We're happy to announce that ArtRage 4.5 is now available to everyone. New customers will receive 4.5 automatically when purchasing ArtRage from our store or from Steam, and existing owners of 4.0 can download the update free of charge from the Member Area.

Updating To 4.5:

If you own ArtRage 4 the 4.5 update is free. Owners of ArtRage 4 on Steam will receive the update automatically next time they log in, owners of ArtRage 4 purchased from our store can download the update from the Member Area.

To download updates from the Member Area please follow the steps here: Member Area-Downloading or Updating ArtRage.

Announcements, FAQ and Tutorials

We have some guides and FAQ available online.





What's New:

Features & Improvements:

  • 64-Bit Support: ArtRage 4.5 now supports 64 bit operating systems, which means it can use significantly more memory on your 64 bit computer. As a result the application is significantly faster and can work with much larger canvases than it could previously. See below for details.
  • Grids: The Grids button on the ArtRage menu bar lets you turn on canvas grid overlays which can be used as structural guides while you paint.
  • Live Pencil Tilt: The pencil tool now supports Stylus Tilt where available, allowing you to tilt the pencil during strokes to vary the breadth of the 'lead' impression on the canvas.
  • Font Picker & Text Adjustments: We've added a font picker panel to make font selection easier, and adjusted how text behaves. See below for details.
  • List Item Reorganisation: You can now manually reorder color samples and toolbox panel items by dragging them in their list.
  • Workbench Reorganisation: You can now manually reorder items on the pinboard, and there is a new Color Samples section to the Workbench that prevents samples from interfering with Pinboard space.
  • Multitouch on OS X: We've added Scale and Rotate gesture support on OS X if you're using an input device that provides them.
  • Resource Duplicate / Move: You can now duplicate items in resource collections and move items between collections by right clicking them and selecting the appropriate option.
  • Selection sets are now saved with documents: Active selection sets will now be saved with your document so that they are available on reload.


Fixes & Changes:

  • Significantly improved the speed of transform operations on the canvas, beyond the standard speed increase in the 64 bit version.
  • Significantly improved the speed of large Undo and Redo operations, beyond the standard speed increase in the 64 bit version.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the selection tool to fail to work on in some modes on a small number of Windows 8 devices using some stylus input systems.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause strokes made after the eraser tip of a stylus was used during scripting to be recorded as eraser rather than the correct tool.
  • Stencil removal added to scripting.
  • Clone tool has been added to scripting.
  • Added initial selection set state to scripts that were started with the current canvas included.
  • Fixed artefacts that could occur while dragging transform areas.
  • Prevented the text tool selecting text on a hidden layer when clicking on the canvas to select a text layer.
  • Fixed a bug that caused paint stroke grain interactions to be offset from the position of the visible grain in the canvas.
  • Fixed a bug that caused pencil strokes to project slightly beyond the point at which stroke drag ended.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Save Toolbox from working if your toolbox only contained color samples.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the workbench updating if you loaded a toolbox while the workbench was open.
  • Added Shift + K as the default shortcut for the clone tool – Note that you will need to reset your keyboard shortcuts to see this.
  • Moved Global Color Samples to their own file so that resetting preferences no longer resets them as well.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the wrong preset to be highlighted as ‘active’ when you load a painting file – Only files saved in 4.5 or later will highlight the correct preset, earlier files don’t contain the information required.
  • Disabled file based editing options in the right click menu for Rulers in the Stencil Panel to prevent ‘File Not Found’ errors when those operations were attempted on the virtual ruler.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause symmetry reflected tools to use the wrong settings if switching between some specific presets with the symmetry system active.
  • Adjusted colour sampler drag to hide interface panels as the input point approaches them.
  • Prevented Manual Tracing Image Scale options being available when other tracing scale modes are active.
  • Added About and Preferences items to the standard application menu location on the OS X menu bar.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause some PSD files to import filled with black.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented custom colour pickers being deleted from their resource collection panel.
  • Improved file handling on OS X 10.9 to prevent issues where file names and paths contained / characters.
  • Adjusted sticker sheets so that the sheet vanishes temporarily as you peel a sticker off, allowing for placement beneath it on the canvas.
  • Fixed a bug that made pinboard indicators in the Toolbox incorrectly greyed out when an object was first added to the list.
  • Adjusted the error message displayed when attempting to import a non-image file in to a map slot in the sticker creator to remove the ‘success’ indicator.
  • Fixed a bug that caused multitouch panning on OS X 10.9 to work slowly.


64 Bit Version:

ArtRage 4.5 is available in both 64 and 32 bit versions. The good news is that you don't need to worry about which one you need.

Mac OS X: The ArtRage installer installs a single application that works in both 32 and 64 bit modes. By default the application opens in the mode appropriate to the computer you are running on. 64 bit OS users can force the application to run in 32 bit mode by selecting the ArtRage icon in the Applications folder, select Get Info from the Finder's File Menu and turning on the '32 bit Mode' checkbox. Turning that off will revert the application to 64 bit next time it launches.

Windows: The ArtRage installer detects the type of operating system you are using and installs the appropriate version. If you are using a 32 bit operating system only the 32 bit version is installed. If you are using a 64 bit operating system the ArtRage.exe that is installed will be 64 bit but we also install ArtRage32.exe, a 32 bit version that you can launch if you need to. Please note that the installation location of ArtRage 4.5 may be in either the Program Files (x86) folder if you had a previous version installed, or the Program Files folder - The installation location makes no difference to whether the 64 bit version will launch correctly.

Windows XP Users: Unfortunately ArtRage 4.5 is not compatible with Windows XP. Owners of ArtRage 4 purchased from our store can still download the older 4.0 version from the Member Area whenever you need it but the updated version will not work on your operating system. Owners of ArtRage 4 on Steam can opt in to the Windows XP Branch of the product by locating ArtRage in your Library, right clicking and selection Properties, then in the Beta Tab opting in to the WinXP branch. This will make sure that your version of ArtRage remains at 4.0.


Text Adjustments:

ArtRage 4.5 treats text slightly differently to the older version in order to fix some problems that could arise when selecting fonts without a text layer active. When you select a font, what happens depends upon the current active text selection you have. Here's how it works:

  1. If you have an active text selection, that text is updated to the new selected font.
  2. If you have a caret active in a text layer but no selection, the new font is used when you start typing.
  3. If you have no caret active but you are on a text layer, the entire layer is updated to the new font.
  4. If you do not have a text layer active, the font selection remains and that font will be used next time you create a new text object.


The new Font Picker allows you to select fonts from a dialog list rather than a menu. It supports navigation keys for scrolling and you can start to type the name of the font you want to skip to that point in the list. Double click a font or select it then click OK to choose the new font.


Workbench & Item List Changes:

Items in the Color Samples panel, Toolbox panel, Workbench Color Samples area, and Pinboard can now be dragged to reposition them manually.

  1. Items in the Color Samples panel can be dragged between the Global and Local sections if you want, or just rearranged inside their own section.
  2. Items in the Toolbox panel can only be dragged within their own category. For example, you can't drag a Preset in to the Stencils category.
  3. The Workbench Color Samples area is a resizable area that lists all of the current Toolbox Samples if any exist - You can resize this area as you want and as samples get added they will expand downwards within that area rather than eating in to the Pinboard.
  4. Items on the Pinboard when in Workbench mode can be reordered around each other as you wish.