Howler 10 is a digital painting program that does a hundred things that aren't digital painting. So it does everything.. but what is Howler 10 really good at? Like what will Howler utterly clobber the competition when time of production is a factor?
1. nature landscapes -nature backgrounds

Three things that make Howler unexpected:
1. How it handles transparency
2. People often come from Adobe and the clones, but Howler is more of a dance between compositing and digital painting. For example, compositing methods of magic pink, drop magenta, bluescreen, and greenscreen are used instead of opaque layers. I personally wasn't very fond of Howler until I understood it was a dance. hopL hopR hopL
3. RGB morality. When the base layer is on, the RGB value shows regardless of whether transparency is on or off. Turn the base layer off and you'll see the checkerboard transparency background. In the older 9.6, you always had to check whether transparency was on or off.

This tutorial series will make other people think you know what you're doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HGVOf7PZqE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glwa4JwkFwE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBE6Vwt_xrs

PD Howler Playlists:
https://www.youtube.com/user/pdhowler/playlists

Systems tested on:
i5m, ATI 7820m 1GB GDDR5, 8GB ram DDR3, Win 7 Pro x64
Toshiba 11 2-in-1 Intel Baytrail/wIntel built-in graphics, 4GB ram, Win 8.1
Works. Several functions like particle brushes are too slow on the Intel Baytrail.

Last notes: PD Howler is not a software that lives on simplicity. If you've played with ArtRage or OpenCanvas and you come to Howler, it'll feel overly complicated. There must be half a dozen different ways to save* and at least 5 different types of brushes that come to mind. Brushes can give you more options to adjust than you thought of wanting(I'm not talking brush styles, I mean types, like orbicles or particles). That said, the depth can be enjoyable because the right tool or method is always there... somewhere.

update: I just checked, there's at least 7 ways to save when animation is taken into account, and 1 additional way to save with the batch converter. You'll never be so confused with saves in your life. Remember lyr saves swap and saving through the brush buffer saves transparency into pngs.

I really love this program. I think I never got so much concentrated creative power per invested dollar from any other program.

I managed to produce this in my first day and I can assure you that uses like 1% of the potential of the program. Like with any other tool of worth, you have also to put your own imagination into the "How to use this feature". So i don't promise you that you will be a pro PD Howler artist after 10 days. but every hour you put into learning PD Howler will be awarded with new ways to express your art.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=691560746

Also ... do you hate programs without documentation ? Me too. Many promising programs out there die fast due to lack of documentation. But not this one. The creators have a solid performance record over years of dedicated creation of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/user/pdhowler/videos

Ok I worked some more with PD Howler. I saw many bad reviews. What is true, is that you really need to put time in this program. But I don't remember the devs claimed it is easy to use. If you have experience with Photoshop and 3rd party tools you will agree that the brushes of PD Howler alone, are possibly worth the 70 dollars. And the program has much more to offer.

Also I don't see why everyone always thinks that every program has to be a total jack-of-all-trades. While I understand that not all can afford a Photoshop, there is the free Gimp. To produce good art is not something you do in 2 days. You have to put time into your applications.

I think this tool is a MUST in the program portfolio of a pro. However, be prepared to put months until you really master it. But then be fair ... how much time did you have to put with Photoshop and Gimp ? Especially Gimp is a bit like PD Howler, very unusual approaches. But can you live without Gimp ? Me not, I need it next to Photoshop. Same with PD Howler, I am now working with it since a week seriously, and already I can't miss it anymore in my toolset.

Here my latest work after a week with PD Howler:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=692785160

Addendum 1st December 2016: I wanted to mention that I still use Howler and am still happy with all its options. Meanwhile we are going to use it actively for 2D assets for games. In February we should publish a beta and screenshots.

Version 10

Pros:
Animated Brushes, some Foilage Brushes, a stone brush, and after tutorials plain altitude converter can be used for mountains I guess.
There is also a interesting video tracking tool for blemish hiding and video fx.

Cons:
You can get brushes very similar and better legally for free off the internet.
Lacks transparent background.
Dosen't save layers. So sit and finish your work cause it will be hard to come back to later certainly if you want to edit.
Lacks White as a color. You can't paint white o top of other paint. To get white you "erase" paint. Very odd a "paint" program doesnt follow the basic rules of painting. Well except the things of digital painting that make anythig easier.
You cant paint any color on top of another and get that color without seperating layers AND THEN you have to also esentially green screen your layers. Colors still bleed through instead of overlaping each other resulting in blacks and browns even when useing neon paint/colors.
You can't shift layers around. You can change the order they stack but not ie slide right or left.
Brush handling UI is terrible.
Some of the basic tool icons are illustrated so simply ... no... rudementery?....They look like hieroglyphs.
Brushes only scale to 100% which is dependant on the brush so if you want to fill a large area with a certain brush your going to be painting for a while.
The video tool metioned earlier only handles AVI apparently so its pretty outdated and you will need a seperate converter to convert to AVI format unless you use AVIs.

Got this on sale for like $20 and had buyers remorse a few minutes later. Spent a couple hours fighting with it and rage just opening it. Only came back to it to compare default brushes to Affinity. If you are looking for a cheaper alternative to Photoshop like I was. I highly recomend you spend $50 on Affinity. I was very hesitant because my expirence with this software. However, only a few hours on it so far but I am VERY impressed with Affinty and think it's actually much better than the Photoshop version I was using.

PD Howler would be good to give the grandkids to digitally doodle on...IF the interface wasnt SOoooo over complicated. I cant reccommend hard enough people stear clear of this program. 2 thumbs, 2 toes, and anything else way down on this program.

Wonderful tool, full of good art tools and countless fun filters you'd spend a fortune on trying to find in other apps.

This is a perfect fit for the visual fx I like to create. There is a lot to offer here and you will spend hours just experimenting with different animated transforms and filters on offer for the price it offers unlimited potential.

The cons are unfortunately the interface. Some things feel familar I suspect it is similar to deluxepaint on the amiga but I can't really remember. The menus are not layed out in very a logical manner so if you come from most visual effects packages the interface will fight you at every step in the beginning. I realize they had to cut out a lot of text to fit so much into one interface. Tooltip bubbles would be very handy and I still havn't quite grasped keyframing filter effects if that is possible.

You will eventually get the hang of the interface and it's well worth getting comfortable with it because the power at your disposal in this program is amazing I am still discovering new things.

Worth every penny!

Very advanced software. Impressive amount of tools, effects and overall possibilities for digital media creation. If you are at least slightly interested in buying this program, then go for it! 100% worth it even at full price.

PD Howler 10 is amazing. I have no experience in digital fine art yet this software lets you produce art you never thought you could. The most noticeable strong point of the software is it's ability to create hyper realistic nature scenery.

The positives of the software: -little to no experience needed to jump in and learn.
-Easy to save, and fun to learn.
-Ridiculous amount of content and possibilities.
-Feels like a great community/developing team behind this program.

Negatives: -At first glance, its unattractive and a bit intimidating.
-Online strong vault loading problem since i no longer have it on my computer i guess.
-Takes time to learn simple tools (however it's worth it).
-Youtube videos aren't as helpful as some have suggested.

Editing my review upon finding an solution.

I am not sure exactly what change was made to the installer since Howler 10's release but Steam's intial install process will leave you dead in the water.

If you're having troubles getting Howler to start you will need to find the application folder in Steam Common and browse the subfolders for PD's naked executable installer and run it manually. Your desktop icon will be replaced with the paint brush instead of the Howler dog and should now work.

As for the software itself PD Artist is a great assest as part of a pipeline. I believe those with more of an intellect geared for engineering will be able to use it standalone however some of the most basic manipulation principles, common in digital art applications, are hidden or applied in an obscure manner.

Despite not being user-friendly for intermediates I can still highly recommend owning a copy as a tool to resort to when your works need much more fine-tuning or customized brushes. There are a lot of features buried deep here as Dogwaffle has been in production for as long as I can remember.

As example: I use start my designs with Art Rage; being able to scale, rotate transparent layers quickly then export as png files into Howler for texturing and special FX layering.

it is a very powerfull tool which i like a lot. i absolutely recommend this! (i want to see more animated filters pls :)) if photoshop is a 9 and paint is a 3. this app is a 8.5 :)

It's great.