Pocket Artist 2.0

[marlof]

<a href="http://www.conduits.com/products/artist/">http://www.conduits.com/products/artist/</a><br /><br />If I were in advertising, I'd probably write something like : the best just got better. Pocket Artist is one of the programs I use on a regular basis on my Pocket PC. Although the user interface looks very basic, the program is very powerful, and lets you edit your images in a very sophisticated way.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/pocket_artist_2.jpg" /><br /><br />Version 2.0 was released today, and it offers some very cool new features:<br /><br /><b>Key Features</b><br />• Pocket PC and Handheld PC compatible<br />• 24-bit color editing<br />• <b>PSD</b>/JPG/GIF/BMP<br />• Painting tools<br />• <b>Layer support</b><br />• <b>Gradients</b><br />• Color adjustment<br />• Filters<br />• Quick shapes<br />• Floating selections<br />• <b>17</b> Blending modes<br />• Image clipboard<br />• <b>Pluggable brush packs and gradient packs</b><br />• Transparency support<br />• Robust painting engine including <b>antialiasing and spacing</b><br /><br /><i>Bold items are new features for version 2.0.</i><br /><br />Pocket Artist 2.0 is available for $49.95 Previous customers who have purchased version 1.0 or version 1.2 may upgrade for $19.95.

[dma1965]

$49.95 is just a bit steep for this software, in my opinion. :?

[Timothy Rapson]

If I had color I would really surely have this program. I read The Gadgeteer's review of the original some months ago and it looks supurb. If I ever get a color PPC this is on my sort list.

Anyone here use this everday and know of a site that has pictures and extra clipart type stuff to use with it? I expect this one to really go places on 400 MZ+ systems too.

[PDAlien]

PSD Support!!!! That means you can open a Photoshop native file (with layers) and edit directly on the iPAQ! That's huge, in my opinion. Working with PSD files all the time for work and at home, I can see this as a great way to do some editing on the go.

I'm curious whether it maintains all Photoshop information (transparencies, mattes, layer order, etc.) Either way, this looks like the closest thing to Photoshop in your Pocket we have so far.

$50 though...tough to sell to my wife. She'll say "You have Photoshop on your laptop AND your desktop at home AND at work! Why do you need it in your pocket?" Maybe I should point out how I would be able to work on graphics in the bathroom rather than playing games, which could free up some of my time....hmmmmm..... :D

[ppcsurfr]

PSD support... quite interesting.

[Marc Zimmermann]

$49.95 is just a bit steep for this software, in my opinion. :?


Indeed. I am sure that many people are scared away by the price.

[Gerard]

If anyone is scared away by the price tag, they are either really broke, don't really need fine graphics software, or haven't tried the demo.
I have used Pocket Artist since June 2000 (the demo that came on the CD with my Casio E-115), and have not once regretted purchasing it, even a little bit. I have used it more than most anything else save Casio Mobile E-mailer and Pocket IE. The features which arrived today were promised over a year ago, and a beta actually got out to a few people... But I've been plodding along with 1.21 even though the author has promised numerous times to let me get in on the testing. But I'm not bitter. I had Photogenics to keep be going. Even with its bugs, that one fills the few gaps PA left. Looks like he finally caught up. About time. Now I can take that page of my daily rounds!

[DaleReeck]

I bought the upgrade for $20 but I have to admit, I'm not sure why anyone would need to edit files on your PPC to this level. I got the upgrade so I can quickly display PSD and other graphic files, which is a nice convenience. But to actually edit them, that's what a desktop is for. To me, a PPC just isn't a practical device for this sort of thing. Like those CAD programs, same thing. Great for viewing drawings in a pinch, but would you really want to design a house on a PPC? :)

[iPAUL]

Does anyone know how this software compares to Photogenics? Are they comparable or what (I dont know which one to buy).

Cheers

iPAUL

[Honolulu]

pocket artist 2 run on mips casio ??

[jpzr]

Pocket Artist is one of the programs I use on a regular basis on my Pocket PC.

HOW CAN I CHANGE SIZE OF THE PAINTBRUSH!! I cannot find this feature!!!??? PLEASE HELP! :oops: :oops: :oops:

[Gerard]

I shot off my mouth before I went to the page... $20 extra?! Ouch! So I installed it, and spent about 20 minutes running it through all the options I could find.
- It's faster and allows more accuracy than Photogenics (Paul of Idruna says a new version of Photogenics should be out later this year).
- Almost all tools are ready-to-hand with a lot less screen-hogging than Photogenics' 'fly-outs'. (Brushes, by the way, are a pop-up got by tapping the current brush on the lower default bar. It's a tiny pin-prick, and it took me a minute to figure that out.)
- PA does shading/layers nicely, and blending is okay, but when it comes to fancier effects Photogenics reigns supreme. Way, way, way more options!
- In Photogenics, 2- or 3-tap enhancements are so easy, making almost miraculous improvements to my Casio's 480x640 JPGs. Pocket Artist has rather less of these. No 'auto-enhance' or 'auto-contrast'. No 'remove red-eye'. Of course, it has some powerful enhancement tools, but they take a while longer to master.
Lots of differences exist. These two softwares are almost not comparable in many ways. I still feel the need for both. Fortunately for me, I beta tested Photogenics, so it was 'free' (only about 15 hours of my labour, for which I usually charge $40/hr). But I'll play with PA 2.0 for a bit while I decide whether or not to upgrade. 1.21 is nice, if a bit limited and slightly buggy. I'd.say both are easily worth $50. But $70? Wow. That's getting into bSquare or Ansyr territory...
As for need-to-use questions; my sense is that if you like using a mouse to do image editing (or a specialized 'tablet') on a PC, great, do it. I hate my PC. Simple. I want never to have to boot it again, except perhaps out the door. Ah, that'll be a happy day, when a PPC finally lets me burn CDs, encode video, and emulate Activesync installs.... No more big, clunky, buggy notebook. I love having all the tools I need in one or two pockets! I'm just not a PC guy, nor Mac. The little boxes are way cooler. So if you get it, you get it. If you don't, you just don't. No harm in that.

[Toshi]

What are you talking about? $70? PA 2.0 is only $50

[Gerard]

Yeah, sure. For you. I bought it for $50 in mid-2000. To upgrade, I am asked to pay $20 more.
$50
+$20
=$70
Right? So, I guess I was 'leasing' Pocket Artist, and to get a lease-extention/upgrade I pay $20 more, where late-adopters pay only $50 for the nice new version?
Considering the good press I've personally given in lots of places, plus in a review, I feel a bit burned.

[Mark (NL)]

So, I guess I was 'leasing' Pocket Artist, and to get a lease-extention/upgrade I pay $20 more, where late-adopters pay only $50 for the nice new version?
Considering the good press I've personally given in lots of places, plus in a review, I feel a bit burned.


I kinda feel the same... but to be honest I upgrade MS Windows and MS Office all the time, or Mac OS or ADOBE software and compared to the upgrade prices for those this is peanuts! I wish they would listen to their users better though!
Can anybody help to find me a rotation tool???
I have been bugging them for that for a year now (ok with the layer support and the easier to use zoom feature, which they did include).

But there is NO freehand rotation only in 90 degree steps... try to place a square so that one of it's corners is pointing down

For the rest the software is stable, fast and way more powerful than I could imagine ever working with on a PPC!

[jpzr]

- PA does shading/layers nicely, and blending is okay, but when it comes to fancier effects Photogenics reigns supreme. Way, way, way more options!


Gerard, please describe what effects Photogenics has, that PocketArtist does not have??? I am now thinking about buying one of them and I am confused - which one is better?

[Gerard]

TRY IT!!! I mean, it has a demo period, so why not give Photogenics a try? There is no way I have the time to list all the hundreds of things Photogenics can do! Might as well 'explain' Adobe Illustrator though it's not quite as complex, nor as difficult to learn).
Unfortunately, there is as yet no fully effective rotate tool, in any PPC graphics app. PA has none. And I just tried, yet again, to rotate a layer in a 2-layer image in Photogenics. I loaded a 20KB JPG, selected a small (80x80) square, rotated it 87°, then tried to rub through the original... and Photogenics closed spontaneously, yet again. This while online here on the iPAQ 3835, with 25.6MB of 'Program Memory' currently available. I've seen hundreds of these spontaneous close-outs. No error message; just *poof*, gone. Paul has responded minimally until now, saying it must be my Casio's software environment or a fluke (not quoting, just paraphrasing!), as no other beta tester (I was one while it was in advanced beta, for about 10 versions, as well as for Photogenics 'Personal Edition') has reproduced these sorts of errors. Well, I've seen it several times now on the week-old iPAQ, and I'll write him about it... but suspect that 'Pocket Phojo' is keeping him busy, and the new PC version of Photogenics. sigh.
http://www.paulnolan.com/pocketpcfeatures.html
I highly recommend this software anyway, if you enjoy graphical work. The things that work, which are most of it, work beautifully. Amazing software. I just have to hope he fixes the bugs some day.

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, sure. For you. I bought it for $50 in mid-2000. To upgrade, I am asked to pay $20 more.


We're coming up on mid-2002, so you've been using the software for nearly two years. $20 to upgrade to a new version with new features is pretty reasonable if it offeres you new things you'll use. If not, your current version works just as well, right? :)

[Gerard]

Sure... if it were that simple. From my perspective (admittedly one-sided), here's the story:
- I tried the demo, liked it, wanted to enable 'Save As', so I spent the $50 on what was, at that time, the only graphics program made for PPC.
- Almost immediately I began to find bugs. Little ones mostly, but some were persistent and very irritating. I reported these, as others did no doubt, and I waited. And I waited. And Jason Patterson eventually promised an upgrade, a free upgrade, with GIF support, ability to load 'brush packs', improved stability, and most significant for digital camera users; the ability to edit photos of larger size without errors and 'load at half-size?' requestors.
- In March of 2001 a photojournalist in Ireland told me he'd got an 'advanced beta', basically a fully functional upgrade, from Jason. He needed this for an assignment, to enable fast and easy editing of large digital photos to send to his editor. That was an ARM version (I needed MIPS, so he didn't send me one).
- I continued to send Jason occasional error reports, informally, whenever something of note came up. Nothing huge effort-wise, more to just keep in touch. Apparently he valued my input, and eventually offered to send me a pre-release version for a 'news release' style short review. He mentioned rough edges, but mostly a finished program with layers, GIF, etc. That was, I think, in late January, 2002. He said 'in a week or so'.
- Again a reply came in March, when I'd asked for any estimate on arrival... This time it was 'almost ready'.
- I've never received a beta copy, or pre-release, or anything besides a very mediocre screenshot of some simple layering in green and red. That's it. I can't build a review on that.
- I've had 2.0 in my iPAQ for 2 days. I've been busy, but I've run it through some tests. I've found one minor (browser slider button 'bounces back' most of the time) and one major bug. The latter is a complete inability to load JPG files from any of 6 different brands of storage media, in CF card, IDE hard drive, or iOmega Clik! Drive formats, as well as failure to load JPG files from \iPAQ File Store in any location, even iPAQ File Store\My Documents. These JPG files have mixed origins; email attachments, my Casio CF camera raw files, Photogenics' saves, web downloads, and Pocket Artist 1.21-generated saves. I should think that this is a rather serious issue, correct? I wrote more than 30 hours ago. I know, Jason's a busy guy too... but I await a reply with less hope than I used to have.
For more than a year, I've been given what I regard as abundant reason to expect a free upgrade, even in those words on one occasion. I am not angry, more like deeply puzzled and a little hurt.
Will I buy the upgrade? From what I see so far, no, but I await a reply on the bugs before I decide. And I am the opposite of rich. I'm broke. So it will be a while if at all. Software purchases are quite far down my 'need list'. (The iPAQ is a labour-exchange, no money involved.)
Is Pocket Artist 2.0 worth $50? Of course it is. Are the several hours I've given over to double-, triple-, and quadruple-checking Pocket Artist 1.21 and now 2.0 errors before reporting them worth anything? Well, Jason has never 'asked' me to test... I charge $40/hour to musicians for my time. Once they've had work done in my shop they always return, often offering me more than I ask. (The fact that I've been a fool with money is another issue.) I bring the same very high standard to my beta and other software testing that I do to the violin craft; I'm damned good at both, and not so stupid as to pretend humility about it.
An awkward situation. And perhaps I've been rash in airing it publicly. I apologize if I've offended anyone. I still say Pocket Artist is great software. It's just, well, too much like Ansyr Primer's upgrade. Remember? I paid $50 for that, along with LOTS of other people. It stank on ice. Bad, unstable, slow, buggy, big, limited, you name it. The upgrade, when it finally came, fixed a few of the bugs I'd written Ansyr about but far from all. For the most part I got excuses and denials, though the files I sampled were perfect on Adobe's Reader for PC, and yet Ansyr's would often crash them or mis-read them, including a frequent 'auto-pagination feature' and 'surprise-zoom-out'. The $20 upgrade was too little, too late. Adobe's Reader for PPC fixed all that. No more problems, and free.
So ancient promises of an upgrade 'soon' (then lots of excuses about developing Pocket Slides and stuff) meant little, unless 'soon' meant 'a year or two'.
I'll shut up now. I wish Jason P. best of luck with this. If it gets working fully, it's a winner.

[jlp]

$50 though...tough to sell to my wife. She'll say "You have Photoshop on your laptop AND your desktop at home AND at work! Why do you need it in your pocket?" Maybe I should point out how I would be able to work on graphics in the bathroom rather than playing games, which could free up some of my time....hmmmmm..... :D



I bought the upgrade for $20 but I have to admit, I'm not sure why anyone would need to edit files on your PPC to this level. I got the upgrade so I can quickly display PSD and other graphic files, which is a nice convenience. But to actually edit them, that's what a desktop is for. To me, a PPC just isn't a practical device for this sort of thing. Like those CAD programs, same thing. Great for viewing drawings in a pinch, but would you really want to design a house on a PPC? :)



pocket artist 2 run on mips casio ??


This is remarks like these that make me feel the OQO devices will be a hit.

Imagine a fully featured desktop device that fits in your pocket and can be used as a PDA: no more need to buy different programs for a PPC and a dektop and/or notebook. No more hunting for special software that can't support all the native features on a real PC. No more fearing many important data will be zapped from your pocket device like Pocket Word and Excel do. No more fearing special appointments (recurring with special formats for example) will disapear or won't sync correctly. No more fearing entire files won't sync at all like ActiveSync did between my Casio E-125 and my notebook.

I was really looking forward to getting a Pocket LOOX to replace my E-125. But with lots of dropped features (repeating alarms, etc.), added bugs, and so many limits, PPCs are looking really dull to this formerly over enthused guy. Not anymore.

If I were to get the Pocket LOOX I'd have to hunt for an ARM version of all the apps I already have. Days lost doing this.

I'll keep my E-125 until OQO devices show on the market and instantly ditch my desktop, notebook and PPC.

To come back to the thread subject, I think that no matter what, even if PPC apps like Pocket Artist, Photogenics are being enhanced all the time, these are top of the line PPC products that will never compete with desktop apps.

OTOH since OQO devices ARE desktop level computers that behave as such (connected to desktop keyboard and screen, etc.), as well as like an autonomous PDA with its integrated touch screen and battery, people who need PA or PG (Photogenics) in their pocket will largely prefer an OQO. Same with everybody who wants desktop power in their PDA and all those who want to avoid syncing problems, duplicate data that needs constant updating and PPCs that are too limited.

[marlof]

Funny. I like the idea of the OQO, but these kind of programs are exactly the reason why I probably would prefer the combination of a Pocket PC and a Tablet PC over the OQO.

Grahpics applications on a desktop have a hard time to give you enough working space on a 1024x768 setting on your monitor. Doing this on a small sized PDA-like screen, without changing the UI is impossible IMO.

The one thing that causes me to prefer Pocket Artist over Photogenics, is that I like the cleaned up UI of Artist much better. And still, even with that, it's sometimes hard to be really productive on a Pocket PC. But for a quick fix on the road, it's ok. I can't imagine myself using Photoshop Elements or 7 on something the size of my PDA screen...

[jpzr]

If I were in advertising, I'd probably write something like : the best just got better. Pocket Artist is one of the programs I use on a regular basis on my Pocket PC. Although the user interface looks very basic, the program is very powerful, and lets you edit your images in a very sophisticated way.

after playing around with photogenics and pocketarist MY VERDICT IS:

PocketArtist is the best!!!

(and photogenics sucks; with PocketArtist you have a feeling,
Germans call it "fingerspitzengefuehl" of drawing, photogenics lacks it)

anyway: thanX Marlof for pointing out this program! it is worth its price.