draw

Getting started with iPad app Tayasui Sketches

If you like Paper and want another sketch app for the iPad that looks and acts like Paper but with a slightly different set of tools, check out Tayasui Sketches. The app offers an impressive assortment of drawing tools for free, and the in-app Pro Mode upgrade, at a reasonable $1.99, is cheaper than any of the upgrades Paper offers.

Launch Tayasui Sketches and you'll be greeted with a blank canvas and nine drawing tools, plus an eraser and a color strip for selecting a color for your brush or pen. Like Paper, Tayasui Sketches is not cluttered … Read more

Adobe competitors pounce after subscription backlash

Adobe Systems' competitors smell blood in the water.

Having seen the torrent of criticism that greeted the company's move last month exclusively to subscription sales for most of its software, many are launching promotions and otherwise scrambling to win over the disaffected.

"We've put in place our outreach program to users, saying, 'Hey, come and try us,'" said Nick Davies, general manager of Corel's digital media and productivity software group. Corel launched a promotion that lets Adobe CS4, CS5, and CS6 users buy Corel software for the upgrade price rather than the full price.

"… Read more

Draw Something team included in Zynga layoff

After Zynga announced it was laying off 18 percent of its staff, former employees took to Twitter to reveal that the action resulted in the closure of three offices for OMGPOP, the studio behind the popular Draw Something franchise. That leaves Zynga's remaining U.S. offices to pick up the slack the popular series and other games like CastleVille and CoasterVille.

The layoff announcement will lead to the closure of offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. While Zynga won't confirm the specific closures, former employees have tweeted about their fate. Zynga acquired New York-based OMGPOP for more than $200 millionRead more

Review: CorelDraw Fans connects users and shares their creations

CorelDraw Fans attempts to integrate social connectivity into the always popular Corel Draw platform with mixed results. Using a combination of dated technologies and social sharing features, it is both an engaging experience for longtime Corel Draw users and a frustrating one for anyone with other photo or design sharing apps for their iOS device.

Corel Draw Fans has a very basic interface, consisting of a handful of buttons and the ability to log in using a CorelDraw.com API key. You can also log in as a guest, meaning you can use the app without having an official online … Read more

As Adobe customers howl, Corel offers education discount

As Adobe Systems tries to ride out a storm of customer criticism over its move to subscription-only pricing, rival Corel is swooping in with a new discounted pricing plan for customers at schools and universities.

The company said the revised education discount plan was already in planning before Adobe changed its sales approach. But the company clearly is trying to capitalize on its rival's woes: last week, it announced Corel software discounts of up to 60 percent for Adobe customers making the switch.

The education discount covers all Corel's graphics-related software, including the CorelDraw Graphics Suite, PaintShop Pro, … Read more

Review: Draw amazing pictures with Sketch Pad + Drawing Pad HD

Sketching using the touch screen of a mobile device can never yield the quality you are able to get with a pencil and paper; but it can surely be fun! If you like to sketch on the go, try Sketch Pad + Drawing Pad HD. With this fully-featured drawing application users will quickly find out that they are only limited by their skills and creativity.

For a program of this caliber Sketch Pad + Drawing Pad HD is not terribly big at 9MB. The user interface offers a very elegant design. Aside from a small strip at the top of the screen … Read more

Review: Toki LineTest HD for Mac creates drafts for pro animators

Despite its dated design, Toki LineTest HD for Mac easily creates early drafts of professional animators' work, and has all of the functions likely needed by these users.

The program offers a free trial version with a 60-frame limit. The full program costs $69.90. The download completed quickly over a high-speed connection. The installation folder contained readme, instructions, and license files in several languages, which was a nice feature. It was unclear if technical support was available, but the program started up without any problems. The instructions were a particularly useful feature since the main menu is not intuitive. … Read more

One Touch Draw/Sketch & Paint 1.2 Review

Photo-filtering apps can add artistic or sophisticated flair to all of your favorite photos. True to its name, One Touch Draw/Sketch & Paint lets you draw, sketch, and paint on photos, but it's marred by a messy interface that requires a lot of trial and error to get results.

Before you get started with One Touch Draw/Sketch & Paint, the app asks you to accept an ad agreement. You don't have to accept, but it installs ads on your status bar, browser home page, and more if you do. For an app that's centered around … Read more

Sketch n Draw Pad HD 2.0 Review

Sketch n Draw Pad HD is a free drawing app for Android devices. With a variety of brushes, effects, and other drawing tools, it's a neat, little tool for drawing and painting, editing photos, and other basic image editing chores. It's free, but it's supported by Airpush ads. In the end, the ads are just too persistent and annoying to keep this app. That's a shame because Sketch n Draw Pad HD has potential. We tried it in a Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1.1.

Sketch n Draw Pad HD doesn't let you … Read more

Draw and Paint Free with iPainter! 3.5 Review

There are some pretty cool drawing apps out there for kids. Draw and Paint Free with iPainter touts itself as a drawing app to keep kids occupied. While it does offer a blank canvas for kids to draw on, it also comes loaded with lots of inappropriate ads that kids can easily tap by accident.

We knew right away that Draw and Paint Free with iPainter wasn't kid-friendly when we were greeted with a pop-up ad for a Night Vision Pro app. And we were greeted with it every time we opened the app. That's strike one. The … Read more