My trial copy of OpenCanvas is about to run out, so I finished up the picture I'd been using to demo it and wanted to share my experiences.
If you are someone who likes to do a variety of styles of artwork - freehand, pixel, manipulation, etc. - this probably isn't the program for you. The biggest limitation is that you couldn't transform selections. If you are like me, and have a tendency to resize body parts selectively as you go along, you'll find this a hindrance.
Another hindrance is the lack of a good blend. Sometimes you just want to be able to smooth over a scruffy area, and this one can't do it.
If you are, however, someone who mostly just draws and doesn't do much "cheating" to adjust, this might be a great program. It is fast, has a good feel to it, and is fairly userfriendly. And it is cheap.
One of my favorite things about OpenCanvas was the zoom algorithm. No matter what level I was zoomed in to, the picture looked clear. This is a direct contrast to Painter, which only seems to look good at 100%, and PS, which looks good at intervals (25%, 50%, etc.).
The bad thing about the zoom, though...no "fit to screen". Or I couldn't find it anyhow.
Pros:
- Fast brushes!! And smooth, even when zoomed out.
- vary opacity by pressure and vary size by pressure have "on-off" buttons readily available
- program starts very quickly
- Works with .PSD files nicely
- zoom algorithm is very nice...I've yet to see an ugly "zoomed-out" version of my artwork
- brushes have a smooth, good feel to them
- Price!!
- layers easy to keep track of
- decent selection of brushes
- just "feels good"
Cons:
- no transformation capabilities
- Haven't yet found a good blender brush
- don't have really good paper textures like Painter
- No "zoom to fit screen"
- occasional bugs that mess with brush behavior
- no "modes" for brushes
- help files aren't particularly useful
- zooming with scrollwheel is backwards
- tool windows sometimes don't go away when you minimize
Summary:
I doubt I will buy it now, though I might in the future. Out of all the programs I've used or demoed, I just liked the feel of it's brushes above the others. This isn't something you can explain in words, it's just the way the pigment seems to react to your stroke. But unfortunately, my drawing workflow involves more than laying down pigment - I need to be able to transform selections, blend pigment, color replace, and all sorts of other "tricks". If I ever come into more money, I will add it to my bag of tricks, though, because it does share layered files with other graphics programs fairly nicely, and it can do a few things the others can't.
In closing, here is the picture I used to demo OpenCanvas.
