Review: Procreate Dreams

 Procreate is the go to drawing/painting program for me and many others, its clean interface, fantastic price with lifelong free updates and ever expanding features has made it the choice of pros and hobbyists and puts them all on an even playing field. Its been around I think 15 years and while it started out a little wonky the makers have been attentive to users and determined to democratize art. When they announced a new product only a couple months ago, it was a mystery what is might be. Well, now we know and it appeared on my ipad when i woke up one morning this week and i was very excited to try it out.

The idea is to democratize animation in the same way Procreate did for art and drawing. Simple interface, professional quality output at an affordable price and again, lifetime free updates. It sort of succeeded. The performance is beyond anything else, it supports infinite undos and canvases up to 1 MILLION pixels, plays 4 K video in real time and your animations also play in real time with no need to render them first. They have stated some of these features will be making their way into Procreate soon. 

With all that amazing stuff being true, it is also true that this is a 1.0 app and it’s missing not only some basic features in other apps already out there like Toon Squid, which is even cheaper, but crucial drawing features already in Procreate. While Procreate has an uncluttered interface it suffers from hiding features by making them available with gestures you need to learn that are not always intuitive and sadly Dreams has inherited some of that. The thing that surprised me the most was the lack of drawing assistance tools like being able to draw perfect lines or shapes and the lack of some effects like a glow or bloom which Procreate has. It doesn’t export to animated gif like Toon Squid. 

This sounds like it is a disappointment, but it isn’t really for me overall. I expected and they were pretty upfront it was missing some important features before the release so bitching that they are not there when I knew they wouldn’t be seems dumb. The company has a very good, well earned reputation for quick updates and adding features the users want and buying it now insured me I was getting a nice price that i would never need to pay again and to begin learning at the ground level before new more complex features are added. I did the typical bouncing ball test to try it out and it took a couple tries and some you tube videos to make progress and figure out how I might use this. Was a bit frustrating but I see a lot of potential. 

Animation is complex, and no matter how easy someone tries to make it, it will always be complex. This allows some simplification and will introduce new features over time that will streamline things but Procreate Dreams is made to encourage hand drawn, traditional animation techniques over other types of animation which might help keep the human touch in what you create with it. 

review: Affinity Photo, designer, Publisher V2

 

The Affinity Suite of graphic design products just went for a long awaited V1 to V2 update. The last year had been quiet and missing the frequent updates and improvements of the last few years so many speculated something was up. The bizarre speculation of the company closing, or being sold to to Adobe was not founded in any reality but it was all over the place. To me, it seems there has been some obvious trolling going on to downplay this release and some people were left to speculate far too long on what was to come. A one minute teaser 5 days before the release that told you basically nothing except a new version was coming out but generated a lot of unwarranted expectations and wild theories.

What was released:

V2 of all the apps and a new, looooong awaited,  iPad version of Publisher. What happened was many of the missing features people have wanted were implemented in all three apps. Not all of them, of course, and it is 100% normal to wait a long time only to find that something you need for your work wasn't in the update very disappointing. Designer and Publisher got the most love but the whole suite got a nicer interface that bled over to the iPad. Many of the key features like the style eyedropper were added to all the apps and Photo got non destructive RAW editing and new versions of some features that were somewhat poorly done in the previous versions. All of the apps were elevated to much higher professional level. The "big surprise" was not a D.A.M. but a universal licence that let you install all three on windows, Mac and iPad under the same license and a ridiculously low price considering improvement and updates will be free until V3 comes out which will likely be 2-5 years away. 

The good stuff:

Designer's vector warp tools, a criminal omission in V1 were implemented. Also they added a shape builder function and knife tool. Photo got some nice masking improvements and new features and the before mentioned non destructive RAW processing. Publisher, the newest app needed the most work and got it. A book function that lets you organize separate external files into one project, style dropper, automatic page generation when importing a long text file or many images. Publisher on iPad has the same studio link function as the desktop, which lets you simply turn Publisher into Photo or Designer with a simple button to work on graphics and never have to leave the app. We can now realistically work from an iPad for everything most graphic designers need with the exception of epub and web design which Affinity has shied away from, at least for now.

The disappointments:

Digital Asset Management is really the missing piece in the suite and some of the new Publisher features do not work on iPad. iPad also has a terrible font system for publishing. I have to add one font at a time with a 3rd party program that takes a couple minutes for each one - if it works. Many graphic designers need over 600-800 fonts on a desktop system to pick from. This is something Apple will have to address. Designer would profit greatly from a bitmap to vector tracing function as many artists use that in their workflow, a vector eraser and the ability to warp a shape inside another shape (like a word or words inside a heart for example) would fill out it's feature set nicely. I wish there was some way for plugins to work on the ipad and be better implemented on the desktop. 

Overall this was an AMAZING release that added many of the features users have been asking about for years. This is not the last update, something I think many don't take into account, and Serif has been responsive to customer needs more than most companies - even if it takes them longer to realize those needs it has been worth the wait. 

Software: Sketchbook Pro and Procreate

 Lately I have been using Sketchbook Pro a lot more. I had almost thought that I would be using Procreate exclusively on the iPad and forgetting about Sketchbook but as I got back into ink portraits, I found I liked Sketchbook's ink brushes much better and while the interface is weird, no double tap to undo for example, I would it handled palm rejection perfectly and the button that moves pretty much everything out of your way while drawing was super helpful. It also lets you transfer over to the desktop version and I really appreciate that. I finish off most of my drawings on the 27 inch 5 k iMac because it's suck a great image and the size lets me really see any problems. 

Procreate has been really good with architectural drawings, the way it handles making straight lines is far superior to Sketchbook which uses a visual ruler you drag the pencil along to make a straight line, it also has other tools to visually make shapes with. It's very much like using those plastic shapes I would draw with on paper back in the day... cute, traditional but also an extra step or more. Working in colour with Procreate takes some getting used to and I'm not there yet but I find it easier than Sketchbook. The interface is a little in the way at times but it takes advantage of the iPad Pro power in ways other programs haven't yet. 

It seems like I'll be using both for the time being. Sketchbook is now owned by users who took it over from Autodesk and they have been making improvements especially on the desktop version including really nice new brushes. If i can get my head around colour workout it the fact I can go between iPad and desktop might convince me to put Procreate on the back burner, but I am nowhere near there yet. 

I like to work with the least amount of applications possible so I don't have to learn a million things keep track of a million updates, not to mention the cost (though Procreate is one time fee and Sketchbook is free) but I also want to use the best tool for the job so for now these are my iPad preferences and Krita is my desktop preference. 

Affinity suite 1.81 (photo/designer/publisher)

While at first glance, this update does not seem like more than a small update and that is true concerning the Photo and Designer apps. Both did get some nice new interface updates and a couple new features but Publisher got its first real update since its release in the summer and the additions to that are amazing.

I started using Publisher in my professional work a few months back after consulting with the print houses my clients use and doing a couple test projects. While it wasn't flush with features I found that I stopped using Indesign right away and haven't touched it much since. This update really makes the idea of going back seem even less likely.

Affinity listened to what people were after and did a good job fulfilling their desires in this release. The big addition is .idml import of Indesign project files, something many designers  found crucial before switching as access to old projects is key for keeping some clients. Quark Xpress added this function not too long ago but that was about the only good thing I could say about that application.  The new open dialog which allows you to save projects as templates that can be used across the suite  and saved to the cloud for easy access if you are caught out of the studio and need to create something before you can get back. I plan to use use templates quite a bit for my regular clients. There is also anew ability to merge documents into one which combines the master pages and table of contents which will be great for complicated projects like magazines which could now be worked on in sections, then combined to a final version later.

Photoshop smart objects are now imported and translated to Affinity Photo pretty seamlessly making cross application work much easier and crosses off another big Photoshop feature the Affinity was lacking.

There really isn't much reason to not switch to Affinity if you have been waiting to do that and I suspect when the iPad version of Publisher is released, having the suite will be essential for  graphic artists.

review: Quark Xpress 2018

I don't have a great history with Quark XPress. I used it in the 90s when it was the top page layout program out there, but I preferred other software like Pagemaker and even Pagestream which I had on my still functioning Amiga computer from the 80s. When Adobe's Indesign reached version 2, it had advanced beyond them all and I switched to that and have been using it ever since.

Recently I have had to reacquaint myself with Quark because a job that uses it to produce a monthly magazine. I knew the version at the magazine office was a little out of date and I was appalled at how little the software had changed. Well, the version there is not a little out of date... it's almost 8 years out of date! So glad to say, having a chance to play with the 2018 version, its very much improved. I still don't love it mind you, but it is a viable alternative to Indesign and Adobe's horrible subscription service.

Some of the best improvements are the in the interface which finally looks like a modern application, is much better and more logically organized and has a very nice preview window, something earlier versions lacked and made them very hard to design with. Maybe better still is the way it handles fonts and the typography in general. Also gone is the stupid adobe distiller requirement to make professional PDFs. That thing was always a pain and should have been gone long, long ago.

On the more negative side of things - the interface is improved but still not great to work in. Some things that should be easy, like adding a visible bleed to the document are hidden in weird menus you would not find unless you really look hard for them in the documentation. I hate how Quark handles images, it's the same as always and I don't get why they keep this workflow of basically an image window inside another, one to scale and distort and the other to move/scale the image within. You have to keep switching tools to work within an image. I find it slow to open as well, but even with that there is a huge improvement from the version I use at work.

A giant step forward is the ability builtin to open Indesign files, making switching to Quark pretty easy and while, again, it took a bit of time to figure out, you can break a PDF down into separate elements you can edit directly in Quark after you have imported it. Working at a magazine, there needs to be a way to have many people working on the same project and that is something Quark has always seemed to have an edge with.

 It's not as easy as Indesign and is not as full featured, but its more than up to most tasks and even makes some, like digital publishing easier than Adobe's offering.

So in general if you want to avoid the Adobe scam, Quark is a good way to do that - with one big caveat. The price. While it's available on the Mac App store now on sale for 400$ it's normal about double that for the full version. This is not a competitive price, especially for such an old software that has lost so much marketshare over the years.

Will I use it myself? Not likely, except in cases where the client insists (and pays enough for me to buy myself a licence). Affinity Publisher is still a ways off from releasing a truly usable commercial version but it already outdoes Quark in terms of interface and even some functions. Plus when officially released it's likely to be 50$-60$ with paid updates 3 years apart like their other software which will integrate seamlessly with it. If I had to use it, it wouldn't be the worst thing and I'm sure I'd get used to Quark's quirks pretty quickly.

Sparkle web design app

Sparkle web design app

In my quest to replace Adobe products with more affordable and better made applications that don’t charge me for the privilege of using them them every month, I may have finally come across  Dreamweaver alternative that works for me. 

To be clear, this is not a program for coders… in any way shape or form. It’s clearly for people like me who are designers and want something that works closer to a page layout program. While it is not as flexible as many might like, it basically covers all the bases and will improve with each iteration in response to what the users say they need. 

I am currently re-working the Behemoth media site with it and almost immediately came across a bug. I contacted Sparkle, got a reply in a couple hours and a solution minutes after I sent in the file for them to look at with promise to look into the bug right away and a quick tip baed on the file I sent that was more than a little helpful. So it is fair to say they won me over fairly quickly over the poor service I’ve reviewed at Adobe over the last many years. 

Using the application is very simple to figure out and not having to work in tables and place everything where you want, even over other elements without having to think of the technical aspects is very freeing as a designer. I haven’t found any templates available, which to me at least is a good thing. nor have I found any plugins, though you can embed code using a an embed object that might allow to insert Hype animations at a future date. The gallery feature is basically and easy to use, very clean looking with limited but useful adjustable parameters. This could be said about almost all the features offered at present.. clean, useful, uncomplicated. 

I am just starting with this software but I already love using it. I swear a lot less and work much faster. I don’t do much web design for clients these days, that business all went to the drag and drop companies a couple years back, so something like Sparkle handles all my current needs very well and I assume it will only get better from here on out. 

Update: behemoth media site updated with Sparkle

Plugin Odds and ends

Echo remover

http://www.crumplepop.com/fcpx-premiere-audio-plugin-echoremover/

This was on sale as a new plugin from Crumplepop and as I had decided 500$ was too much for the only other noise remover for Final Cut X, 50$ seemed very reasonable. It has only  couple sliders but I found it to be effective and did what it said it does. I am sure the more expensive plugin had tons of features but as I am not a sound pro, this was really perfect for making the sound on the Million Year Picnic doc a little nicer. 

Turbulence FD (with X Particles)

https://www.jawset.com

I have just stared to use this plugin, which produces realistic smoke and fire effects in Cinema 4D, but it has already been useful in the Look Kool, the Tv sow I do effects and animation for. 

http://www.tvokids.com/shows/lookkool

It was far too money for my tastes, but C4D has no way to do smoke,water or fire (unlike pretty much every other 3D program now, including free ones) but it produces great results, quickly. To really get the most out of it, you need to couple it with X particles, bing the total price to almost 1000$ CAD! I already had X Particles so I took the plunge and am hoping to get more effects work as a result. Everyone loves explosions. Besides the high price, another negative is Jawset provides links to tutorials, but doesn’t provide any themselves and many of the tuts listed cost more money. They look great but for the fee Jawset charges, there needs to be at least some basic training included. 

Reelsmart Motion Blur

http://revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/motion/

This is a pretty amazing plugin. It does one thing, which is to put a motion blur on things in After Effects, Motion etc (each program added costs more). Again, not cheap but C4D motion blur can look great but at a HUGE time cost in rendering and this basically adds a almost nothing in terms of render time and has a lot more control. For the TV show this means a clip that would have taken 2 hours to render out can be reduced to 45 minutes and I can play with the amount using keyframes and test blurs without having to re-render in C4D. Plus the site has quite a few video tutorials to take you from knowing nothing to very competent in a  short period of time. 

Antidote 9 review

Druid software has released a new version of Antidote, their already great text correction software with the one feature I thought it was lacking. Since I write in French and English over the course of any given day, I have been using Antidote for most of my correction needs. It not only fixes misspellings but tense disagreements and gives you synonyms, examples of usage and a million other things in French.  The new version does all that but now has added and English module that does all for English now too! Plus it does both languages in the same email/document so if I need to write sing both languages, they can both get corrections.

This is not a translation program, it is a writing aid, helping you t not just fix mistakes but help in the writing process. It also doesn't auto-correct which I think we can all agree is worse than Hitler. I am fairly dyslexic so I don't see the substituted words as the wrong once often and then I have to explain and re-write and re-send the message filled with statements more nonsensical than my dyslexia could ever come up with. This opens a sport window and lets you decide not only if the correction actually is one but explains why it chose to flag what you wrote.

So I had been waiting for an English version of Antidote for years and finally, it's not only here but rolled into the software I use all time !The only issue is it won't update my Safari browser plugging my iMac right now and the best thing aside from the English addition is I was finally able to install it also on my laptop despite the version on it was not the same serial number as the iMac version. For a while I had to buy a separate licence to get it on both which is expensive and annoying but that is thankfully in the past.

NIK plugin collection

I have had several NIK plugins for Photoshop (they also work for Lightroom and maybe other software I don't use) for a couple years now. I REALLY like them. Everything but the price which I always though was high for plugins. So imagine my surprise when Google (who bought NIK recently) sent me an email to download ALL of the 6 plugins in one free collection today! No strings, and even Color Efex Pro is the complete collections of filters, I  previously had only the limited version they came with my Wacom tablet. The entire collection is now one suite you buy at once for less than the price of a single one before. As a current owner of multiple plugins, they gave me the new collection for free.

If you have never tried them, now is the time. There is a deal going on you should really take advantage of. 3 of them I had never tried out and I have to say the results are amazing.

Kudos to Google for not only making them affordable finally, but also giving those who already laid out cash for them the collection for free. This is not something I see Adobe or any other company doing very often. In a way, it's simply the fair thing to do, but as well know, fair is not the norm with software sales anymore.

Does I-tunes Suck?

Of course anything involving Apple software/hardware gets people’s panties in a bunch for some reason but i-tunes has crossed platforms and is no longer a «which is better» discussion. As the sole software to control your i-pod or i-phone (I-pods take a HUGE 60- 75% of music players depending when/where you find you research) i-tunes has a bigger than normal affect on how people buy and organize their music and video on portable devices. The shear amount of control this gives Apple is, I think, basically unfair, but that doesn’t mean i-tunes sucks as many would claim, nor does it say it’s the best way to do things as Apple would like us all to believe.

Many of the complaints against i-tunes I hear are extremely outdated and basically false as are many of the anti-Apple claims that never seem to die and are passed down person to person without anyone actually doing any fact checking. You can, for example, put music, movies etc you buy from other places into your itunes controlled device and it’s pretty darn easy. No, all formats are not supported, but no device supports all formats and itunes does slightly more than Zune, to name a competitor, though maybe not all the ones you are used if you are on a PC.

There are plenty of real reasons to not like this software, however.

1) It’s way too big, takes up too much space and uses too much ram.
2) The store component is too in your face. Not everyone wants to buy from Apple directly and the store itself lacks, even in the music department, a decent selection of musical tastes. While this is slowly changing, I am very wary the Apple’s prudishness with the app store doesn’t actually extend to all areas of itunes departments.
3) The app store.... I don’t think it can mentioned enough that Apple should not be telling end users what they should and should not be using the item they paid a hell of a lot of money for.
4) The censorship of the app store can easily be avoided if you could just make your own categories and could put password protection on them. If I or you or anyone else wants to watch porn, keep confidential documents secure or keep R-rated movies from the reach of their kids, it’s their right and easy enough to do. Frankly, it’s a feature that would drive even more people to use Apple’s portable devices. I’ve never understood why everything on the planet earth needs to be kid friendly to the exclusion of adult needs and sensibilities.
5) No plug-ins.... a great way to get programmers on your side and add functionality Apple mat not want to take responsibility for. Granted Apps do some of this in the i-pod touch, pad and phone, but not everyone has those things. I don’t for example.
6) This is my pet peeve with most software... too much useless «functionality». I can choose my own songs to play thank-you very much.

None of these limitations make i-tunes suck, but it does leave much room for improvement. On the competitor’s side, there isn’t much. Very few of the alternatives can provide the integration and ease of use of i-tunes and they also lack crucial features, many of them the same ones i-tunes is missing. overall, it depends on your needs whether something "sucks" or not unless the software just plain doesn't do the basics it needs to or crashes all the time etc. Many people wan to make playlists on the go, which would certainly make i-tunes suck for them. I on the other hand, could care less about that, so it's not an issue.

Update or not?

The new Final Cut Pro... should I update or not?

The real question is if can I even get the update now if I wanted to? Apple is not very helpful with Final Cut Pro issues, even simple ones like my serial number never works and hasn’t for several versions now. I’ve tried to get email, phone and snail mail help the last 2 years, but no one even responds to my requests except for the «you need to get the extended service plan for 800$» line... really? To fix a serial number issue? I am sorry, it’s the companies responsibility to support it’s product especially on such a simple, basic level. I did get some help more recently (because I had just spent 5 grand on a new system) but nothing they told me worked, they should have just offered me a new set of disks to avoid the issue from coming up again.

Another issue is the update itself. Apple has really dropped the ball on all it’s pro products and this update does very little to make me feel otherwise. Sure it’s a lot cheaper now, but it’s still way behind Adobe premiere in features! DVD Pro is so out of date it’s becoming useless as an authoring tool and this update ignores the product completely. Only Motion seems to get any attention worth mentioning these days. If updating to Premiere wasn’t so expensive, I’d drop Final Cut to tell the truth. There isn’t enough professional editing work that requires Final Cut coming my way, in fact most projects these days (they are few and far between in this economy) are easily handled by my older version of Final Cut or even Imovie.

I’d love some of the newer features, the colour correction software and whatever bug fixes came along with the updates, but I think it will be a long time before I can afford to update and there really seems to be no pressing need.