What's your favorite art software? For digitally painting my favorite due to ease of use, tutorials, and support is Corel's Painter series. I started with Painter Classic and fell in love with it. Over the next several years I upgraded as the product developed until the current version I have, PainterX.
I have used other painting software, but nothing has been as good for me to use so far as Painter.
I do use some other programs sometimes for just a few features they have, but love Painter best. I am able to add in brushes & effects.
I like FlamingPears's TwistedBrush and a few others, but Painter remains the main program I use when I am drawing or painting.
If you ave some favorites, list them please. If you know of low costs or free on line programs, please post the links & if you have tried them out.
Corel Adobe, and many other programs will let you download the software for 30 day trials so that you can try before buying them. Also, if you use an electronic drawing tablet or plan to buy one, check and see which ones are available and if they come with software bundles. Many will come with art software, photo editing and other software. Often the software is worth more at retail if you bought it separately than the tablet will.
I use a 6x8 inch Wacom tablet and find that is plenty of room for my art as you are scrolling and looking on the monitor as you work, not at the tablet.
I suggest checkin' out Sketchbook Pro, fantastic to drawn in, best peice of software I've used in ages.
Carole Boyd 01 Nov 2008
Terry: The gallery where I've had some prints made recommends exactly what you use, and they have that set-up there. It looks wonderful, but since I don't have the budget to get anything new now, I'm still using the plain ol' "Paint" which comes with just about every computer, and a mouse. I have finally gotten a cordless one, though! The more I use the Paint program, though, the more I realize that a lot can be done with it for such a simplistic program. Eventually I may even explore all of the tools. For those on a very limited budget who want to try out digital painting, it's fun, cheap, and fast!