Is there a new ArtRage version soon?

[Henry Stahle]

Henry Stahle: Well I hope this time you don't destroy all your photos. This one is really nice. It's heartening to know these kinds of landscapes still exist somewhere. It definitely feels like an old time setting. Nice treatment to the photo. Pushes it way back into the past. The setting feels very old while the photo reminds me of something from around the 1950s-60s because of the effect of fading color. Got to love Trekking. We often call it Hiking, but I actually like your word better. Establishes a sense of discovery. I can think of little else that would be certainly pleasurable as such a walk with a friend or loved one. I haven't done it in a long time. When the weather gets more tolerable I should. I used to take a portable French easel on my back on such treks.

Hiking is for me walking on routes designed for hikers. Trekking is, for me, walking non-designed routes, like we do, me and my wife. We walk along beaches by the side of the ocean, woodland paths or just finding our ways, on country roads... and so on. But also on designed routes. Mostly about 25 kilometres (15 miles) a day for one week. There is always 100s of photos from each year trekking adventure and my wife make a photobook from our photos. That is a nice thing! So that we in the winter, when the storm is howling from northwest and the rain is hitting the windows hard, we can sit there by the fire and remember the summer vacation we were on foot. I like that!

[Appy]

Not sure where I should be typing my message. Couldn't find a text box, so I've put it in the title and in here with the quote. Appy
Ah - looks better now it is posted.

It would be sad though I feel for ArtRage to gradually morph toward the norm - saloon cars all look the same as they are built to satisfy the same design parameters and there is I danger I think for all art packages to approach a sort of singularity where they all look and act identical. I rather enjoy ArtRage's very particular approach - I couldn't call it 'limitations' as obviously there is a very clever brush engine under the hood and I'm sure of the developers wanted to produce another Painter-clone they could. ArtRage prompts you to work in very different ways to the norm and that definite absence of very standard editing tools I think is quite liberating.

My other principle package is Clip Studio (as was Manga Studio) and I honestly don't think you experience two greater extremes, but that to me doesn't make ArtRage a lesser application in any way. The only tool I ever feel is really required in ArtRage is the ability to paint into the alpha - the one-size-fits-all eraser removes a whole heap of painterly options and I'm sure the digital inking crowd would have similar thoughts.

[whitehead]

Sorry, missed your post. By 'painting into the alpha', I mean using the brush to cut into the image's transparency rather than laying down a colour (i.e., using the brush shape/pressure sensitivity to act as an eraser). In this way you can achieve really interesting edging effects instead of the simple hard or soft line of the eraser. For people doing b&w line work, like comic-book inking, it also means that any transparency - using the brush head - automatically reveals any colour work beneath, rather than the clumsy procedure of having to shift this layer to multiply which might have odd unforeseen blending effects down the line. In terms of a more fine art application, a really simple example would be simulating scratchboard art when you have multiple colours beneath and the scratching reveals those colours.

A program like Clip Paint Studio (nee Manga Studio) simply has three 'colour' options - foreground, background, and alpha. You just select Alpha to start removing anything already present on the selected layer.

I can see why it wasn't implemented in the first instance, in the sense it doesn't quite have a real-world analogue, but there are many functions now in AR that do not and I feel its disclusion is a slight inhibitor. I'd say most paint packages carry this function and have done for a long time; its omission in the modern ArtRage seems strange now to me. I know that there is always a balance with AR that you don't want it to become too Photoshop or whatever and bloated with features, but I do feel there is a valid argument for this excellent application to carry this option.

Hope this helps!

[Henry Stahle]

I am a long time ArtRage user. But it seems to me that AR is getting a bit old and limited compared to other graphic software that I use. Clip Studio and Photoshop most, but also Sketchbook Pro... Still ArtRage has a place on my desktop and on my Android tablet and in my heart, of course.

So, when does the new version come? What will be in it?

I am waiting impatiently...

Since I wrote the initial posting the Windows digital painting and drawing realm has got some new digital painting software; the Affinity suite. First out was the Designer, a program for both vector drawing and bitmap painting, just like a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop, or even better. It is a very powerful program. At the same price as ArtRage!

The beta version of Affinity Photo for Windows is out, I use it every day, and it is like a combination of Photoshop, Camera Raw and the best of painting programs I have used. I use the same brushes in both Designer and Photo and there is a seamless integration between them both programs. I send my illustrations back and fro between them.

Next year, soon, the Affinity Publisher will have a release, for designing digital or printed books or magazines...

The digital design market has become very much more intersting lately because of the Affinity suite. At a very affordable price!

ArtRage...? What is happening? Nothing new? What is planned? Can I get some glimpse of what is in the pipeline? I am still waiting.

A Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year to the ArtRage team and all ArtRage painters!