone, every single art program has its own "feel" and ecosystem, so each have their own learning curves. Things like CLIP and Krita may have settings you're used to, but they may be named something different, or in weird locations/menus. While each program has their own Help/Manual to look through, that can be pretty overwhelming as well. My main piece of advice is to do the same *very* basic art project across two or three programs. Make a sphere and shade it in your preferred method, then do the same exact thing within CLIP, then Krita. This will allow you to "focus in" on exact things you may be looking for (like layer structure, filters, brush capabilities, etc) and notice the small differences in ways that actually impact your working method. Like I said though, I have a few videos like this planned, so you're right on the money!!
Special shoutout to aseprite for any pixel artists. Its not free, but it is avaliable on steam as a one time purchase and is fantastic if your main art stye is pixel based. Plus, can also do animations with it, although I've never used that function so not sure how good it is.
LOVE me some Aesprite!! One of these days I'll get off my butt and learn a game engine well enough to start making pixel art for a cheap platformer game or something LOL
Fresco not on the list, but I’ve been trying to learn it and learn to love it (as a Procreate and Photoshop user). Vector and animation capabilities are really useful, but for digital painting I am finding it clunky and frustrating. People seem to really love it though, so I think I’m in the minority!
I messed around with it about a year ago and really enjoyed it too, but I still found myself always going back to Procreate. They’re both fantastic I think, but for mobile drawing and painting, I just can’t think of a reason to use anything else when Procreate is right there. It’s the undisputed king.
I've had the best luck with Clip Studio Paint with importing Photoshop brushes, oddly enough! Procreate is also pretty spot-on with the brush importing as well if you have an IPad.
The latest Artstudio Pro with its Pigment engine, brush engine + Cladio’s brushes so good. Especially his real paint index and ink index = best experience I’ve ever had digitally honestly.
I should add that I do enjoy Clip Studio as well, and Paintstorm. They’re all really good, but what feels the most like the real thing for me is within Artstudio Pro.
Hey Wes here’s a question: if I want Clip Studio paint just for painting: there is a nicely priced PRO version and the much more expensive EX version. Will I be happy with just the PRO?
Absolutely! I actually only use the PRO version, never upgraded to the EX (as I think the EX comes with more team-based features, sort of like a cloud service for multiple workstations, stuff like that). The PRO version has absolutely everything you need on the art side of things, from my experience!
Ah, yea it makes sense for GIMP to be so low. It is still the main art program that I use, sometimes I'll do some Rebelle touch ups or use Krita's rotating light brush stuff for more interesting textures, but for the most part it's good and versatile. Not very intuitive for traditional painting. The way it handles actual brush strokes and lines leaves a lot to be desired. But as a general digital art program it has so many interesting tools to play around with that can create really interesting textures. That other digital art programs don't really have, filters and plugins and other things mostly. I think I'm probably biased because I use it too much but I do love it. The 3.0 update comes out soon too! They're announcing it tomorrow. I'm very excited personally. Generally agree with your list outside of this though.
I love Paint Tool Sai so much. The developer is currently working on Sai 2, which you can download the current Beta for free if you've already purchased Sai. I think it's the perfect balance between simplicity and necessary features, it has everything I could want in a drawing software without adding too much distraction. I like Clip too, but the program has so much extra stuff in it that I don't need/want (3d models, that weird auto shading feature, a billion brushes to download, ect) that I kind of find distracting at points. it also has a tendency to freeze and lag depending on what you are doing and Sai just doesn't have that issue. I also just like Sai's brushes more, its brush engine is super simple to understand and easy to edit. The only downside is the fact its made by one guy so updates can be slow, but you also don't need to worry about a greedy company coming in to force subscriptions on you. If you use Windows and want a simple but well designed alternative to Photoshop or Clip, I would definitely recommend checking out Sai 2.
FYI: KRITA HAVE this TOOL . COLOR MIXER - IS like Great Color Filling TOOL who I NOT see any OTHER SOFTWARE Have ! ... and it's works great too... even for me to fill all the color I want - ::: WONDER why KRITA is the only software who have this , - ( Coloring with "Colorize-Mask" in Krita )) ... and 450 USD for the P is Cheep, for all is doing... Compare to Change Tire on my GoKart cost like ::: 800 USD twice a / month :: minimum ... THX anyway for share this info , very informative...
I have Rebelle and ArtRage. It's nice to know they're pretty good. But the thing I wish Rebelle had was a better way for people to share brushes. I feel like I don't have many brush options and I don't have the time to learn how to make the perfect brush. I wish I could just go and download some. I know there are some on the website but 90% are for Rebelle 6, there's not very many, and a lot of them are identical to each other.
I think you might be looking for a Fill Layer. Select new layer, Fill Layer, Gradient, choose colors or patterns. Then change the blending mode for the layer. You can look it up in the documentation as well.
FRESCO BEATS PROCREATE! I know this sounds weird but Fresco has better emulation of watercolor and VECTOR INKING and.... VECTOR TRIM!!! The vector trimming is better than CSP! Cool to know that someone else thinks KRITA is up there!
Watching this and reading comments convinced me that I need to download krita, but unfortunately when I tried to come up the message says that it's not compatible with my device. Anyone know of anything similar that can be used on a Samsung Galaxy S23?
Fine, I'll download Krita and give it a go :D I have Clip Studio and Rebelle as my two main art programs because of what each offers, but if Krita is one I can pop onto many different computers without issue for quick work then that'll get added to my main items. CSP stays around because of the vector linework options (and yes, I know Inkscape exists, I have downloaded that, but I'm more familiar with CSP in general) and its 3D model options, while Rebelle is for the "traditional art done digitally" options
I seriously love rebelle and I couldn't agree more the biggest problem was quality of life features but almost all the QoL features I wanted were added in 7 so I'm with rebelle all the way and sometimes clip studio when I need a certain digital feel or need more assistance blocking out a pose or comic layout
I have Krita and PaintStorm based on one of your answers to me in a Q&A video a while back. CSP was your other suggestion and that's the next cab of the rank. But to be fair I've been almost exclusively in Krita thus far and only toyed with PaintStorm. Not because I don't like Paintstorm... Ive had fun when I've opened it up, but I'm totally in love with Krita. CSP does intrigue me though. I do have a noob question: When you take a painting from say Krita to work on it on Paintstorm and CSP when I get it, do you export the image as a PNG and begin fresh layers over top of that or something else. Silly question but I just don't know. Great video brother. Peace
Exactly right! I'll save it as a PNG (as it has way less compression/image quality loss than something like JPG), re-import in a new program, save THAT version as PNG, and re-export out again. I then use the newest PNG file like an "underpainting", and duplicate the layer to paint on top of.
@@ArtOfWesGardner I thought that was the case. I'm so new at this that things that are blatantly simple and obvious are a mystery to me. I will get there
Great list! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do this for mobile, particularly tablets with good pens/pencils. Also, very interesting about Canva purchasing Affinity. That sounds promising IF this includes Affinity Painter. ALSO, where is Fresca? AND MOST OF ALL … when is Rebelle going mobile????? I WANT IT but it has to be where I work. I’m a huge watercolor artist .. and ink with impasto next .. then oil painting. The new M4 iPad and pencil were made for these apps.
I'm using Medibang paint pro on Windows, it works pretty well, despite limited brushes, but after this video and all comments praising krita... I'll have to try it now
Clip Studio and Rebelle is insane combo. They both do anything I could ever think of, other than a couple minor things I wish CSP stole from Photoshop (bevels/emboss/stroke effects) and simple mode for Windows.
Thank you so much for doing this! I have to dump Adobe CC after my student license finally expires and I was looking for an alternative. I was into Procreate but they don't do PCs and Affinity disappointed me brushes-wise. I used to have Krita for a hot moment and I think I'm gonna give it a chance too. As for Photoshop I've been using it since 2007-ish so it's hard to wean myself but I agree with you - if somebody still has CS5 or CS6 then they are better off with it than with the current one.
I get the paint tool sai, but isn't there a paint tool sai 2 now? And if that's better or not? Now I have Photoshop CS2 and been looking at sadly going to the CC because to learn the program and the process. Big question, do I hunt down a CS6, or just keep at cs2 and work my way up. Or buy Clip Studio Paint? I mean I'll grab Krita because free is always a bonus.
having used photoshop since version 4 around 1996 i can only say it has become bloatware in the classic sense. the interface has become dumbed down to sliders and buttons with reduced precision and i'm looking for an alternative to digitally paint. thanks for the reviews!
Not really too many options, you can run paintstorm in lutris, but be sure to disable auto save because it crashes the app. It's linux version works too but its warp deform tool is still broken in linux version and you can't drag and drop image files to the canvas.
The beauty of Procreate is just the brush performance, and for me personally the brush smoothing which is completely unique. On the desktop, would it still have the crazy smooth brushes? And on the desktop, people would expect desktop features so it would probably not be so impactful on desktop. People would get it because of it's popularity, but I don't think it would be a game changer on the desktop.
My only gripe with some of the S tier software is that they lack the vast brush library that Photoshop has which is what's keeping me so stuck on photoshop. There are brushes that I love on there and I'm just not able to recreate those. That and I'm just so used to the interface by now. But I agree... I hate where it's going. It's the snob of all digital art software. It's the horrible co-worker who can't get fired. It's become one of those things that makes it almost morally correct to pirate.
I also play around with Corel Painter and Rebelle. They are similar in that they are resource hogs. But, they actually use your RAM and GPU that you throw at it. I've found with CSP, it will not use your cores or GPU much at all (brush lag happens a lot if you don't mind your canvas and brush sizes, layers, etc). Upgrading your RAM, CPU, or GPU doesn't do much for CSP past a certain point. Even with those limitations, CSP still the best in my tools for overall use.
i used corel painter for years and in my honest opinion...i feel like it slowed down my learning process due to the fact that it took me such a long time to tweak the brushes to do what i wanted them to do but i carried on using it because certaain art channels said it was the best program out there. I llater switched to clip studio paint and couldn't BELIEVE how easy the brushes were to use, i always felt like i was fighting with the brushes in corel painter but in clip studio paint they pretty much acted how i THOUGHT brushes should work wwhen i bought painter, the only thing i had to change in csp was the setting that makes you'r strokes more smooth, i had to turn it down.
(no anger in this comment, at all :D ) Gimp 3.0 will stop being a D for painting, once well known (and I am not a linux super fan, btw, I run it on windows, actually) by the patient painters among us, and with the immense improvements that it is getting in 3.0, I would rate it at least as a B, and well used, for painting, even between A and B. I tested the nightly builds. No way I can agree on Krita being over (even while being free, though amazing that it makes painting software available to those who can't afford software; this includes entire countries), as technically speaking, for painting, Rebelle, PaintStorm and Procreate are very clearly superior. But Rebelle has issues with very big canvases, and for that reason it could be somewhere between S and A, as with nanopixel (a feature in the Pro version) you can export big canvases, for example to print very large canvases or posters. If weren't for the subscription and their siding with AI, I could easily give Photoshop the A place (if one knows how to handle the brush system). But with those issues, honestly, I'd just remove it from the list, entirely (I know you can't do it). Affinity Photo for me is a solid A-S. It's just that people don't know its smart uses for painting and how to configure it for a best experience. Realistic Paint Studio is _very_ limited in features, and even in canvas size. But the feel is really good in what is traditional oil painting. Just for that I'd place it on B. Even if it's only usable for specific uses. Procreate just for their defense of artists against AI should be a S+ (or higher...) when also considering its absolutely smart UI and workflows for a painting app on a tablet. BTW, special mention of PaintTool SAI... Yes, very limited in features, but it has what is needed. The amount of people doing commissions yet with it (and frankly, unless one has money problems, the few bucks that it costs are really worth the 2.x version. I know a lot are yet using 1.x!. Despite saying it's (the 2.x) a "preview" version, so has been for years, and it hasn't crashed on me ONCE). One very important detail for some people: This is the tool allowing to paint in largest canvases, with largest brushes, and still do it smoothly, of the ENTIRE MARKET (all this list included (exception of Art Studio and Infinite Painter), and more, I made my research, all tested). I don't have an idea on how the dev was able to do it. But I tested it intensely. When I want to do some giant canvas with huge brushes, I just launch my loved PaintTool SAI 2. This also explains one of the main reasons (besides a free beta floated for way too long time) why it became THE tool for students and not super high end freelancers : it runs on a potato. On half a potato. And super fast. It loves ANY hardware, any crappy students laptop old as heck, with no GPU. That makes it a winner for a large group of the population. For me it's a solid A, but only due to having fewer features and options (but to be honest, I can mimic traditional painting without many fancy features that other apps have). And S+ when I need large canvases and/or brushes.
Fantastic write-up! I'll definitely give GIMP 3.0 a shot, as there's quite a few passionate fans in the comments. I'll be happy to give it a go and eat my words!
@@ArtOfWesGardner That is very kind of you, thank you! Seriously though, as much as I finally was able to deal with the issues (configuration, Wacom, etc), I would strongly recommend not to try their official current development version (2.99.18), and even less, the nightly builds. The 3.0 RC1 (release candidate 1) was expected to be released on May, this month. It is being delayed (not surprisingly, it is quite a revamp), not sure if for much more, but IMO, don't test anything before the 3.0 RC1. As it's even me and I have needed to give up with several recent development versions. True that they warn about it very clearly, but it can break the soul of even an overly patient guy like me who is pro open source (and yet I am mainly a Windows and commercial Windows apps user; but have handled Linux at many jobs and home) and used Gimp at certain company as my daily driver during years. Yet though, I tested a previous version, relatively recent, and much more stable, and so I can predict that 3.0 will be very usable as an overall "Photoshop" (with the eternal gap due to huge difference in budget/staff: 10k to 50k human beings in PS and stuff derived from it or for it, versus... Gimp's heroic *7* . And many eventual contributors for specific matters :D ), but also will be possible to be used as a - basic, yet functional- painting tool. The 3.0 will have *live* filter layers (like in Affinity and PS), something closer to a true CMYK mode, full support of Adobe RGB, while till now internally it mostly handled all in sRGB, (like PaintShop Pro has always done, but few people know about this) and a number of very key improvements in UI and many other things. It's slowly "changing its path". But for the "perception", it will need a pair of years of people getting used to it, once 3.0 starts to be known. Inskcape 1.3.2 (vector design open source software) is really good, too. Compared to what it used to be. Open source can always be forked, taken from there and continued by another person or group, and is not threatened by big buyouts like we are seeing constantly happening with commercial tools. So... for me, when I consider a FOSS tool, I assign to it like 3 or 4 points extra due to this advantage (a seven is a 9.5 ;D ); I mean, I am more forgiving due to it about lower overall quality or the lack of some features. The key for me is "Can I do the work in a reasonable amount of time? Is there any real full _show stopper_ ? ". As if not, for me it's good to be used. So, I keep using the commercial ones, but training more seriously in the FOSS alternatives. After all, any flexibility helps the brain in learning the "essence" (of painting, design, 3D, etc).
I am just getting into desktop art from procreate… and tbh, I tried photoshop, and instantly just moved to CSP. It’s a great price for one time purchase and it’s way more intuitive
Hi WES! I fully agree with what was said in the video and in fact on my computer the 4 programmes installed correspond to the first ones on your list. I have to say, however, that mine is a desperate case as, due to my economic conditions, I have to work with an old PC equipped with obsolete hardware. This creates enormous problems for me when I try to draw with Rebelle or use some recent brushes created for Krita. While drawing, the cursor moves jerkily and lags a lot. But apart from that, I consider these 4 softwares among the most stimulating for those who like to draw and paint digitally.
How often does humble offer these prices? I’m afraid since Corel was purchased by Alludo no new versions are on the horizon. I think 2023 is the last and final v. I had a chat with Corel support after my “rental” v of painter locked out.
i remember seeing an article come up on my youtube feed about photoshop going to court against ai art promoting their ai art detection software, then saying that you can use their ai art software because its perfectly legal lol
I really enjoyed using it, but I haven't had enough experience with it (mainly on desktop, as I haven't used it at all on mobile) to comfortably place it on the list. There's always next time, though!
@@ArtOfWesGardneri used it a bit on mobile, and I enjoyed it, I feel like it’s actually a pretty good program for painting on the go. It’s just that I can’t really justify using anything else when Procreate is already right there lol.
Is your approach to art creation to use mostly 1 program and supplement it with several others for special capabilities? Or do you select the program based on the art you are to create? Or do you simply use any collection of programs that seem to do the job easiest? Or...describe your approach to multi-program painting programs??? And do you often use image editing programs to "adjust" a nearly completed artwork? (such as Photoshop etc. for "adjusting" the image).
Hey Doug, thanks a ton for the question! So I think you're correct on all counts (ahah), as it depends on the piece itself. Sometimes I'll start with actual thicker brushwork and sort of "refine", so it'll look like Rebelle/ArtRage into CLIP/Krita/Photoshop, but if I have to start a little more sketchy (especially for client work and approvals) I'll start with CLIP or Krita, then once I get the all-clear, I'll start in the more traditional-feeling programs and work from there. It's basically just using the best tool for the job, and each program has their shining points that make the whole process much smoother!
I've been having a ton of luck with the latest 3060 (well, latest as of me purchasing my PC a year or so ago LOL), I've had the best luck with NVIDIA stuff (as while I also like AMD, the drivers would go wonky more often with my Huion Kamvas touch monitor)
very informative and extremely well explained. good insights as an artist painter and useful information on the tech side. Thanks Wesley. will keep up with you!
It’s exam week for me, and your channel is such a comfort/reliever !! I’m looking forward to having more time this summer to really put your advice and suggestions to practice as learning from your videos is always a treat :))
as a linux user Krita is like a gift from GOD itself.
we don't have much option, but we don't need to, since one of the best digital painting software is there.
When I read "We" in the title, I was hoping for the much anticipated daughter return, but alas. Just your big beautiful head, which is also glorious to behold!!
Nice list! Did not even know there were over 15 painting software out there! But after watching this and recognizing them all, I guess I knew, but never really put it together like this.
I switched to Krita years ago because with each Windows version... my outdated Photoshop's UI kept getting smaller. At the time I stopped using Photoshop, I could barely see what I was trying to click on (although the increased real-estate to actually draw on was nice). The only downside to switching to Krita was that I've been unable to duplicate my "quick shading" from Photoshop (4 layers set to different blending modes). But that's okay because I don't do much quick shading these days anyway.
Naturally I've also used MSPaint. Heck, I'll admit my age. And I've used Painter before Corel picked it up. But weirdly I've never used GIMP. I was _aware_ of GIMP all the way back in the 90s (it was hard not to be aware of it when every fan page had "...just get GIMP. It's super easy to use..." somewhere near the bottom), but I was already using Photoshop and had no reason to try GIMP.
I did get Corel Painter from a Humble Bundle, but honestly - I'd just rather use Krita. More options for keyboard shortcuts, it's quicker to browse brushes and change their size, not to mention I can actually pan the canvas with a button on my pen, no switching tools necessary.
The brush engine of Painter is really cool and I wish I could use it more, but when a free tool beats it out in terms of ergonomics... Even my traditional-art-trained sister found Krita way easier to use.
Also, Krita has many more translations than any other painting program. That's the power of open source!
About GIMP - it is not a painting program. It can technically be used for that, but you can tell it isn't good for that. It's right there in the name - it's the "GNU Image Manipulation Program".
It's an interesting split: Krita is way better for image creation, but I'd say that GIMP is still more powerful for image editing.
Thanks for that video. I'm starting and it was very helpful in making a decision. Additional props for Behemoth shirt :) Cheers from Poland.
Krita is truly a fantastic piece of software. I think their form of monetization is the most appropriate, I bought it on Steam, although I've been using it for a long time on Linux. Paying/donating in dollars or euros is very prohibitive in Brazil. Other software companies will treat you like a third-class customer, even if you paid for their software.
Paint Tool Sai still have the best blend brush in the business and is so light that you can run in a potato computer. I still use it daily for my cartoon illustrations. But for loose sketching i prefer Photoshop.
CSP was my first drawing program since it came for free with my Intuos back in 2019 (got 2 years for free!) but I got an iPad in November last year mainly for Procreate, and truth to be told, Procreate is an amazing program, I love the brushes on it but for some reason it doesn't feel the same for me.. same with ArtStudio, both are so good but I guess just not for me, I got 3 months for free on CSP but will have to buy the sub soon which sucks (will choose the yearly one since it''s not so expensive on sale at least) Rebelle was my favorite one on PC, wish they had it on iPad as well, would spend all my money on it for sure! still I guess I'm stuck with CSP for life, not complaining since it's a great program, only thing missing for me is the Photoshop mixer brush
Once you get the hang of Krita, it's fantastic and leaves nothing to be desired compared to other programs. The ability to integrate it with Blender, use the 360-degree rotating light brushes, the integrated G'mic filters, and the many layer blending modes surpass those of most programs. However, in my opinion, where it still falls short is in the text tool, layer organization, and the use of clipping mask.
Clip Studio is my main program (I started with Manga 5, dating myself too). Love that program, great brushes.
I started with Manga Studio 4, long before it got the massive update to 5. I figured that would make you quite young. LOL
Be sure to check out Krita's "Rotating light brushtips" brush set, it just brings its RGBA brush to the next level
Love Krtia! Krita's RGBA brushes is one of my favorites.
"Krita is so good it makes the artists using it better." I can confirm it. It's like Krita said to PS, "Anything you can do, I can do better."
Yeah, non-Krita users don’t believe me when I say it, but Krita is the best program I have ever used in my opinion. And I am saying that as someone that’s used Photoshop professionally for over 20 years. As a painting platform first and foremost, Krita has no real competitor in my book.
@@ninja_tony I mean, PS can't even do basic things like transforming a selection across many layers.
The Clip Studio Paint subscription model is only for getting updates early. Otherwise you can either opt out of getting the updates, or buy them in a lump sum when they are finished. For instance I went to version 2 with a single payment. I don't pay a subscription and can simply wait for version 3 to finish and buy it if I wish. So it's not as aggressive as it seem, unlike Photoshop.
Which version should I get, the Pro or EX? EX is quite a bit more expensive
@@MrJBARRON I only got Pro, EX seems to mostly be geared towards if you intend to do animation, as Pro is limited to very few animation frames, 24 I think it was.
In my opinion Krita is the best drawing software. I have been drawing in it for 3 years. It is my first drawing program and I love it because of brushes and because of nice feeling while drawing. The greatest disadvantage of Krita is its lags. Krita has a lot of lags...
i used to love corel painter, but it is hard nowadays because it is not a pratical program, i always have to comeback to photoshop or clipstudio to do some manipulation, even the canvas size isn't intuitive to change, and that is kinda sad cause for me painter has the best realistic brushes, i prefer clipstudio for overall stuff almost no need photoshop when use it, i'm not a fan of krita but i going to try again since you defended it with such a passion.
Bonjour ! Je pense être en accord avec votre liste, et j'ai un faible très marqué pour Rebelle 7 et Krita. Je pense qu'avec ces 2 logiciels on peut presque tout faire. Photoshop est pour moi essentiel dans le traitement de l'image de sa qualité de sa colorométrie, mais il ne m'inspire aucune envie de création : c'est juste une boite à outils bien remplie (trop remplie) . En tout cas merci!
😁
I switched over to Affinity Photo for painting for the simple reason that I used to paint in photoshop. I often do photomanips for composition And a lot of my shading and colouring gets done with photo editing tools & masking, which is something I often miss in other art programs. I'd have to overhaul my whole painting process.
And definitely, the brushes are not the best you can get and it has an issue where it goes really slow when you use a big brush. However photoshop has that issue too, and much worse. Also, Affinity has a more intuitive Ui and the price point... Yeah. To me psd is now a C tier at most (I only use it at work because I have to, but at home? Nah. Never again)Affinity Photo is an A tier, because of the editing features. But if you use ir solely for painting? I agree with B.
Still looking for my personal S tier, tbh. 😂
Dude. I like your content in general, but you're still completely wrong about Painter not having blending modes until recently. I started with Painter 11 (circa 2010/2011) and it had blending modes then! Painter has faults but this isn't one of them. Corel Painter is an "A" in my book, admittedly probably a "B" overall, but definitely higher than "C". Really? It's just slightly better than GIMP or MS Paint? Corel Painter's biggest issue now is with the company (Alludo) seemingly all but having dropped it's ongoing development over the last year. :(
Rebelle is definitely the one to beat now for supported natural media emulation in a paint program, but it's slow with large brushes compared to Painter and caps the brush size to something smaller than what I sometimes need. Here's hoping they can tune that up over time.
Rebelle is fantastic for painterly illustration. Much better engine than PS. Painter has great tools but it is bloated. Rebelle takes the best of Painter and creates a streamlined, easy to use UI. CSP is really good to, but again the UI can be overwhelming. Honestly, Rebelle and PS can make a great combo for illustration and image editing. Rebelle has a great support for PSD file format too.
As a side, Fresco has come a long way and it is actually very capable with its animation capabilities.
I've been using krita since I started. Never used anything else, it's pretty good for being free! All the drawings on my channel are in that
Putting PS and Corel Painter at such a low level does not make any sense. Infinite Painter is better than PS and Corel Painter? Come on man, be serious. And why didn't you even consider ArtSet, Heavy Paint or Adobe Fresco on the list? Honestly the video seems like just an advertisement to promote Rebelle. By the way, my list in order is Photoshop, Clip Studio, Rebelle, Corel Painter, Procreate and Artrage
You may be only thinking about features, but this classification also takes cost into account, something which is very important for the majority of people. For example, the Adobe's subscription model and its greedy practices highly penalise the PS classification, as it should be. And the absurdly high price of Painter does the same. Both are very good programs, yes, and the video clearly says so, but any useful classification must take cost into account.
@@bizarro-7 +1 for HEAVYPAINT and Adobe Fresco. \o/
I don't need to watch it i already know which one is NUMBER!! 1
MS Paint!!!! 🎨🎨👩🎨👨🎨 😈🥰😍
Procreate brushes are totally rubbish. Even the engine causes inconsistent lines for me. It has a great GUI but definitely requires too much work to keep anything from looking plastic.
I effing love rebelle. I dropped painter and photoshop so fast for it. I still use Krita for the sweet as perspective assistants but the color mixing and impasto in Rebelle are to die for.
Hey why put ms paint but not medibang or firealpaca lol 😅
So affinity designer is a much better drawing app than affinity photo, even if you aren’t doing vector
Clip Studio Paint! Once I tried it 12 ish years ago, it has become better and better, and a reasonable (kinda cheapish) price! I'm 56 and have used this stuff for a while now. ( results vary vary!)
Thank you for your, as claimed, detailed subjective list. My finalist would be Procreate and Rebelle. For digital illustration, I would rank Corel Painter higher than photoshop.
Love krita
Hey Wes, I've been spending some time creating brushes in Rebelle. I was wondering what you meant about Krita and Clip having "wet flow opacity hard and soft round brushes"... I bet I can make that in Rebelle. I just want to know what you mean.
Hey there! So it's actually slightly hard to put into words, but there's a certain "exactness" to hard and soft round brushes and how they behave between different brush engines. Rebelle actually has some "digital" brushes with hard and soft round, but even when editing the brush pressure and other settings, it doesn't *quite* feel as responsive as something made natively in Krita or CLIP Studio. It's definitely a "feel" thing moreso than an "exact look" thing, so it's pretty subjective. If you want to make a crack at it, I'd love to try them out!
O Behemoth O Belmont O Krita 🔥
when i first started digital art i got krita and it was a really good and useful program after 2 years i bought csp ex and i think both softwares are superior to anything elsei still dont really understand how people use photoshop to draaw since its a image manipulation software /:
I am using Photoshop, but even on my Mac each new version has more and more glitches. Also, to be honest, I see that the brush engine of Photoshop sucks in comparison with Krita. You are absolutely right that Photoshop goes in some other way, not that one he should.
I used to be a CSP evangelist but they’ve really diverged from what I loved about them over the years. I’ve barely touched it since version 2 released. Rebelle has pretty much taken over as my new pet art program.
Same here. Their subscription model is not super expensive but it's very clunky to find out what you need, tailormade to confuse customers. Combined that with the stupid machine based license (with limited changes) made me buy Rebelle 7 Pro and I have zero regrets.
Why does everyone else have a great experience with Rebelle except me? Don't get me wrong I love what they're trying to do with the program but I've literally never been able to finish ONE illustration on it because it crashes so....damn....much. It's insane.
@@willfenholtart that sucks indeed. I even run Rebelle on my old laptop. It always says I have limited undo steps because it only has 8GB memory, but other than that I have never had it crash on me.
@@ReginaldSprinkhuizen Must be something about my pc build that causes it . I have no problems at all with any other software though. I mean I almost never close CSP. I’ve got 32 GB of ram on NVIDIA RTX 4090s.
@@ReginaldSprinkhuizen if you wait on major releases you can get clip studio paint pro 1 device for around 10 euros a year. Usually I despise subscription models, but when they’re this affordable I don’t mind. Comparing it to photoshop in my country, instead of one year with photoshop I can get 15 years of clip.
Everything makes the internet angry. I think the internet just needs to quit being a little b****.
Downloaded Krita while watching the rest of the video. Done digial illustration for a long time but learned some new stuff. Subscribed and liked.
Thank you tons, I appreciate you!
I am somewhat new to digital art and art in general. I have a subscription to PS but once that ends I'm done with rentware. I am using Rebelle and also have and use Sketchbook Pro, as the name implies, which for me is good for quickly sketching out ideas which I can then save and import as PSD into Rebelle. and for $20-$25 it is not that expensive.
Do you have any advice for switching from photoshop to another program such as clip studio or krita? I've been using photoshop for digital painting for almost 15 years now I think, like since I was 6 or 7, and I just cannot tolerate any of Adobe's BS anymore. But I'm finding it almost impossible to try other programs- I've been trying to pick up krita since December 2022 and I still cannot do anything with it, I'm finding it extremely unintuitive and hard to navigate. I've been trying csp for the past few days and I can't tell if I'm using it wrong, but everything is extremely pixelated no matter what settings I use and I'm finding the brushes damn-near impossible to control or make do what I want. Perhaps this is all just a me problem, I do have a handful of learning disabilities so maybe its just a skill issue lmao, but you seem to be one of the more knowledgeable people on this topic so I might as well ask. Regardless, very helpful video!
Thank you for the awesome comment, and know that this EXACT scenario is something I'm planning some videos about! Just know that you're 100% not alone, every single art program has its own "feel" and ecosystem, so each have their own learning curves. Things like CLIP and Krita may have settings you're used to, but they may be named something different, or in weird locations/menus. While each program has their own Help/Manual to look through, that can be pretty overwhelming as well. My main piece of advice is to do the same *very* basic art project across two or three programs. Make a sphere and shade it in your preferred method, then do the same exact thing within CLIP, then Krita. This will allow you to "focus in" on exact things you may be looking for (like layer structure, filters, brush capabilities, etc) and notice the small differences in ways that actually impact your working method. Like I said though, I have a few videos like this planned, so you're right on the money!!
I miss Adobe Fresco, which I think would be pretty good in this list (A/B)
Special shoutout to aseprite for any pixel artists. Its not free, but it is avaliable on steam as a one time purchase and is fantastic if your main art stye is pixel based. Plus, can also do animations with it, although I've never used that function so not sure how good it is.
LOVE me some Aesprite!! One of these days I'll get off my butt and learn a game engine well enough to start making pixel art for a cheap platformer game or something LOL
Fresco not on the list, but I’ve been trying to learn it and learn to love it (as a Procreate and Photoshop user). Vector and animation capabilities are really useful, but for digital painting I am finding it clunky and frustrating. People seem to really love it though, so I think I’m in the minority!
I messed around with it about a year ago and really enjoyed it too, but I still found myself always going back to Procreate. They’re both fantastic I think, but for mobile drawing and painting, I just can’t think of a reason to use anything else when Procreate is right there. It’s the undisputed king.
you can say that again i like the way you telling me or audience
Pirated Ps. Would move to something else if I had to, but which windows 11 art programs can seamlessly import all my Ps brushes?
I've had the best luck with Clip Studio Paint with importing Photoshop brushes, oddly enough! Procreate is also pretty spot-on with the brush importing as well if you have an IPad.
The latest Artstudio Pro with its Pigment engine, brush engine + Cladio’s brushes so good. Especially his real paint index and ink index = best experience I’ve ever had digitally honestly.
I should add that I do enjoy Clip Studio as well, and Paintstorm. They’re all really good, but what feels the most like the real thing for me is within Artstudio Pro.
I use CSP but i have a soft spot for "Autodesk scetch book" shame theyve gone down hill
Autodesk has always been a competitor to adobe with how they treat their customers like a joke
Hey Wes here’s a question: if I want Clip Studio paint just for painting: there is a nicely priced PRO version and the much more expensive EX version. Will I be happy with just the PRO?
Absolutely! I actually only use the PRO version, never upgraded to the EX (as I think the EX comes with more team-based features, sort of like a cloud service for multiple workstations, stuff like that). The PRO version has absolutely everything you need on the art side of things, from my experience!
@@ArtOfWesGardner Thanks for the reply, Wes!!
Where is Fresco ???
Fresco is newer than this list. Not available when this list was made.
Ah, yea it makes sense for GIMP to be so low. It is still the main art program that I use, sometimes I'll do some Rebelle touch ups or use Krita's rotating light brush stuff for more interesting textures, but for the most part it's good and versatile. Not very intuitive for traditional painting. The way it handles actual brush strokes and lines leaves a lot to be desired. But as a general digital art program it has so many interesting tools to play around with that can create really interesting textures. That other digital art programs don't really have, filters and plugins and other things mostly. I think I'm probably biased because I use it too much but I do love it. The 3.0 update comes out soon too! They're announcing it tomorrow. I'm very excited personally. Generally agree with your list outside of this though.
And what about Adobe Fresco ?
I enjoy using it, but I sadly haven't had enough experience to comfortably place it on the tier list. There's always next go-round, though!
I love Paint Tool Sai so much. The developer is currently working on Sai 2, which you can download the current Beta for free if you've already purchased Sai. I think it's the perfect balance between simplicity and necessary features, it has everything I could want in a drawing software without adding too much distraction. I like Clip too, but the program has so much extra stuff in it that I don't need/want (3d models, that weird auto shading feature, a billion brushes to download, ect) that I kind of find distracting at points. it also has a tendency to freeze and lag depending on what you are doing and Sai just doesn't have that issue. I also just like Sai's brushes more, its brush engine is super simple to understand and easy to edit. The only downside is the fact its made by one guy so updates can be slow, but you also don't need to worry about a greedy company coming in to force subscriptions on you. If you use Windows and want a simple but well designed alternative to Photoshop or Clip, I would definitely recommend checking out Sai 2.
Lessgooo. Krita Rocks!
Artrage Mobile don’t even have custom brushes. Not even close to the desktop version.
FYI: KRITA HAVE this TOOL . COLOR MIXER - IS like Great Color Filling TOOL who I NOT see any OTHER SOFTWARE Have ! ... and it's works great too... even for me to fill all the color I want - ::: WONDER why KRITA is the only software who have this , - ( Coloring with "Colorize-Mask" in Krita )) ... and 450 USD for the P is Cheep, for all is doing... Compare to Change Tire on my GoKart cost like ::: 800 USD twice a / month :: minimum ... THX anyway for share this info , very informative...
I have Rebelle and ArtRage. It's nice to know they're pretty good. But the thing I wish Rebelle had was a better way for people to share brushes. I feel like I don't have many brush options and I don't have the time to learn how to make the perfect brush. I wish I could just go and download some. I know there are some on the website but 90% are for Rebelle 6, there's not very many, and a lot of them are identical to each other.
I don't used krita because it doesn't have gradient maps, which are really useful if you want to change colors easily
it does have gradient maps tho
I think you might be looking for a Fill Layer. Select new layer, Fill Layer, Gradient, choose colors or patterns. Then change the blending mode for the layer. You can look it up in the documentation as well.
FRESCO BEATS PROCREATE!
I know this sounds weird but Fresco has better emulation of watercolor and VECTOR INKING and.... VECTOR TRIM!!!
The vector trimming is better than CSP!
Cool to know that someone else thinks KRITA is up there!
I used Gimp to create PNG animations... Now Clip Studio can do it! No need for Gimp any longer!
i got so happy when i learned this, cause i thought i had to export into gimp and finish it there, but CSP got it 😄
Watching this and reading comments convinced me that I need to download krita, but unfortunately when I tried to come up the message says that it's not compatible with my device. Anyone know of anything similar that can be used on a Samsung Galaxy S23?
have you ever trying Expresii...?
I haven't had a chance to yet, but it looks fantastic!
Fine, I'll download Krita and give it a go :D I have Clip Studio and Rebelle as my two main art programs because of what each offers, but if Krita is one I can pop onto many different computers without issue for quick work then that'll get added to my main items. CSP stays around because of the vector linework options (and yes, I know Inkscape exists, I have downloaded that, but I'm more familiar with CSP in general) and its 3D model options, while Rebelle is for the "traditional art done digitally" options
no sketchbook pro? fast to start and do concepts in
Ohhh good call, I haven't used Sketchbook Pro in a while, but it's DEFINITELY due for a video!
I seriously love rebelle and I couldn't agree more the biggest problem was quality of life features but almost all the QoL features I wanted were added in 7 so I'm with rebelle all the way and sometimes clip studio when I need a certain digital feel or need more assistance blocking out a pose or comic layout
I have Krita and PaintStorm based on one of your answers to me in a Q&A video a while back. CSP was your other suggestion and that's the next cab of the rank. But to be fair I've been almost exclusively in Krita thus far and only toyed with PaintStorm. Not because I don't like Paintstorm... Ive had fun when I've opened it up, but I'm totally in love with Krita. CSP does intrigue me though. I do have a noob question: When you take a painting from say Krita to work on it on Paintstorm and CSP when I get it, do you export the image as a PNG and begin fresh layers over top of that or something else. Silly question but I just don't know. Great video brother. Peace
Exactly right! I'll save it as a PNG (as it has way less compression/image quality loss than something like JPG), re-import in a new program, save THAT version as PNG, and re-export out again. I then use the newest PNG file like an "underpainting", and duplicate the layer to paint on top of.
@@ArtOfWesGardner I thought that was the case. I'm so new at this that things that are blatantly simple and obvious are a mystery to me. I will get there
Gimp is probably good for everything but drawing, makes sense if this is a digital drawing ranking.
Great list! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do this for mobile, particularly tablets with good pens/pencils.
Also, very interesting about Canva purchasing Affinity. That sounds promising IF this includes Affinity Painter.
ALSO, where is Fresca?
AND MOST OF ALL … when is Rebelle going mobile????? I WANT IT but it has to be where I work.
I’m a huge watercolor artist .. and ink with impasto next .. then oil painting.
The new M4 iPad and pencil were made for these apps.
I'm using Medibang paint pro on Windows, it works pretty well, despite limited brushes, but after this video and all comments praising krita... I'll have to try it now
Clip Studio and Rebelle is insane combo. They both do anything I could ever think of, other than a couple minor things I wish CSP stole from Photoshop (bevels/emboss/stroke effects) and simple mode for Windows.
Thank you so much for doing this! I have to dump Adobe CC after my student license finally expires and I was looking for an alternative. I was into Procreate but they don't do PCs and Affinity disappointed me brushes-wise. I used to have Krita for a hot moment and I think I'm gonna give it a chance too. As for Photoshop I've been using it since 2007-ish so it's hard to wean myself but I agree with you - if somebody still has CS5 or CS6 then they are better off with it than with the current one.
I get the paint tool sai, but isn't there a paint tool sai 2 now? And if that's better or not? Now I have Photoshop CS2 and been looking at sadly going to the CC because to learn the program and the process. Big question, do I hunt down a CS6, or just keep at cs2 and work my way up. Or buy Clip Studio Paint? I mean I'll grab Krita because free is always a bonus.
having used photoshop since version 4 around 1996 i can only say it has become bloatware in the classic sense. the interface has become dumbed down to sliders and buttons with reduced precision and i'm looking for an alternative to digitally paint.
thanks for the reviews!
well it sure is nice to have your choice validated. Apart from Krita do you know which of your reccomendations play well with LInux?
Not really too many options, you can run paintstorm in lutris, but be sure to disable auto save because it crashes the app.
It's linux version works too but its warp deform tool is still broken in linux version and you can't drag and drop image files to the canvas.
The beauty of Procreate is just the brush performance, and for me personally the brush smoothing which is completely unique. On the desktop, would it still have the crazy smooth brushes? And on the desktop, people would expect desktop features so it would probably not be so impactful on desktop. People would get it because of it's popularity, but I don't think it would be a game changer on the desktop.
My only gripe with some of the S tier software is that they lack the vast brush library that Photoshop has which is what's keeping me so stuck on photoshop. There are brushes that I love on there and I'm just not able to recreate those. That and I'm just so used to the interface by now. But I agree... I hate where it's going. It's the snob of all digital art software. It's the horrible co-worker who can't get fired. It's become one of those things that makes it almost morally correct to pirate.
I also play around with Corel Painter and Rebelle. They are similar in that they are resource hogs. But, they actually use your RAM and GPU that you throw at it. I've found with CSP, it will not use your cores or GPU much at all (brush lag happens a lot if you don't mind your canvas and brush sizes, layers, etc). Upgrading your RAM, CPU, or GPU doesn't do much for CSP past a certain point. Even with those limitations, CSP still the best in my tools for overall use.
KRITA
i used corel painter for years and in my honest opinion...i feel like it slowed down my learning process due to the fact that it took me such a long time to tweak the brushes to do what i wanted them to do but i carried on using it because certaain art channels said it was the best program out there. I llater switched to clip studio paint and couldn't BELIEVE how easy the brushes were to use, i always felt like i was fighting with the brushes in corel painter but in clip studio paint they pretty much acted how i THOUGHT brushes should work wwhen i bought painter, the only thing i had to change in csp was the setting that makes you'r strokes more smooth, i had to turn it down.
(no anger in this comment, at all :D ) Gimp 3.0 will stop being a D for painting, once well known (and I am not a linux super fan, btw, I run it on windows, actually) by the patient painters among us, and with the immense improvements that it is getting in 3.0, I would rate it at least as a B, and well used, for painting, even between A and B. I tested the nightly builds. No way I can agree on Krita being over (even while being free, though amazing that it makes painting software available to those who can't afford software; this includes entire countries), as technically speaking, for painting, Rebelle, PaintStorm and Procreate are very clearly superior. But Rebelle has issues with very big canvases, and for that reason it could be somewhere between S and A, as with nanopixel (a feature in the Pro version) you can export big canvases, for example to print very large canvases or posters.
If weren't for the subscription and their siding with AI, I could easily give Photoshop the A place (if one knows how to handle the brush system). But with those issues, honestly, I'd just remove it from the list, entirely (I know you can't do it). Affinity Photo for me is a solid A-S. It's just that people don't know its smart uses for painting and how to configure it for a best experience. Realistic Paint Studio is _very_ limited in features, and even in canvas size. But the feel is really good in what is traditional oil painting. Just for that I'd place it on B. Even if it's only usable for specific uses. Procreate just for their defense of artists against AI should be a S+ (or higher...) when also considering its absolutely smart UI and workflows for a painting app on a tablet.
BTW, special mention of PaintTool SAI... Yes, very limited in features, but it has what is needed. The amount of people doing commissions yet with it (and frankly, unless one has money problems, the few bucks that it costs are really worth the 2.x version. I know a lot are yet using 1.x!. Despite saying it's (the 2.x) a "preview" version, so has been for years, and it hasn't crashed on me ONCE). One very important detail for some people: This is the tool allowing to paint in largest canvases, with largest brushes, and still do it smoothly, of the ENTIRE MARKET (all this list included (exception of Art Studio and Infinite Painter), and more, I made my research, all tested). I don't have an idea on how the dev was able to do it. But I tested it intensely. When I want to do some giant canvas with huge brushes, I just launch my loved PaintTool SAI 2. This also explains one of the main reasons (besides a free beta floated for way too long time) why it became THE tool for students and not super high end freelancers : it runs on a potato. On half a potato. And super fast. It loves ANY hardware, any crappy students laptop old as heck, with no GPU. That makes it a winner for a large group of the population. For me it's a solid A, but only due to having fewer features and options (but to be honest, I can mimic traditional painting without many fancy features that other apps have). And S+ when I need large canvases and/or brushes.
Fantastic write-up! I'll definitely give GIMP 3.0 a shot, as there's quite a few passionate fans in the comments. I'll be happy to give it a go and eat my words!
@@ArtOfWesGardner That is very kind of you, thank you! Seriously though, as much as I finally was able to deal with the issues (configuration, Wacom, etc), I would strongly recommend not to try their official current development version (2.99.18), and even less, the nightly builds. The 3.0 RC1 (release candidate 1) was expected to be released on May, this month. It is being delayed (not surprisingly, it is quite a revamp), not sure if for much more, but IMO, don't test anything before the 3.0 RC1. As it's even me and I have needed to give up with several recent development versions. True that they warn about it very clearly, but it can break the soul of even an overly patient guy like me who is pro open source (and yet I am mainly a Windows and commercial Windows apps user; but have handled Linux at many jobs and home) and used Gimp at certain company as my daily driver during years.
Yet though, I tested a previous version, relatively recent, and much more stable, and so I can predict that 3.0 will be very usable as an overall "Photoshop" (with the eternal gap due to huge difference in budget/staff: 10k to 50k human beings in PS and stuff derived from it or for it, versus... Gimp's heroic *7* . And many eventual contributors for specific matters :D ), but also will be possible to be used as a - basic, yet functional- painting tool. The 3.0 will have *live* filter layers (like in Affinity and PS), something closer to a true CMYK mode, full support of Adobe RGB, while till now internally it mostly handled all in sRGB, (like PaintShop Pro has always done, but few people know about this) and a number of very key improvements in UI and many other things. It's slowly "changing its path". But for the "perception", it will need a pair of years of people getting used to it, once 3.0 starts to be known.
Inskcape 1.3.2 (vector design open source software) is really good, too. Compared to what it used to be. Open source can always be forked, taken from there and continued by another person or group, and is not threatened by big buyouts like we are seeing constantly happening with commercial tools. So... for me, when I consider a FOSS tool, I assign to it like 3 or 4 points extra due to this advantage (a seven is a 9.5 ;D ); I mean, I am more forgiving due to it about lower overall quality or the lack of some features. The key for me is "Can I do the work in a reasonable amount of time? Is there any real full _show stopper_ ? ". As if not, for me it's good to be used. So, I keep using the commercial ones, but training more seriously in the FOSS alternatives. After all, any flexibility helps the brain in learning the "essence" (of painting, design, 3D, etc).
Have you ever tried Open Canvas?
I haven't, I need to give it a shot for sure!
I am just getting into desktop art from procreate… and tbh, I tried photoshop, and instantly just moved to CSP. It’s a great price for one time purchase and it’s way more intuitive
Genuinely waited for this tier list since 2021 lol
tysm!!
I like Rebelle for its watercolor capabilities and options it gives me to open up the canvas.
Well i like Painter :D
Hi WES!
I fully agree with what was said in the video and in fact on my computer the 4 programmes installed correspond to the first ones on your list.
I have to say, however, that mine is a desperate case as, due to my economic conditions, I have to work with an old PC equipped with obsolete hardware. This creates enormous problems for me when I try to draw with Rebelle or use some recent brushes created for Krita. While drawing, the cursor moves jerkily and lags a lot. But apart from that, I consider these 4 softwares among the most stimulating for those who like to draw and paint digitally.
Infinite Painter my GOAT!
Fun fact: Artstudio Pro has the same menu thing that procreate has as well. I dont use it but its there.
You put Rebelle down there with Painter? Noooooo!
Whatttt! I thought I put Realistic Paint Studio there, Rebelle's definitely the tippy-top of A-Tier!
@ArtOfWesGardner oh I looked again. Thought the R was Rebelle. All good!
I got the Painter humble bundle last year. Only $35!
Such a fantastic deal for Painter!
How often does humble offer these prices? I’m afraid since Corel was purchased by Alludo no new versions are on the horizon. I think 2023 is the last and final v. I had a chat with Corel support after my “rental” v of painter locked out.
i remember seeing an article come up on my youtube feed about photoshop going to court against ai art promoting their ai art detection software, then saying that you can use their ai art software because its perfectly legal lol
Thoughts on Adobe Fresco?
I really enjoyed using it, but I haven't had enough experience with it (mainly on desktop, as I haven't used it at all on mobile) to comfortably place it on the list. There's always next time, though!
@@ArtOfWesGardneri used it a bit on mobile, and I enjoyed it, I feel like it’s actually a pretty good program for painting on the go. It’s just that I can’t really justify using anything else when Procreate is already right there lol.
Is your approach to art creation to use mostly 1 program and supplement it with several others for special capabilities? Or do you select the program based on the art you are to create? Or do you simply use any collection of programs that seem to do the job easiest? Or...describe your approach to multi-program painting programs??? And do you often use image editing programs to "adjust" a nearly completed artwork? (such as Photoshop etc. for "adjusting" the image).
Hey Doug, thanks a ton for the question! So I think you're correct on all counts (ahah), as it depends on the piece itself. Sometimes I'll start with actual thicker brushwork and sort of "refine", so it'll look like Rebelle/ArtRage into CLIP/Krita/Photoshop, but if I have to start a little more sketchy (especially for client work and approvals) I'll start with CLIP or Krita, then once I get the all-clear, I'll start in the more traditional-feeling programs and work from there. It's basically just using the best tool for the job, and each program has their shining points that make the whole process much smoother!
No corel painter?
It's there! 15:36 timestamp
As a webcomic artist, CSP is ez SSS+ tier.
Hey Wes! What GPU card would you recommend for digital painting (Rebelle 7, Photoshop) for building new PC in 2024?
I've been having a ton of luck with the latest 3060 (well, latest as of me purchasing my PC a year or so ago LOL), I've had the best luck with NVIDIA stuff (as while I also like AMD, the drivers would go wonky more often with my Huion Kamvas touch monitor)
very informative and extremely well explained. good insights as an artist painter and useful information on the tech side. Thanks Wesley. will keep up with you!
Thank you so much, my friend!
I was about to go on a whole learning journey with Gimp 😅
I don't see Black Ink.. 😥
Looks like I gotta add Black Ink to the list of stuff to try!
@@ArtOfWesGardner Don't hesitate to ask me if you need any help or anything at all.
Just caught the part about Photoshop. Totally agree. I quit my subscription a few months ago and limping along on CS4 I bought waaaaay back when.
how did you manage to still use it with win 11?
@@molambird it still installs fine
@@markanthonyart which os are you using?
@@molambird windows 11
@@markanthonyart strange. i read that it wont work with cs5.5 but when you have cs4. did you had to do special steps for it to work?
Honorable Mention: Sketchbook for Mobile. 😌
It’s exam week for me, and your channel is such a comfort/reliever !! I’m looking forward to having more time this summer to really put your advice and suggestions to practice as learning from your videos is always a treat :))
Thank you so much, your comment made my week! Good luck on your exams, I bet you'll crush it!
Oh, this is a very good video, and totally agree wit the list coz tried half of these programs.