14 DAY TRIAL // While when it comes to drawing and painting, the computer can never compare with the traditional methods in terms of feel and workflow, there is one thing that a computer will excel at, and that is flexibility. While the graphics tablet is not a perfect substitute for traditional tools, the ability to use layers, tweak colors and use blend modes makes it very easy to work without having to worry as everything can be tweaked. The undo alone is a life-changing option. However, most of the issues that are encountered when using a computer to draw or paint are not because of the tablet, but because of the program you use. Photoshop might be the rage for photo editing, but it is not the best choice for freehand drawing. There are better alternatives out there, which are also far more affordable, such as Rita.
What it does
Rita is an imaging application. It is not an image application, but rather a drawing program, and is specifically designed for this purpose. As such, it has options and features that make it ideal for use with a graphics tablet when you want to draw.
Virtual canvas
Because Rita is not an image editing application, it does not deal with pixels. Instead, it works with strokes, and everything that you do in it is a stroke. This has several effects.
For one thing, proximity is handled entirely different, and you can zoom in forever without ever seeing a single pixel. Similarly you can zoom out and still maintain the same quality. This allows you to work in a totally different way, as you can zoom in as much as you want to add little details that will always be crisp, and you can make big drawings, which you can then scale down and use as part of another drawing. The reverse is also true, as you can take a drawing that was originally a few inches across and enlarge it big enough to be feet across and it will still be as high quality as before.
Another great thing is that strokes are not restricted to grids. Many bitmapped images will look wrong when rotated and this is because the image itself has to conform to the pixel grid and certain angles do not fit well on that. With Rita you have no such issue, and everything looks great no mater what the rotation. The program even takes things one step further, because of the tasks it was built to do. One of the most annoying issues people encounter is that while you can rotate a piece of paper to draw at a different angle, rotating a graphics tablet does not accomplish the same thing. And you cannot rotate the entire canvas in an image editing application the way you do with a piece of paper. But Rita is different in this respect. In fact, the rotation tool available from the main toolbar has only one purpose, to rotate the entire canvas.
Not only can you rotate the entire canvas as you would rotate a piece of paper, but the canvas itself has no limit? there is no width and height. You can draw on as much space as it takes, and you can zoom in forever in it and you can pan it outside of the window area without fear of it ever being lost.
Strokes
Rita works with strokes other than the few predefined shapes found in the toolbox. Strokes are similar to the ones you work with in vector image applications, in that they are actually curves; however, they have some features that make them great. For one thing, strokes always have the same size. That is to say, if you make a vertical stroke, it will always have the same width relative to the window size, regardless of how much you zoom in or out when you draw it. Thus, three identical stokes will have different sizes depending on the zoom they were made at, unlike image editing application where they always have the same size regardless of the zoom. This feature is simply great because you don't have to bother with the size of the stroke at all, leaving the pressure to dictate transparency. If you want a finer stroke, to add in little details, simply zoom in to draw them, at a 'normal' size and when you zoom out they will be small.
Drawing vs. Painting
While Rita is great as a drawing program, it is not ideal as a painting program because of the way it works. Because each stroke is separate, they only interact with each other through blend modes. The same applies for things like paint buckets. Also, because of the fact that each stroke is in a separate layer, you can quickly run into management issues, when you want to change something and need to sort through tens of strokes. In programs such as Photoshop, this would not be an issue as you could simply merge everything, but doing so in Rita will make all the strokes have the same color, which will produce unexpected results, to say the least.
As such, while this program is ideal for drawing, it is not as ideal when it comes to painting and in general doing things with more than one color.
The Good
Specifically made for drawing and it shows. The canvas and the tools available to you feel more like pencil on paper than any other application.
The Bad
Not ideal for painting or doing anything which requires many colors as you can quickly be overwhelmed by the number of strokes.
The Truth
For drawing, this program is as good as pencil and paper, for painting, it feels like trying to paint using magic markers. For any drawing needs, however, Rita is an excellent piece of software that is not only great but also very affordable.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
