Software: Deep Paint - Digital Artist

[DannyRaphael]

Free software: Deep Paint - Digital Artist
* Comes with this inexpensive and out of print) book:
Digital Visions - The Official Deep Paint Digital Artist Guide
ISBN: 1931841918

===================

IMPORTANT: Deep Paint - Digital Artistis NOT the same thing as Deep Paint 2.0. DP-DA is more like Deep Paint Lite.

For more info on Deep Paint 2.0 see:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/sho...1485#post91485

==================

Digital Artist 1.0 (DA) appears to have been a stripped down version of Deep Paint (2D), which was recently discontinued by Right Hemisphere.

In my first couple hours of playing around with DA, I've been very impressed by capabilities that are very similar to the Clone brushes in Corel Painter. While the clone functions are not as comprehensive nor flexible as what Painter offers, for $8.50 U.S. (cost of book, including shipping), they are nothing to sneeze at, either.

DA Pros:
* It's easy to use after you figure it out, which takes some time.
* Gobs of "clone brush" variants, some of which I think are especially cool
* Some of the clone effects are really good! I especially liked the Pencil cloner, which seems to work kind of like the Magnetic Lasso tool, seeking edges as you draw. The sketch attachment was desaturated in Photoshop and a mouse was used to create the strokes.
* If you have traditional painting skills, you'll find oodles of other brushes
* Renders effects quickly on low-res images, e.g., 8"x10" @ 100 ppi; I don't know how slow things would get with larger images
* It supports external plugins (Impressionist works with it )
* It supports layers and some blend modes (not as many as Photoshop)
* Files can be saved in layered format
* It supports textures as you paint
* It has a "light" effects/direction/intensity feature
* It reads most common file formats including .psd and .tif, but doesn't support adjustment layers, alpha channels, etc. No big surprise here.

Cons:
* Does not WRITE (Save) files in .psd or .tif format. So far .jpg is all I've found for an output format. Layered files are written to a propriatory format (.dp2). If you had a 5-layer DA file and wanted all five layers available in Photoshop, you'd have to save each layer as a .jpg in DA and splice them together in Photoshop after opening all five files.
* You cannot save custom brush settings
* The HELP is so-so and there's no "how to" instructions ##
* Not exactly intuitive to figure out. My personal experience helped fill in gaps.
* No vendor support, but for a freebee, so what?

## The book presents some DA settings and suggestions, but has more of an "art, art concepts, visualization" focus than "this is how you use Digital Artist" approach. Someday I'll read in it detail, but today I was busy highlighting the text directly related to DA.

~Danny~

[raniday]

Danny, I got this book on Ebay (it just arrived today) for 99 cents plus $6 shipping. It originally sold for $49.99 US. I just luv a bargain! Now to find time to read it............

[PamSav]

The free download version of Deep Paint must have been updated since you wrote your review Danny. It does now export to PSD format, it tells you that it can't save lighting effects but you don't need it to anyway if you're going to manipulate your image in Photoshop.

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by PamSav

The free download version of Deep Paint must have been updated since you wrote your review Danny. It does now export to PSD format, it tells you that it can't save lighting effects but you don't need it to anyway if you're going to manipulate your image in Photoshop.

Pam:

Not many people (myself included) realized there are two versions of Deep Paint. This thread is for Deep Paint - Digital Artist, the equivalent of "Deep Paint Lite," which only supports .jpg.

Deep Paint 2.0 (the full deal meal) does indeed support files in .psd format and can be downloaded here:

http://www.download.com/Deep-Paint/3...-10398243.html

I believe I read somewhere the Deep Paint 2.0 plugin is not compatible with Photoshop CS or later.

Thanks for bringing this up. I don't believe I started a thread for the free Deep Paint 2.0, and will do so now. [Turns out I did start a thread way back when, so I linked these two threads for x-ref purposes.]

~Danny~

[PamSav]

Sorry Danny, you're right, I didn't realise there were two versions.

I've been using the free Deep Paint 2.0 version both as a stand alone and as a PSCS2 plugin with no problems.

[ydelle]

I posted this to the wrong thread before - so here it goes agan. Downloaded deep paint and all I got was a face the said send and recieve????
is there another version ??