Drawing tablet

[firstdefence]

My Sister, did a review of the XP-Pen Artist 22 a while back. https://www.whispersonthewing.com/xp-pen-artist22-drawing-monitor-review/ she waffles a bit but she loves it and uses her XP -Pen a lot more than I use mine. 

[iconoclast]

I can't say anything about the XP-Pen Artist tablet, but it looks very good, as far as I could see. One thing that is not clear to me is the weight of the stylus. The advertisement says, that it is rechargeable, so it seems to contain some sort of accumulator. Wacom styluses are very light weight, because they somehow don't contain anything that must be recharged or so. They are not heavier than an analogue pen or brush.

My individual way to get as close as possible to the analogue feeling is to use my Cintiq with ArtRage for painting. ArtRage is presumably the painting app that is closest to analogue techniques. It is not the best for technical illustrations, I think, but great for Watercolors, Oils and Acrylics, Pastels, Pencil drawings and other techniques. But of course even there you have to push buttons and sliders to manipulate the behavior of the brushes and colors. And I personally have problems with touchscreen gestures, so that I still use the keyboard in addition, so that my desktop is pretty full. Wacom offers a compact add-on-device, to replace the keyboard, but it's expensive. And as far as I remember they also offer an add-on to make the tablet wireless.

My favorite software for image editing is Affinity Photo, even to prepare my paintings for printing. Artrage has no color management. And Designer for technical illustrations and stuff like that. And Publisher for layouts. That's why I'm here.

[jackamus]

10 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

My favorite software for image editing is Affinity Photo, even to prepare my paintings for printing. Artrage has no color management. And Designer for technical illustrations and stuff like that. And Publisher for layouts. That's why I'm here.

Hi,

I don't quite follow what you are saying here. Can you explain?

[iconoclast]

Just now, jackamus said:

Hi,

I don't quite follow what you are saying here. Can you explain?

Do you mean the thing with the color management? ArtRage has no color management, that means, it only supports one color profile (sRGB, if I'm not wrong). For printing, you need to convert the colors of your images to CMYK (from the colors of light - RGB - to body colors - CMYK). Depending on the sort of paper, your painting shall be printed on, it needs special CMYK-color-profiles (e.G. different sorts of coated or uncoated paper, glossy...). That's a thing that ArtRage can't do, because it's only a painting app. You need an image editing software like Affinity Photo for this, or, as far as I know, even Krita can do this. Or you keep that to your trusted printer.

[jackamus]

OK thanks. Can the ArtRange image be imported into AD or AP for colour correction and printing?

[iconoclast]

Just now, jackamus said:

OK thanks. Can the ArtRange image be imported into AD or AP for colour correction and printing?

Yes, as usual you can save your painting in Artrage's own file format (PTG), while you are working on it, and then export it as PNG, JPEG, PSD, TIFF, BMP or GIF. But I wouldn't recommend the GIF. All the exported formats can be imported in Affinity Photo and Designer.

[jackamus]

Ok this tells me a lot.

Before exporting to AD then you must make sure that you do not want to edit the painting after sorting out the colours otherwise you would have to do it all over again after editing.

[iconoclast]

Your painting should be finished, if this is what you mean. You can't load the painting into Designer while it is still in progress. You can not only link the unfinished work into a document in Designer and then simply update it from time to time. As far as I know, ArtRage's PTG-format isn't supported by any other software than ArtRage anyway. ArtRage is developed by a relative small company in New Zealand (Ambient Design), not really a global player, so the PTG-format has no big importance to the worldwide digital graphic business. Even it is great software.

[jackamus]

NZ? I have a great liking for NZ as my sister lives there and I've been there several times. I'll check out Ambient Design.

[iconoclast]

Yes, the Kiwis are cool. Was seriously thinking about emigrating to New Zealand some years ago. But I think I'm too old meanwhile, for an adventure like that.

[jackamus]

I've just had a look at their website and I'm quite impressed especially with the price - seems too cheap! However I can't find any detail about its size or detailed spec.

Can it imitate an airbrush in its paint blending feature? What size is your version?

[iconoclast]

Yes, surprising that I forgot to say, because it is my favorite tool in ArtRage, and I even was an analogue Airbrusher before I started digital painting. The Airbrush in ArtRage is pretty good. As far as I know, Wacom also offers a special Airbrush Stylus, with an Airbrush Wheel - whatever that means. Think it manages the emission of color. Can't say anything reliable about that.

ArtRage is a little bit different to other apps. While most apps have e.G. different watercolor brushes for different watercolor effects, ArtRage has one Watercolor Brush, that can be modified with a lot of functions. You can save certain settings, if you like them and want to use them again, so that you get a list of presets, in a separate panel, if you want, that is somehow similar to the way other apps handle their brushes. But the way ArtRage handles brushes is much more sophisticated and handy. In case of the Airbrush, you can e.G. set the brush stroke stepless (0%-100%) from very smooth, clean and soft to grainy. One other important thing in ArtRage is, that you can create Stencils, that are similar to masks in analogue Airbrushing. You can store those stencils in a panel. Stencils are simply images with black and transparent areas. You can easily create them by yourself e.G. in AfPhoto or AfDesigner and export them as PNG, then import them in ArtRage and add them to the Stencil Panel. Stencils can be set to three different modes: the simple Mask Mode, a Guide Mode (the brush stroke will follow the edge of the stencil) and a Ruler Mode (the brush stroke will follow the edge of the stencil, but will be cut a the edge). But there are also normal Selection functions and a Quick Mask too.

Another very helpful thing in ArtRage is the Toolbox, a separate file, where you can save all the brush presets, colors,  stencils... you used in a certain project. So you can easily load them again, if you need it - even in other projects.

[PaulEC]

58 minutes ago, jackamus said:

I've just had a look at their website and I'm quite impressed especially with the price - seems too cheap! However I can't find any detail about its size or detailed spec.

Can it imitate an airbrush in its paint blending feature? What size is your version?

If you're still talking about ArtRage, it isn't a tablet, it's a piece of software used for painting. You install it on your computer and use the tablet with it. (You don't have to have a tablet to use it!)

[iconoclast]

1 minute ago, PaulEC said:

If you're still talking about ArtRage, it isn't a tablet, it's a piece of software used for painting! You install it on your computer and use the tablet with it. (You don't have to have a tablet to use it!)

Yes, of course it's software. I already said that, as far as I remember. But you will not be lucky with it if you use it with a mouse, because you will have no pressure sensitivity. And that will not make much sense.

[PaulEC]

Well, as Jacamus said: "I've just had a look at their website and I'm quite impressed especially with the price - seems too cheap! However I can't find any detail about its size or detailed spec." it sounded like he might think it was a tablet with painting features built in!

(And yes, of course it's much better to use it with a tablet, I was just trying to make the point that it is an app, installed like any other, it is not dependant on having a tablet in order to install it.)

[jackamus]

Now you make it quite clear. I was under the impression that it was a tablet - my mistake sorry.

What I need is a tablet with a screen that uses a pen and be able to use it with AD.

Basically I want to change for a vertical screen and mouse to horizontal screen and pen.

[iconoclast]

8 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Well, as Jacamus said: "I've just had a look at their website and I'm quite impressed especially with the price - seems too cheap! However I can't find any detail about its size or detailed spec." it sounded like he might think it was a tablet with painting features built in!

(And yes, of course it's much better to use it with a tablet, I was just trying to make the point that it is an app, installed like any other, it is not dependant on having a tablet in order to install it.)

OK, maybe I didn't notice that point. Yes, that is important, ArtRage is not a tablet, it is software. As I said several posts ago, you need both for painting: a tablet and a good software. In my opinion ArtRage is the best painting app - but it needs a good tablet. And vice versa. Like your computer is nothing without an operating system.

[PaulEC]

I would just add that IMHO ArtRage is better than AD for digital painting, so once you get your tablet, I would definitely suggest that you try out the demo of ArtRage! 

[jackamus]

26 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

OK, maybe I didn't notice that point. Yes, that is important, ArtRage is not a tablet, it is software. As I said several posts ago, you need both for painting: a tablet and a good software. In my opinion ArtRage is the best painting app - but it needs a good tablet. And vice versa. Like your computer is nothing without an operating system.

That's something I didn't think of! Are you saying that I could use Artrage with any screen tablet?

[jackamus]

13 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I would just add that IMHO ArtRage is better than AD for digital painting, so once you get your tablet, I would definitely suggest that you try out the demo of ArtRage! 

I think you just answered my last comment that I can use Artrage with any screen tablet.

Does that mean that once I have got a tablet I can use Artrage for painting and AD for drawing?

[iconoclast]

7 minutes ago, jackamus said:

That's something I didn't think of! Are you saying that I could use Artrage with any screen tablet?

I don't really know, but I think so. As I said, the only tablets I worked with in my life were an Aiptek, a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch and my Wacom Cintiq 16. The last one is pretty cool. But of course, for more money you get even better tablets. Unfortunately painting is an expensive passion.

What I can say is that my Cintiq works pretty good with ArtRage, Affinity Photo and Designer, Krita and GIMP. It also works with Inkscape, but that is not so attractive for me. You can even set different sensitivity presets for each app in the software of the Cintiq.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, iconoclast said:

As far as I know, Wacom also offers a special Airbrush Stylus, with an Airbrush Wheel - whatever that means. Think it manages the emission of color.

Isn’t that pretty much like the control ring on the nozzle of a garden hose, allowing you to change the flow from a narrow stream to a wide spray?

[iconoclast]

26 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Isn’t that pretty much like the control ring on the nozzle of a garden hose, allowing you to change the flow from a narrow stream to a wide spray?

I don't really know. Must be something that can be changed fluently while you are painting. Something in addition to the impact of the pressure sensitivity. I asked someone who tested it a long time ago, and he was not impressed by it. I'm thinking about buying one anyway, but it costs more than 100 €.

My old analogue EFBE-Airbrush has double action, that means that you can drag the trigger back and press it down independently. One to manage the air flow, the other one to manage the amount of color emission. This in combination with the distance the airbrush has from the canvas allows you to modify the opacity and thickness of the stroke very subtle. One of these things must be the goal of the wheel. Possibly it is adjustable what you want to use it for. Don't know.

[firstdefence]

9 hours ago, iconoclast said:

ArtRage is presumably the painting app that is closest to analogue techniques

ArtRage is cool and fun to use but Corel Painter is sublime and I'd say it's closer to analogue. It's arsenal of brushes and their configurability are practically limitless.

[iconoclast]

Maybe, I don't know Corel Painter. Will take a look at it. But it costs about 420 €, as far as I see, while ArtRage costs 40 € at the moment (normally 80 €). I had a CorelDraw Suite many years ago, and I liked it. But it crashed very often. And that is a thing I still often hear about Corel software.

As I already said, it is very individual what people like to paint with and how. Even if different people e.G. like to paint with watercolors, they will not do it the same way. So maybe some people like the huge amount of watercolor brushes that e.G. Krita offers (even those that don't really look like watercolors), while I prefer to have one Watercolor brush that can be adjusted to all needs and almost acts like real watercolors do.

By the way, Rebelle seems to be very good to. Haven't tested it yet, but it has some very cool features and creates very realistic painting looks. Unfortunately it is expensive too.