A copy of The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, by Brian Lee Madden on his Pocket Etch-A-Sketch. Image used courtesy of brianetch.blogspot.com.

A reader emailed recently, asking if I had plans to do video training. Though he likes reading the blog each week, he said, he’d rather see me painting, have me explain why I’m doing what I’m doing. I can definitely see his point. I directed him to the basic Painter videos (click here, or the link in the header that says “Videos”). These are videos I made using a screen-capture tool called Camtasia, along with a nice microphone. They took quite a bit of effort to make, and I was never sure they were helping people much. I didn’t get much feedback on them, and haven’t made any since.

But this got me thinking about training. This blog is my attempt to share what I know and learn about digital art. I try to include tutorials fairly regularly. But despite my best effort, I always worry that I haven’t been clear enough, that readers won’t understand what I’m trying to teach. It would be so much easier to just show what I’m talking about. So I started looking for a better way to show how to paint on the computer.

Elvis. Cheetos on black velvet. I kid you not.

A while back, I wrote a few articles about online painting programs, such as Sumo and Aviary (article link). At the time (2009), I naively wrote that these online programs were going to give Photoshop some serious competition. Two years later, these online programs still have only one advantage over Photoshop: they’re free. And as they say, you get what you pay for. Sure, it’s possible to get good results with these programs, but that’s also true of an Etch-A-Sketch (or a bag of Cheetos), if you’ve got the patience. Just because it’s possible doesn’t make it a good choice, though. So I had pretty much written them off.

Then, someone referred me to Queeky, an online paint site I had not heard of before. It’s a fairly decent piece of software, though as with all of these programs, I found the cursor lagging behind my digital stylus. The lag is enough to make the tool unusable, in my opinion. I tried running it under Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, with the same result. Recently, Queeky was updated a bit, and now includes layers, some filters, blur and smudge tools, etc. It’s a lot like Aviary: it’s not a professional-level tool.

But what got my attention was when I noticed the site lets you record, and then play back, your paintings. You can pause it, go back, slow it down, speed it up, or just skip to the end. Unlike the many “speed painting” videos on YouTube, which compress a two hour painting session into five minutes, Queeky lets the viewer control the playback. And that makes it a learning tool. What’s lacking is the voiceover, or a comment area, so that the viewer can hear the artist’s thoughts as they paint. Also missing is the original photo the artist is working from (if any), or the line drawing they’re using (if any). The result is a movie that looks like the artist doesn’t use any guidelines or references. The brush flies around and around, and gradually a painting emerges as if by magic.

This is still a whole lot better than the aforementioned “speed paint” videos on YouTube. Someone just starting to learn painting is liable to feel completely intimidated by these. They seem to be created by someone with superpowers. At least, with Queeky, you can slow the movie down and watch it painted at “human” speed, as it was painted originally. Not as sexy as a speed painting with a pulsing techno soundtrack, but a whole lot more useful to a student. Queeky also has a cooperative online mode, where you can draw and chat with your friends and co-workers online. The Artplayer allows you to embed a playback of your art into your website. This can be a good marketing tool, as well as a training tool.

A fairly representative sample of Sketchcast's capabilities.

I found a handful of other sites with Queeky’s ability to playback. The first, Sketchcast, allows you to record your voice as you draw. This is the only tool I’ve found that does so. Sketchcast is emulating a “screencast,” which is what I created with Camtasia and a microphone. This is a great idea, but it’s limited by it’s very crude drawing tool (a pencil is all you get, here) which is only good for back-of-the-envelope type drawings. That’s probably all it’s intended for, but it would be great if it were a more robust art application. At least, with Sketchcast, it’s been shown that voice recording can be added to this type of software. I’d love to see Queeky add this ability.

Next up is Sketchfu, which I guess seemed like a good name to owners Andy and Matt. Whatever, dudes. The painting above shows the upper limit of what this software can do, based on what I’ve seen in their gallery. When you click on a thumbnail in the gallery, playback begins immediately. There are no player controls, other than speed. You can’t fast-forward to the end. You can’t even just view finished products. You have to sit through the whole playback to view the final painting. Obviously, I was not impressed by Sketchfu.

Artpad comes to us from the folks at Art.com, the online poster seller. With Artpad, you can modify paintings by others, add your own touches, or start one from scratch. Then you can have Art.com print it for you. The tool has a small canvas area about 600 pixels wide, as do all of the tools in this review. It has a playback control that allows the viewer full control, which is good. The brush appears in 3D during painting and playback, so it’s like watching a ghost paint, sort of. Kind of creepy. There are two painting tools: a brush with opacity control, and a paint bucket that allows you to free your inner Jackson Pollock. It only paints random spatters. There’s a type tool, and that’s it. There are also PHP error messages across the screen, reminding you that this is beta software. And it is free, after all.

Last on our list is Slimber. Slimber has a playback function that has two settings: stop and go. The preset playback speed is very fast. The painting tools are rather limited. Slimber is, however, the only software in this review which allows you to specify the initial canvas size. Once you enter the Painter tool, however, the navigation to the rest of the site vanishes, so you are sort of stuck there.

To be fair, all of these free products are no doubt the product of a handful of people working long hours, with little or no compensation. Expecting Adobe-quality software from a guy working out his basement is not realistic (said the guy writing a blog out of his basement). But these entrepreneurs have developed applications that offer features not available from the mainstream at any price. The ability to play back a digital painting is, I think, a feature with a lot of potential. With a few other features, such as voice-over recording, keystroke display, and perhaps some timeline editing, a powerful learning tool is possible.

Adobe Photoshop has a very basic “animation” function, which allows you to create frames from layers, and then “tween” them to create motion. It’s used to created animated GIF files. Wouldn’t it be great if Adobe added a playback function to Photoshop? Painter has long had a “movie” function, but it’s far from easy to use. I may give it another look, though. Hmm.

Let me know what you think about this article. I realized I was more long-winded than usual, but that’s the nature of the topic. Do you find this interesting? Got any thoughts on the matter? I’d love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Resources: Online Training for Digital Painting Learn digital art in the comfort of your own home!...
2. Resources: Free Blueprints Online A look at two huge online sources of blueprints for...
3. Resources: CS5 Brushes and Training to Get You Moving Ready to tackle the new brush engine in CS5? Here's...

CrashPlan lets you backup all your data in the Cloud. What's the Cloud? I think it's where the Intertubes go. Not sure.

Digital Image Magazine doesn’t do the usual bloggy news reporting, ala TechGadgetCrunch and so on, but, at the risk of drastically increasing our pageview count, I’m going to share with you some of the cool stuff that’s been finding it’s way past my spam filter into my inbox. I have not spent time with any of these, unfortunately–not yet, anyway–but I thought they each were interesting enough to pass along. Full disclosure: I make no money from any of these companies. Not a cent. Not even free passes to the movies. Nada.

CrashPlan

The first item is something that’s not exactly on the top of anyone’s list: data backup. Because it’s tedious and boring, it doesn’t get done. And that’s the problem. One day, your hard drive will go scccccccreeeeech… followed by dead silence. It will. It happens to everyone, eventually. So I feel it is my duty as a responsible blog owner to let you know there is a solution, and it’s free! What’s not to like?

First off, let me say that I probably will not be checking out this service because I have the very wonderful Time Machine running on my Mac. So I’m covered (I hope). If you don’t have Time Machine, then Crash Plan is for you. It’s at least worth checking out. It backs up your files without you having to do a blessed thing. If you’re using it for personal use, it’s free. The free version will back up files to your external drives, your family network, and so forth. As you change, add, and delete things, CrashPlan updates the backup to stay in sync. In other words, it’s not making copy upon copy of everything; it makes incremental backups — just the changes, ma’am.

For 25 bucks a year, you can back up 10GB worth of data to CrashPlan’s online Cloud. This might be good for backing up your family photos, songs, and so forth. But for massive quantities of data, say your entire 2TB hard drive array, 50 bucks a year has you covered. Unlimited data storage. For the first backup, they’ll ship you an external drive. The initial backup includes everything. Mail it back to them. From now on, any change you make gets saved automatically. Fifty bucks seems pretty reasonable to me, considering it means you’ll never lose anything important ever again.

So, if you’ve been playing hard disk roulette for years hoping you remain lucky, it’s time to check out CrashPlan. And if you do, be sure to let us know how it works out for you!

Domo Arigato, Mister Groboto

Like Tinkertoys from the Outer Limits.

Groboto v3 has just come out. We last took a look at Groboto in 2009 here. It’s a very cool tool, and it’s unlike anything else out there, really. With Groboto, you can generate incredibly complex and beautiful 3D sculptures very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that you will find yourself changing parameters, tweaking this and that, creating one unique wonder after another, till the wee hours of the morning. Most 3D applications take a LONG time to render. Groboto is fast, and the prerender view is so detailed it looks fully rendered. The tradeoff for this is specialization. Groboto has been limited to making complex entities that look like extras from the movie Aliens. So what if you’re not all that into Tinkertoys on acid? That’s where v3 comes in. Now you can do actual 3d modeling with Groboto. Granted, it’s just Boolean primitives you’re modeling with, but again, it’s not like anything you’ve seen. Available for Mac OSX for $100, coming soon for Windows. Trial download available.

Postwork Shop v2

Back in October, we took a look at Postwork Shop here. Thanks to the heads-up from reader John Stevenson, who let me know that v2 is out in a beta release. I didn’t have much luck getting it to run without crashing. It seems very unstable, at least here on my Mac Pro. But it’s worth keeping an eye on this puppy, even if you don’t download it. Version 2 adds a Painting Module, which is to say it’s now quite a bit like Corel Painter. You can clone, just as with Painter, or paint from scratch. There are now alpha masks, for limiting the effects of styles. You can import brushes from Photoshop. Version 2 also now comes in both plug-in and stand-alone versions. It also comes in a 64-bit version, which should allow you to process very large images without running out of memory.

Though this is a full upgrade (from v1 to v2), it’s free to v1 owners. There are three flavors: free, Artist for $49, and Pro for $99, just as with v1. I’m looking forward to working with Postwork Shop v2 once they get it stable. It looks very interesting. Expect a review in more detail sometime down the road.

Related posts:

1. Resources: Branch Out with Free Software and Training Make a New Year's resolution to expand your horizons. Here...
2. Resources: Photoshop CS5 and other cool new stuff Adobe brings out CS5. Check out some sneak peeks, along...
3. Resources From Around the Web A short list of sites of interesting to the digital...

Unwinding Time, a fractal image created by Ross Hilbert, using Fractal Science Kit.

With the New Year just around the corner, it’s time to think about what new digital skills you want to learn. We concentrate mostly on Painter and Photoshop here at Digital Image Magazine, but today we’ll look at some different ways to generate images. And the cost to try this new software? Zero or very little. Let’s start with the only program in this little group that isn’t free: Fractal Science Kit.

Fractal Science Kit

A screenshot from Fractal Science Kit, from their website.

A stunning image created with the Fractal Science Kit.

You can see more work by Ross Hilbert, creator of Fractal Science Kit (and the image at the top of article, too) on his Deviant Art page: http://rosshilbert.deviantart.com.

Vue 9

Understanding what Vue is can be difficult, unless you’re aware of 3D software and what it can do. This article is a good introduction. It explains how you can use backgrounds created in Vue in your Photoshop compositions. Vue is, in my opinion, the finest of the “landscape generators” available (the others being Bryce, Terragen, and Mojoworld). While the more well-known 3D programs, such as Maya and 3DS Max, are used to create 3D models, Vue is designed to create landscapes, period. You can create mountains with it, but not cars or people. So, it’s meant to be used in conjunction with other programs. You can import people from Poser, for instance, into your Vue scenes. Or you can just use it to create a stunning landscape image. The realism this program can achieve is something you have to see to believe. There is quite a learning curve, but Vue comes in a free version, called Pioneer. The catch is that your images will contain a logo in the corner, along with some other limitations. But it’s really not all that different from the full version, which runs near $1000 USD. It’s a great way to get your feet wet. For $30, you can get the Pioneer SE edition, which renders images without a logo and is usable for commercial use, and comes with a full-color 120-page starter guide. This software has been used in many popular movies, and it’s available to OWN for free. What a deal!

The Return of Hope, by Drea Horvath. Created completely in Vue.

Sculptris

A 3D sculpture created digitally with Sculptris.

Sculptris allows you to create 3D models using digital clay. If you’ve never heard of apps such as ZBrush and Mudbox, you should check out this quick video , showing Sculptris in action. Using Sculptris is like playing with clay: you push, pull, smooth, dig, all with your cursor (mouse or tablet). Instead of pushing pixels, you’re manipulating voxels: three dimensional pixels. Though the program is made for Windows, you can download a Mac-enabled version here, though it has a tendency to lock up. (If it does, just click on something else, such as Finder, and then return. That usually unlocks it.) I gave it a try earlier today, and it was a blast. You start out with a ball, and start working it with various tools. It’s very easy and intuitive, and I had created a monkey face (not exactly what I had in mind, but…) in no time. It’s truly an amazing program. And it’s free.

Once your monkey head or tree or space alien is done, you can paint it. You’re painting it in 3D, spinning it around in space just as you would a clay model. Then you can export the model and bring it into Vue or any other 3D program. If you’ve ever dreamed of making up monsters out of clay, here’s your chance. People do that for a living (they call it character design). The technology behind 3D sculpting is beginning to mature. Now’s a great time to check it out. Playing with clay on the computer! Who’d a thunk it?

The clean, simple interface of Sculptris. It's just you, the cursor, and a ball of clay. Go make something!

Free Photowork Shop Webinar

Our last item today is free training, in the form of an online webinar from the good folks over at the Painter Talk forum. Click here to register. The webinar is December 10, at 9am, and is scheduled to run for an hour. For more on Photowork Shop, check out this article from a few weeks ago. See you at the webinar!

Related posts:

1. Resources: Online Training for Digital Painting Learn digital art in the comfort of your own home!...
2. Resources: CS5 Brushes and Training to Get You Moving Ready to tackle the new brush engine in CS5? Here's...
3. Resources: 25 Free 3D Model Sites Here's a list of 25 websites offering good 3D models...

Artist and designer Dominic Orologio created this wonderful image using John Derry's new brushes for CS5. Click on the image to see a start to finish progression.

When Photoshop CS5 came out back in April, there was a lot of excitement about the new Natural Media Bristle Tip Brushes, and the Mixer Brush in particular. In this post, I boldly stated, based on watching the release kickoff video, that, alas, CS5 did not include a cloning ability. Even more embarrassing, I stated that “Adobe has simply enhanced the Smudge tool.” Boy was I wrong. Comments from both Tim Shelbourne and John Derry quickly set me straight. Since then, I have played around a bit with the Mixer Brush in CS5, but I have to admit, the learning curve has held me back so far. After years of using good ol’ trusty Painter (okay, maybe not trusty), it’s easy to stay with the old and the familiar. If, like me, you’re feeling intimidated by CS5, you’ll be excited to know that help is available.

I refer to two brush sets from John Derry, plus online CS5 training from Tim Shelbourne.

John Derry’s New CS5 Brushes

An example of the realistic-looking texture possible with John Derry's new CS5 brushes and textures.

John Derry is, of course, one of the original designers of Painter, and he’s a wizard when it comes to digital art. We’re very fortunate that he has turned his attention to Photoshop CS5, and developed a set of brushes that bring out the full potential of the new brushes. In creating these new brushes, John’s goal was to mimic the look of traditional oil painting and pastels, much the way Painter does. He has also created a set of canvas textures that can be used with the brushes. I haven’t checked out the dry media set yet, but I have played around a bit with the oils, and I was very impressed. I’m not showing you a screenshot of my work just yet, however, as I’m just a beginner at this. But you can see the work of several other artists here, created with John’s brushes. Each brush set is only $20. There are six videos included, which are just wonderful. John recently did a full DVD for Lynda.com on CS5, as well as many others, so you know he’s very good at training videos. The ones included here are easily worth $20 by themselves. You’ll not only learn about the new brushes, but also workflow and techniques as well. And best of all (drumroll please) is John’s Cloning Layer Action. With this action, you can “dip your paintbrush into a photograph,” as John puts it, just as you do with the clone tools in Painter. For more information, including sample video, click here.

Tim Shelbourne’s CS5 Online Training

Tim Shelbourne, author of numerous books and articles about Photoshop and Painter, is offering a four-week online class. It begins September 27 (that’s less than a week away), so sign up right away if you’re interested. Enrollment closes on the 27th, and is limited to 30 students. According to the description, “The aim of this course is simple; to take you through the whole process of creating a cloned portrait painting, directly from a photographic source image In Photoshop CS5.” Click on this link for more info. Cost is GBP 90, or about $139 USD.

Other Stuff Worth Checking Out

The MagicPicker is a neat add-on to Photoshop. It provides a color wheel just like Painter’s, so you can say goodbye to squinting at those tiny little foreground and background swatches. Of course, CS5 has the new “heads-up display” color picker, which is nice but takes three fingers to use. $14

ColourLovers.com is an online community all about color and color schemes. The online tool allows you to create color palettes and patterns, and then share them with their huge, friendly community. Includes a seamless pattern maker. Very cool. Free.

Got a favorite tool or site you want to share? Drop us a line: bobnolin at digitalimagemagazine.com, or leave a comment.

Related posts:

1. Resources: Online Training for Digital Painting Learn digital art in the comfort of your own home!...
2. Resources: John Derry’s New Watercolor Brushes for Painter A review of John Derry's great new watercolor brushes for...
3. Resources: Adobe Unveils Photoshop CS5 Adobe gets ready to release the 12th version of Photoshop,...

Some sample pages from Getting Started with Painter.

About a month ago, I published my first book (”Getting Started with Painter”), first as an ebook, soon followed by a paperback version. The ebook was priced at $19.95, and the paperback at $29.95. These prices were a bit higher than I had hoped. After some research and basically getting more familiar with the whole publishing process, I’ve been able to bring the prices of both editions down–a lot.

The eBook version is now only $9.95. The paperback is just $19.95, which is low when you consider it’s a full-color book and nearly 90 pages long. The ebook and the paperback are nearly identical to each other in content (there are additional instructions for downloading the images and brushes with the paperback, while the ebook download contains those files.) The book is an anthology of the best beginner tutorials for Painter, as seen here in Digital Image Magazine from 2008 to 2010. Click here to go to the ordering page. Here’s a summary of what’s covered.

Intro: Would Leonardo Have Used Painter?

Getting Started With Corel Painter

Painter Brush Basics

Create Your Own Custom Brushes

Basic Portrait Painting Techniques

Put Life Into Old School Portraits

Colorizing Vintage Photos

Painting Shiny, Curly Hair

A Watercolor Bridal Portrait

How to Paint a Cloud

Quick and Easy Photorealistic Water Drops

Create Realistic Texture with Painter’s Papers

Pet Portraits in Pastel

Working with Layers

10 Tips for Turning a Photo into a Painting

Another sample from the book. Click on it to order

Related posts:

1. Resources: Our First eBook is Now Available! Our first e-book is here! Get 'em while they're hot!...
2. Marketing: How to Price Your Work You've found your niche, and you're ready for business. But...
3. Tutorial: From Photo to Painting using Painter’s Quick Clone Here's a simple, easy-to-follow tutorial showing how to use Painter's...

Here it is! As promised, our very first eBook.

A while back, we ran a reader’s poll, to see if there was any interest in a eBook. A few hundred people responded, and 80% or so indicated that they would be interested. So I got to work. At first, I was going to include every tutorial from the last two years, but I soon realized that would be too much. I decided, instead, to make this first eBook just about Painter. Most of the tutorials written in the last two years have been about Painter, so it seemed logical to start there.

If you’d like to learn more, there is now a link at the top of every page on the blog, called “eBook”. That’ll take you to the ordering and information page. Or, click here. Next to that, there’s another new link, for a new page containing the five videos I’ve produced so far. If you like the videos, you’ll be especially interested in the book, since it includes the same lessons covered in the videos.

Most of the content in the book comes from the blog, which you can access for free, here on the blog. One problem with blogs, however, is that older material gets buried quickly, and can be hard to find. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been wanting to gather the best Painter information together into book form. It’s in a logical, progressive order, while my weekly posts are not. If you want all of the best tutorials at your fingertips, in a searchable PDF file, or if you’d just like to help contribute to the site, then by all means, order a copy. There’s also a new chapter about how cloning works (companion to the first video) as well as how to set up your workspace, and how to create a custom palette. Most of the tutorials are about how to turn photographs into paintings, as well as how to use Painter.

Here’s a look at one two-page spread:

Ordering is safe and secure. You can use your debit or credit card, or a PayPal account. You can download right after the purchase. I look forward to hearing what everyone thinks of “Getting Started with Painter.” If there are other topics you’d like to see in a future book, please leave me a note in the comments section. Thanks again for your support and encouragement!

Related posts:

1. Price Reduction on our new Painter book Great news! Our new book is now quite a bit...
2. Resources: Online Training for Digital Painting Learn digital art in the comfort of your own home!...
3. Resources: CS5 Brushes and Training to Get You Moving Ready to tackle the new brush engine in CS5? Here's...

Chad Baldwin begins with a pencil sketch, and paints the cartoon in Corel Painter.

As you may know, Digital Image Magazine is a one-man outfit. It’s just me, Bob Nolin, here behind the curtain. Cartooning is not something I do, and so there’s definitely been a big hole in the tutorial content. I recently stumbled across Chad Baldwin’s website, and was very impressed. If you are into cartooning, character design, lighting, or getting started with Painter, I recommend that you take a look at his site.

Chad Baldwin is a successful graphic designer, photographer, and cartoonist. To create his bright, humorous cartoons, Chad uses Corel Painter. Like many cartoonists, Chad begins with a black and white sketch. Then, he takes a picture of the sketch with his iPhone, and uploads it to his computer. He prefers Painter, saying that Photoshop feels “clunky” to him for this sort of work.

He has recently produced several excellent videos showing how he uses Painter to create his cartoons. The videos are professional quality, easy to follow, easy to see (nice, big, clear screen shots), and fun to watch. The videos are produced in high definition to run on your computer (Mac or PC) using Quicktime, after download. Chad has a nice, pleasant and professional-sounding speaking voice, and he guides you confidently along step by step. Artwork is included so you can follow along. Here are the available videos.

How to Draw Cartoons with Chad –– The Basics is a one-hour video to introduce you to the techniques Chad uses to draw cartoons. You can use Painter or Photoshop, but a pencil and paper will do, too.

Exploring Character Design is an hour-long video all about using layers to help you work through variations as you develop a unique character. The included file is for Photoshop, not Painter.

Creating 3D Cartoons Using Layers consists of three videos totaling over 2 hours. The first part is an introduction to Corel Painter’s interface: the brush, the color picker, etc. This is the place to start if you’re new to Painter. Part Two introduces you to Layers, which are key to Chad’s working method. The third part ties it all together with a hands-on project, using what you’ve learned. At the end of two hours and twenty minutes, you are using Corel Painter and creating 3D cartoons. Not too shabby! Files included are brushes for both Photoshop and Painter, plus a Quick Key Command Guide.

Lighting the Cartoon Creatures shows how to bring your pencil sketch to life in full color. Chad explains how to achieve the 3D effect using lighting techniques. The videos total 2 hours. It begins with the Basic Painting Kit, which consists of one 18 minute video where Chad walks you thru the basics of loading brushes and getting yourself familiar with the interface of Corel Painter. Brushes for Painter as well as a blender brush for Photoshop are included. The remainder is all about how to model form in color, without resorting to dead black and white for your shadows and highlights. As Chad says, you’ll soon be creating cartoons that seem to pop off the page.

Here you can see six steps of the process from sketch to finished cartoon.

Vector Toons Using Adobe Illustrator CS4 shows how to convert a sketch into a vector image, instead of a bitmap or raster image, as in Painter. Since I’m just beginning to learn vector art myself, I was glad to see that Chad has this one covered.

In the interests of full disclosure, I do receive an affiliate payment for sales originating from this article. I would not, of course, promote any product or service that I didn’t think was worth your time and hard-earned money. With that said, I do hope you’ll stop by www.CartoonPaint.com and check out these videos. I think you’ll like them.

Related posts:

1. Video Tutorial: Beginning Portrait Painting with Corel Painter, Part 5 This final video tutorial in the series shows how to...
2. Tutorial: Paint a Watercolor Bridal Portrait with Corel Painter A soft, loose watercolor look works well for a bridal...
3. Tutorial: Paint a Portrait in the Style of Bouguereau with Corel Painter Learn how to create a digital portrait in the style...

An example of the kind of damage you can inflict on your photos using free online photo editors. Fotoflexer was my partner in crime for this image

Here’s a list of 20 web-based photo editing applications. All of them are free, or have a decent free option. Some of these include features which, only a few years ago, were not seen outside of serious desktop apps like Photoshop or Corel Photo Paint. Now, thanks to the Interwebs, now you, too, can do awful, unspeakable things to your best friend’s face (see above). These applications run inside your browser, which means you don’t need to download and install a program to use them. However, you will need to upload your photo to work on it, unless it’s already “in the cloud” somewhere, like Flickr or Photobucket. I don’t think even the most powerful of these apps is ready for professional, production usage. But for millions of online creative types (you know who you are), they are just what is needed. And the free price doesn’t hurt!

There are three rough categories I’ve used to group these apps:

• Full-featured Photo Editors
• Snapshot Editors
• Just For Fun

Full-featured Photo Editors

Aviary is a whole online suite of applications. Phoenix is similar in many ways to Adobe Photoshop, with layers, filters, brushes, and similar features. Aviary also includes a vector drawing tool, along with four other apps. Aviary is also available on Facebook as an app.


Mersica founder and CEO Mario Gomes Cavalcanti says he “wanted to create a graphics tool that combines Desktop Publishing (DTP) with image painting, vector drawing and merchandise printing. This is what I came up with after 5 years of work.” The editor, still in beta, is called GFX Editor. One of it’s strengths is the ability to create designs for sale on Zazzle merchandise, such as sneakers, coffee mugs, and t-shirts. Expect to spend a good bit of time learning this tool. There’s a lot here.


We’ve reviewed Sumo Paint before (here), and it just continues to get bigger and better. Sumo is, like Painter, an image editor and a painting application. Like Aviary’s Phoenix, Sumo looks very much like Photoshop. So if you’re familiar with Photoshop, the learning curve is almost nil. There are many filters and tools, quite a few unique to Sumo. This is the free tool.
For $19, you can own Sumo Pro, which you download and install on your machine. It uses Adobe AIR technology, which means it will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Though I haven’t tried it yet, I’m sure the desktop Pro version runs faster and is more stable than the online version. Plus, you can run it without an Internet connection. Kudos to Sumo for offering both versions.

Snapshot Editors

Splashup, formerly Fauxto, strides the line between full-featured editor and simple snapshot editor. It includes layers, layer effects, brushes, filters, and others familiar to Photoshop users. Splashup works hand in glove with Facebook, Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa, and Photobucket.


Splashup Light is a downloadable, down-scaled version of Splashup. You can install it on your desktop or laptop. Like it’s big brother, Splashup Light is free.


Google acquired Picnik a few months ago. Now they own an online editor as well as their desktop editor, Picasa. Both are free, though there is a paid, premium option. You can upload files to Picnik, and exchange photos between your online social network sites, like Facebook and MySpace.



Pixenate has the usual photo-enhancement tools, as well as some fun ones, add a heart-shape frame, apply a sepia tone, or even an oil-paint effect. There’s a hook into Flickr, as well as into Zazzle, to turn your image into a coffee mug or greeting card.



The free version of Snipshot offers far less than the other apps in this list. Filter effects are only available to paid subscribers. It’s hard to see why anyone would pay for such a barebones product when there are much better, free options available.


Pixlr is another program that is more than a simple red-eye remover tool. It has layers, layer masks, a dozen filters, a bloat/shrink tool, brushes, a smudge tool and a blur tool…really, it looks a lot like a “lite” version of Photoshop. There doesn’t seem to be the usual hooks into the social community.


Despite the rather tacky design and ads scattered about, Lunapic looks like a lot of fun. There are a slew of cool effects, from instant Obama-style poster, Warhol, painted, sketched, even add canvas texture. Want to see your face on the hundred dollar bill? They’ve got it. Plus, you can bring in photos from your other online photo accounts, like Flickr. Lots of easy-to-use effects and enhancements.


Last time I checked, this was called “Photoshop Express.” Now it’s just Photoshop.com, which could be a tad confusing. This is Adobe’s entry into the field of free online photo editors. Clicking on the “Test Drive” button caused Firefox to go blooey, so I’m not able to report on how it works. I’m betting it’s a good, simple snapshot enhancement tool, but that’s just a guess.



Fotoflexer impressed me quite a lot. It has a very nice, clean interface, very easy to use. Yet it has a lot to offer: effects, decorations, animations, hooks into MySpace, Flickr, etc. Support for layers, but this seems to be mainly so you can create a collage of overlapping photos, which is fun. You can select areas to delete, and that works pretty darn well. And of course, up top we saw how much fun we can have messing with the morphing tools. There is a nice “remove blemish” tool, though the “remove wrinkle” tool was a bit heavy-handed. There’s a lot more here, so check it out.

Just for Fun

Befunky almost didn’t make this list, due to their being quite in your face about paid options, starting at $4 a month. However, their effects are some of the best I’ve seen, even compared with professional filters in Photoshop. Somebody did some serious work on these. But if you want them for free, your options are limited to most, not all, of the effects, and they tack on a URL in the bottom right. The oil painting filter was especially nice. The Goodies section (adding eyeglasses, etc.) was not so well done. So that’s Befunky.


Scrapblog is for digital scrapbooking. Upload your photos, then get to work creating designer albums and books, invitations and cards. Get them printed or publish them online. There are some free themes (templates), but most will cost you “credits.” Or you can start with a blank page and design your own theme.


Rollip has a simple mission in life. It takes your uploaded photo and applies one of 40 filters to it, then gives it back to you. The filters tend to make your photo look old, as though it were taken years ago and the film sat in the camera for a long time. If you’re too young to remember film, never mind.


Photovisi is a service that lets you create photo collages. Upload a bunch of photos, load them into one of their templates, and boom: instant collage. Download it or bring it into Zazzle to make a nice gift. Neat!


Morphthing combines two faces into one. Mix Brad Pitt with Barack Obama and see what you come up with. Or, upload your own and do unspeakable things with photos of your friends.


Instead of a plain old blog, Glogster lets you combine words with images and music to tell your story. It’s a community site with a unique idea.


DoInk (pronounced Do Ink) is a neat site, especially for kids. Create drawings and then animate them. Next, download them, or upload your creation to YouTube, and be the next viral sensation. Or just print out your artwork on a t-shirt. There are tutorials and a community forum to help you get started.


This site is a lot of fun. Add your face to a famous movie scene or the cover of Time magazine, create animated GIFs to send in emails, or upload to MySpace and Facebook. There are a lot of templates to use, all free.


Flauntr is a site created by FotoDesk, which does photo printing. You can add your photos to a template to make a card, do standard photo editing, and other fun stuff. I suppose you can then print out your work, somehow, but honestly, their beautiful interface was impossible to use. I was lost. If you find the “Apply” button, drop me a note. I think they may have forgotten it.

Related posts:

1. Phoenix online photo editor Online editors are getting more common, and powerful. A review...
2. Review: Sumo Paint A review of Sumo Paint, a new, free online art...
3. Tools: Sumo Paint releases version 1.0 Free online image editor Sumo Paint 1.0 has been released....

Free stock photos are in demand, if our readers are any indication. Our article “25 Free Stock Photo Sites” has been read more than 360,000 times since it was published about two years ago.

Since then, we’ve received suggestions from readers for sites we missed in the first list (and some sites that didn’t exist two years ago). So it’s time for a second list, pushing the number of sites way past 25. Thanks to everyone who left an email or comment suggesting a site.

Caveats: Note the terms of use for each site. Some of these sites offer free images in addition to images for a fee. Keep in mind that “Royalty Free” does not mean the images are free; it means that you don’t need to pay the photographer a royalty each time you use the image. These sites offer free royalty-free images.

If your blog is news-related in any way, shape, or form, you need to check out Picapp. Let’s say you want to blog about last night’s Oscars. Picapp has red carpet photos, taken last night, that you can use on your blog now, free. I’m not making this up. The photo will appear on your blog with a wee bit of advertising, but still. For the news, sports, celebrity, travel, fashion, and entertainment blogger.

Freeimages offer more than 3000 medium-resolution stock photos in 75 galleries, as well as marketing tips, links, wallpapers, templates, and other goodies.

Budget Stock Photo has no photos of its own. Rather, it contains some rather long lists of other sites hosting free stock photos. You could spend days here, so grab some coffee (or tea) and hit the lists!



Photo Everywhere has free travel stock photos, especially from the UK, categorized by geographical region. Link back required.



Photoree strikes me as similar in style to Google Image search. Free registering seems necessary. Also, note this warning: “Avoid recommending photos containing nudity, if possible.” So, do try and restrain yourself.



Photogen has a nice search feature, based on tagged photos. Web usage is unrestricted, but free registration is required.



Okay, I know what you’re thinking at this point. “Thousands of free images. Is that the best you can do?” Well, how would you like to try MILLIONS?! Both Flickr and Wikimedia house a bazillion images that are under the Creative Commons license. For this, a large coffee urn will be required. Good luck. (Wikimedia’s CC image are here.)



This blog offers free texture images, and (this is cool) they encourage everyone to upload their own textures to share. What a great idea!



Free Stock Photos has over 10,000 free stock photos for download, nicely grouped into a bunch of categories.



Acobox is unique in that they host all of their photos for you, in different sizes. Just select your desired size and alignment, and Acobox delivers the HTML for you to add to your blog. No need to download. Pretty neat.



Wallpaper Stop has a lot of wallpapers. 12,000, give or take. And they are big and high def. Very nice. Sign up and get free wallpapers in your inbox once a week.



Free Digital Photos has a good idea: give away low-res versions of photos, and sell high-res versions for a few bucks. The low-res (640px) are perfect for a web page. And the photos? They are NICE. Check ‘em out.



Free Foto, like Free Digital Photos (above), offers low-res for free, and higher res for a price. But you’ll need to request the price, and wait for a reply. To download a freebie, you need to sign an agreement and give your email address. Every. Time. You. Download. But they do have over 130,000 photos…



The “pd” in PDPhoto stands for “public domain.” There’s not a vast number here, but they’re free…and if you need a pic of Kermit’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they’ve got you covered.



“All pictures on this site are explicitly placed in the public domain, free for any personal or commercial use.” And there’s some very nice photos here, hidden in among the Google ads. Worth a peek.

“HD jpeg files up to 3,000 pixels. Coming soon layered Photoshop files and Vector Art.” Some very nice, professional photos. Stunning, really. A nice portfolio site.



Many of the photos here look like print-quality commercial photographs–they’re that good. A jewel of a site.



Photl is very impressive. All the photos are free, and you can search for them by keyword combined with a color. Need a red dress? Type “dresses” and choose the color red from the picker. Bingo. When you go to download, they have a crop tool that allows you to download just a portion, if you like. Big files, high quality. Downloads limited to 35mb a day. I’m bookmarking this sucker.



RGBStock reminds me of my favorite pay-for-stock site, iStockphoto.com. Same nice pop-ups when you hover over an image, same clean design. Only difference is: RBGstock is free. Gotta love it.

Related posts:

1. 25 Free Stock Photo Sites We present the best free stock photography sites. The quality...
2. Marketing: Sell Your Images on Stock Photo Sites Here's another market for your work: stock photo sites. They...
3. Resources: 25 Free 3D Model Sites Here's a list of 25 websites offering good 3D models...

Click on the screenshot above to see how painting looks in Photoshop CS5.

As we mentioned last week, Adobe’s CS5 kickoff event was April 12. Photoshop CS5 looks very, very promising, and worth the upgrade. Some of the more amazing new features include the Content-aware Fill, which makes short work of removing people from images, and the Puppet Warp, which will let you reposition arms and legs at will, long after the shutter has clicked. Mind-boggling stuff. Of course, the feature I was most interested in was the rumored improvements to the brush engine in Photoshop, which hasn’t been touched since version 7 (five releases ago). We got just a brief look at how the new brushes work. So this post is a gathering of some further information from various sources, to help us figure out just what has changed. And, to answer the Big Question: does it replace Painter?

This may be a point of little interest to most digital painters. After all, Photoshop is already the most commonly-used software for digital painting, by far. Personally, I use Painter much more for painting. Perhaps that’s because I began my art training years ago using traditional materials. For folks like me, Painter is easier to paint with than Photoshop, since the brushes work like their counterparts in the real world, pretty much. Blending colors on the canvas has always been much better in Painter, though far from perfect. From what I understand, the “brush engine” (picture a tiny motor inside a brush handle pumping out paint) in Painter differs from the one in Photoshop in that the brush interacts with the colors already on the canvas. In Photoshop, the brush simply stamps an image repeatedly to give the illusion of a continuous stroke. You can see the difference here:

Yellow and blue make green...sort of. Painter (on the left) does a fair job of mixing colors on the canvas. Photoshop CS3, on the right, is a bunch of blue circle stamps on top of yellow.

With this in mind, I anxiously awaited yesterday’s kickoff, hoping to see that Photoshop had fixed the brush engine, so that it would truly act like paint on canvas. I probably won’t know for sure until I get my hands on the new version and play with it, but for now it’s looking like Adobe has simply enhanced the Smudge tool. The examples (check out the links which follow) that I’ve found show “paintings” that are nothing more than the ol’ smearing-pixels-around school of painting. True, colors do mix on the canvas now. Yellow and blue seem to create green. But Adobe is calling the new brushes “Natural Media Bristle Tip Brushes,” which sounds like throwing down the gauntlet in Corel’s face, to me. Don’t misunderstand me–I think they’ve made some great improvements here. But I don’t think they’ve released the “Painter Killer” yet.

For one thing, there’s no Color Cloning in CS5. As you look at the examples below, keep in mind that all the artist has done is smear pixels around in an existing photograph. Perhaps they’ve added colors, too, but the point is there is no cloning ability. Without that, I can’t see photographers using the new brushes. In Julianne Kost’s presentation (top), she mentions she’s “not an artist” and seems afraid of actual painting. (Too bad they didn’t hire an artist to show off the new product features.) Photographers use Painter’s cloning technology to create painterly images. I can’t see them switching to Photoshop without something similar.

But these are just my opinions. I’d love to hear your reactions to the new release. Please check out the links which follow, if you’d like to see the new brushes in action.

John Derry’s launch-day post

John Derry paints an apple from scratch and as a smudge painting.

Adobe demonstrates the Mixer Brush and the Bristle Tips.

Tim Shelbourne does a nice job of mimicking a traditional oil portrait.

Some nice examples from photographer Thomas Hawk.

Related posts:

1. Resources: CS5 Brushes and Training to Get You Moving Ready to tackle the new brush engine in CS5? Here's...
2. Resources: Photoshop CS5 and other cool new stuff Adobe brings out CS5. Check out some sneak peeks, along...
3. Beginning Digital Painting with Photoshop Want to learn how to paint with Photoshop? Here's a...