Since the 50's, computing made a lot of things easier. First, it was all about working with large amounts of data like different scientific research tasks. Of course the number of computers available all over the world was proportional to the number of tasks they were used for, they were very large in size and eating huge amounts of energy. In the meantime computers became faster, smaller, more and more popular and started gaining ground on fields like medicine, engineering, 3D graphics, architecture and arts.

The area we're touching with this subject is the visual arts. To be more specific, we're going to review a program that puts most painters’ tools at your disposal and lets you get right into painting on your computer.

When starting the program, you will be facing a splash screen that tells you're using the free edition with limited features. This wouldn't be annoying if it happens only this time, but the reality is different. Each time you click a tool that is available only in the full version you will be notified of this fact. The splash screen also pops up from time to time and these facts are very annoying.

You can choose to load a tracing image when creating a new painting and work exactly like a real life painter. Let's suppose you draw a nice pencil sketch and you want to paint over it. What you have to do is get your painting tools from your favorite store or scan your drawing, save and then load it as the tracing image for your painting. Once loaded, you will be able to use your hand drawn sketch in ArtRage just like in real life. The tracing image will guide you in creating the painting based on it.

Before we talk about the tools available in this free version, I will tell you a few words about the input options available in this program. You can run ArtRage on a normal Windows machine with keyboard and mouse, but better is to have a graphics tablet and enjoy the real feeling. The best way to use ArtRage is running it on a TabletPC, take advantage of the unique pen-screen interaction and enjoy the realistic painting feel to its fullest.

Now, the tools and the interface... how are they? I must say that the program stands up to its subtitle - "A Work Of Art". The interface is well organized, easy to use and a real pleasure for my eyes.

The tools palette can be found in the lower left corner of the interface and has twelve items ready for you... more or less, because you can use only eight. You can paint using The Oil Brush, draw with The Pencil, smear paint around with The Palette Knife or remove all types of paint from your canvas using The Eraser.

Let's talk a little about The Crayon, a tool available in the free version that I didn't point out earlier. This tool puts a stick of wax crayon in your hand and lets you create colored lines easily while bringing out the texture of the paper. When selecting it, the Pressure Setting becomes available for you to change. You can see that there is also a Softness setting grayed out that you will be able to use only in the full version.

At the bottom right hand side of the screen you will find The Color Picker, used for selecting colors and loading custom pickers.
If you need more space to work and the palettes bother you, each of them can be hidden at once with a single click.

If I would write here about all the things that can be done with the tools it wouldn't be fair. It is a pleasure to discover the program by yourself, so now I will point out some of the great customization options to be found in it.

In real life, there are more paper types used for painting and drawing. You can choose one of the six available paper presets or create a custom one. Unfortunately you can't customize it enough because most of the options are grayed out. The most amazing thing is that the Oil Brush wears out as you use it just like in real life, and if you paint over a different color it will get dirty. When the brush is dirty and the Auto Clean option is disabled, a glass of water will appear next to the Color Picker to help you wash it!

What can I say more? Digital painting with ArtRage gets you one step closer to the edge between the virtual and the real world. Do you dare to take on this challenge?


The Good

This program has a wonderful interface and a lot of features for its small download size. You can save, load and print your work as much as you like, so, if you aren't annoyed too much by the missing important features and the nag screens you can use it forever... for free!


The Bad

The free version has all the standard tools from version 1, but doesn't offer the four new ones at all, not even on a limited basis. I would like to use all the features available in the full version without being able to save instead of missing those four cool tools and the ability to paint on layers, and I know I am not the only one...


The Truth

This would have been a five star program without the smallest doubt, but unfortunately it's not. The main reason is that when comparing the feature lists for the free and full version you notice a huge difference. There are over twice features available in the last one! The unlimited save/load and print features don't compensate for the missing goodies. I recommend the tested version as a try and I am sure the full one will be worth to buy.


Here are some snapshots of the application in action: