PD Howler 9.6 Digital Painter and Visual FX box

There are pros and cons to get this software. I am mostly speaking of the drawing part of it, I haven't touched the animation part. Let's start with the pros : -You can quickly achieve a result -There are a lot of filters/effects -You can play around and have fun -devs look friendly :P Those are the main pros I see in this software. Now here are the cons : -There is no alpha channel, which means no opaque layers (if you want to have a layered rendering with a background, a foreground, layers in between, this won't work well for you). You can do stuff still, but you lose a lot of flexibility. This can be fun, if you're not serious, but for serious and precise work, this gets really hard with just that issue. -There are bugs, some of which can destroy your entire work. You will have to save often (which is good practice, but still..). Undos can paste an image from a different layer into your current layer, for exemple. -The devs don't seem to want to address those issues, althoug...

[h1]PD Howler[/h1] PD Howler is a very capable digital painting software that as you learn the workflow, you may wonder if it's more of a video compositing software without nodes. There are 2 tutorial playlists that you should walkthrough, starting with Tunnels. [b]Workflow[/b], [b]Floating Transparency[/b], and [b]RGB morality[/b] are what confuse most people coming to Howler. Howler's workflow is different because it is more like a compositor workflow. Howler is also different as it uses [b]floating transparency[/b] instead of layer transparency. [b]Workflow[/b] is shown in the older Tunnels series. Working with floating transparency is shown in the [b]Transparency[/b] series. [b]RGB morality[/b] is more of a joke on my end, but basically I mean that the RGB value will always display regardless of whether transparency is on or off. For those who want to do 2D animation, there are no bones, so while Howler has exceptional potential for quality background work, you're going to w...

I wish there was a 'maybe' option, but for now I'll have to change this to a no (find my original review below). The reason I changed this to a no, is I personally feel the program is just too held back by its lack of opaque layers. There are a couple of workarounds one can do, but it gets exremely fiddly, saving all different kinds of alpha's, cutting out different parts of images, rubbing them through the swap image. While they are all possible, making a nice landscape scenery, and afterwards trying to correct mistakes becomes an exercise in futility. The developers say 'they like it that way', but I personally don't, and that's why I personally wouldnt recommend it anymore. The program has a lot of awesome features though, and one of the devs made a lot of tutorials and is active answering questions on the forums, but I just feel it's being held back by a lot when compared to programs such as photoshop. Furthermore the undo function is often very 'hard to use', and its easy to los...

This is a fantastic art studio, animation creator and more! The interface takes a bit of getting used to as does remembering where everything is located. There are extensive short cut keys but again they need to be learned. I am used to programs like Paintshop Pro 13 and the menu systems employed by them. PD Howler does have menus and a RIGHT CLICK system for accessing the properties of the menu item if available. The results that you can get even in a few minuets are astounding even for a poor computer artist like myself. There are so many options, tools and effects at your disposal that you don't know when to stop editing your work and just finish it! Add to this the fact that you can even create your own brushes and effects and you really do have a powerful art media toolbox! Overall for around £50 you can't go wrong with this product..... If I had one critism its that this program is really only going to be be any good for the more experienced art program user. Novice users may...

Put it on sale at a decent discount for the first time in order to trick some people, knowing full well the next version is just around the corner. No warning on the product page. Now I'm stuck on 9.6 even though 10 just came out. Also, the brushes are way too small and there is no proper layer system in place, which all other drawing apps have had since version 1.

Best 50$ dollars I've spent on software all year!

Crashes WAAAAAAAAAAY too many Times- buggy and Glitchy. Not easy to set up the UI. Great abilities in terms of editing , although hard to find interface- wise.

1st impresions are good. It recognised my tablet and is pretty painless to get going. witthout a single referance to a tutorial or manaul. So for a straight 2d paint software it's good, though a little unintuative with erase being .. odd and the undo function soon hits the limet. The manaul seems out of date with dead links e.g http://www.gertrud.com.ar/ Brousing though the youtube channel for tutorials is confusing, with what seem more like demo vids, than something to learn by. A good one to start with is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18g0S0zkOVk&index=2&list=PLBqbdhU5umbcAiteIeILgE0xzVh5afOnf I'd rather have this unprofesional approach than a huge price hike though, so it's nothing I'm too concerned about.

I have enjoyed using this 'paint program' and discovering that it is so much more. The level of editing is fantastic and the scope of the program is huge, if you take the time to explore it fully. There are some quirky elements to the user interface, but you will become accustomed to where things are in the long run. I have had many hours in experimenting with it and following along with the extensive tutorials that are provided and I know that the next update will only improve things further. Looking forward to it. I do recommend this software, but you do have to be prepared to explore it's depth, there is a lot to it.

It won't even run. I'll gladly remove this from my account and say goodbuy to my 9,51 €.