Is Black Ink worth it if I already use Corel Painter, Illustrator and Photoshop?

[Oliver]

I'm an illustrator tho for my simple work the programs I mentioned are more than enough. From what I've seen I'd mostly compare Black Ink to Painter, but what are the benefits of Black Ink over Painter 2017 because despite its name, Painter has all kinds of brushes and can simulate ink, pencil, charcoal and all sorts of stuff.

I've been considering giving either this or Sketchbook Pro a shot, but I'm not sure if there's any benefits in using either of these tools over the ones I already have and use.

[xyzt]

BlackInk is not a lot of tested custom brushes, it's building your own custom brushes through a nodal system like houdini uses for 3D(the same houdini which dreamworks and pixar have used). This is what separates BlackInk from everything else... not tested custom brushes, true procedurally generated custom brushes.

It's one of those software that you buy because nothing else can do what it does, not necessarily software you buy to replace other software.

Any good company will keep their digital custom brush recipes under tight wraps. So, trying to perfectly simulate custom brushes from other programs is probably a recipe for a headache. But you can make any kind of digital brush... BlackInk is basically what digital painting was supposed to be... freedom with the brush that goes farther than physical painting can.

[narkfestmojo]

Black Ink is slick as hell (absolutely responsive, faster then any other painting software I have ever used) and has some interesting looking brush types you won't find anywhere else. But in it's current state, you won't find it very useful, I would download and take a look at the demo. There is an upcoming patch which will hopefully make the software a lot better, I would suggest waiting for the patch before purchasing.

SketchBook Pro is actually really good, it has by far the best touch functionality I have ever seen in a painting application. I usually disable touch on my cintiq, but you use it for zooming, panning and rotation with 2 fingers and it is 100% intuitive and works perfectly. No other paint application has decent touch functionality. It has a good set of tools and to top it all off, you can get a cut down version for free. Even the premium version is only something like $5 a month and I would say it is way better then Corel Painter even though Painter is crazy expensive.

Wait for the patch for Black Ink before making your decision though, I am super hopeful about it.

[Helusay]

Please, download the demo and test it out. That is the only way you will really know if it is something for you.

[The Baekin' Company]

Can't even seem to get the Black Ink demo working on my end and I'm in the market for new painting software as well. What is Corel Painter and Illustrator if I may ask?

[narkfestmojo]

Corel Painter is a raster drawing tool and is pretty much what it's name suggests it is, a software suite that emulates traditional painting tools. My opinion is that it isn't very good, I think SketchBook Pro is better and it is quite a lot cheaper. Corel Painter and SketchBook Pro are both good for people with a classical drawing background in traditional media.

Adobe Illustrator is a vector drawing tool, it is good for line art and anime style drawing with high contrast boundaries. I like Illustrator, unfortunately it is the industry standard and carries an insane price tag. I would like to use it, but can't afford it. Adobe Illustrator is good for people with a background in digital art.

Black Ink has a dependency on hardware, what are your computer specs?

[The Baekin' Company]

Originally posted by narkfestmojo:

Corel Painter is a raster drawing tool and is pretty much what it's name suggests it is, a software suite that emulates traditional painting tools. My opinion is that it isn't very good, I think SketchBook Pro is better and it is quite a lot cheaper. Corel Painter and SketchBook Pro are both good for people with a classical drawing background in traditional media.

Adobe Illustrator is a vector drawing tool, it is good for line art and anime style drawing with high contrast boundaries. I like Illustrator, unfortunately it is the industry standard and carries an insane price tag. I would like to use it, but can't afford it. Adobe Illustrator is good for people with a background in digital art.

Black Ink has a dependency on hardware, what are your computer specs?

My main machine is going on 5 years old this coming June and it's a Windows 7 machine with an i3 CORE (intel). Didn't go for the Windows 10 upgrade when it was available for free because I didn't think my machine could handle it and frankly i wasn't (and still really aren't) the biggest fan of Windows 10.

I have another computer which used to also be a Windows 7 machine which DID get the Windows 10 upgrade while it was free. It used to be my mom's computer - she never used it - made it my work computer. However I make it a point not to download Steam on it since it would be more of a distraction... And what with the problems Windows 10 has of randomly freezing and having to hard shut down I figure having Steam on there would be more troublesome since all of my art software is on Steam... And because I'm that forgetful ditz who sometimes doesn't save for long intervals out of forgetfulness...

Granted since I'm not much of a Windows 10 person in the first place and since the only machines I've used (including my mom's and a friend's) all got Windows 10 via the free upgrade period back in summer 2015 - I'm not sure if the freezing and having to hard shut down issue is more of a hardware thing or just a thing that happens to the free upgrade people rather than people buying straight up Windows 10 machines that were like that from the beginning.

[narkfestmojo]

The OS shouldn't make a difference, Black Ink doesn't use DirectX 12 (yet) only 11 and that is available on windows 7 and up. It really sounds like your computer is the problem. Black Ink uses heavy GPU acceleration and people with older integrated graphics have trouble running it.

Maybe it's time for a new computer? Although your desktop might be able to run it with the absolute cheapest video card you can find anywhere. I have a stack of old video cards (from upgrades past) sitting in a pile in my cupboard, any one of them ought to run Black Ink just fine.

[The Baekin' Company]

Yeah, I need to get a new machine to replace the main machine at some point. I feel it's slowly dying myself but I can't afford a shiny new one :\

Sent an email about my problem to Radio Dead Air and i took some notes about what they recommended in the tech Q&A so I know what to shop for when i get the money for a new computer.