# PaintTool SAI Reviews **Vendor:** Systemax **Category:** [Drawing Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/drawing) **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 61 ## About PaintTool SAI PaintTool SAI is a high-quality, lightweight digital painting software designed to provide a seamless and enjoyable experience for artists. Developed by SYSTEMAX, it offers full digitizer support with pressure sensitivity, enabling precise and natural brush strokes. The software's simple yet powerful user interface ensures ease of use, making it accessible to both beginners and professionals. Its efficient performance allows it to run smoothly even on less powerful computers, making digital art creation accessible to a wide range of users. Key Features and Functionality: - Digitizer Support with Pressure Sensitivity: Provides full support for drawing tablets, allowing for natural and responsive brush strokes. - Anti-Aliased Drawings: Delivers smooth and clean lines, enhancing the quality of digital artwork. - 16-bit ARGB Channels: Ensures highly accurate color composition for detailed and vibrant images. - User-Friendly Interface: Offers a straightforward and intuitive layout, facilitating a quick learning curve. - Intel MMX Technology Support: Optimizes performance for efficient rendering and processing. - Data Protection Function: Includes features to prevent data loss due to unexpected software termination. Primary Value and User Solutions: PaintTool SAI addresses the need for a reliable and efficient digital painting tool that balances functionality with simplicity. Its lightweight design ensures smooth operation without taxing system resources, making it ideal for users with older or less powerful hardware. The software's emphasis on essential painting tools, combined with its responsive brush engine and pressure sensitivity, provides artists with a natural drawing experience. By focusing on core features without unnecessary complexity, PaintTool SAI enables users to create high-quality digital art efficiently and comfortably. ## PaintTool SAI Reviews ### 1. Simple interface, better than others **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tofiq H. | Digital Artist, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 29, 2023 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** SAI is an impressive lightweight software compared to other professional tools like Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. It works smoothly without any lag issues and offers advanced options for each tool. The blend and blur tools are particularly excellent. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** In version 1, the RAM usage was limited to 8GB, which was sometimes problematic. However, I am now using version 2, and it would be perfect if there was an option for "Timelapse record" like in Clip Studio Paint. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a digital artist and currently, my primary software is PaintTool SAI 2. ### 2. As powerful as other software with less investment **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** April M. | Supervisor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 02, 2021 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The various tools available are plentiful and I am able to gradient down to fine details for greater breakthrough of my art to the naked eye. I actually prefer this program over photoshop. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** There's not really much to dislike. I enjoy using paint tool to work for my clients as well as myself to make all kinds of beautiful things from party invitations to signs around the house, as well as freelance work. I guess I dislike the fact that this tool does not get as much recognition as it should vs. other tools on the market. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Make sure to take the time to understand the product and all of the tools available on it, you might be surprised at how powerful it really is. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** The problem I solved with the Paint tool SAI is not having to purchase an exorbitantly expensive product instead of being able to do the same things with this product. Benefits I have realized is being able to take my art a step further to meet the needs of my clients. ### 3. Paint tool sai review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Waleed Z. | Video Editor and Graphic Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 17, 2021 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Simple tool for drawing and creating illustrations **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Almost unusable without a drawing tablet **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** It is a cheaper alternative if you do not own a highly advanced drawing tablet or need to start digital painting **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating illustrations directly onto the computer without needing to scan. Very simple interface and the smoothing tool is very helpful ### 4. My favourite painting software! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Meijia W. | 3D Art Student, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I like everything about PaintTool SAI. It doesn't use nearly as much GPU as Photoshop does (this means you can see the brushstrokes as soon as you press down your tablet pen, without any delay) and the brushes are just much easier to use than photoshop brushes. To this day I still don't know how to blend colours in Photoshop, but it is so much easier in PaintTool SAI. The user interface is very friendly and supports PSD files as well. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The only thing I dislike about PaintTool SAI is that it doesn't have the range of features compared to Photoshop when it comes to Image editing & grading. But it doesn't mean I can't just export it into Photoshop to do it. The other annoying thing is that sometimes the software can't support PSD files and won't let me save my artwork, it seems to be a bug that always catches me off guard and I will have to re-install the app to fix it. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Everyone I know who use PaintTool SAI will agree that it is much easier to use than Photoshop. I tend to create my artwork in PaintTool SAI, and then export it into Photoshop to grade for a final polish. ### 5. Lightweight compared to other drawing tools **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ian L. | Online Marketing & Communications Associate, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 20, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** It is lightweight compared to photoshop and i do personally like the pen brush pressure of Paint tool sai compared to PS. The brush pressure is much natural to me without tinkering lots of of its settings. The simple UI of it will make the work faster like you can see all the settings you need on the side and lastly you can intergrate PSD files that you have drawn and edit in photoshop. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** it lacks finishing Image editing features. The only way for now to edit the artwork for finishing touches is through photoshop. Its a good way though but it is super hassle. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Some will say Paint tool sai is better than Photoshop but it is subjective and clearly based on your skills. Paint tool sai is best in some aspects light being lightweight compared to PS and better simple and direct to use UI. You can use Paint tool SAI to discover and enhance furthur your talents and digital drawing experience. It also provide Free trial so you can test out if you are good with this application or not. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** The direct to point of the program is one of the best featue of it. Photoshop is good for its editing touches but PAint tool SAI is muh better to draw directly and more on a natural feel like the traditional pencil and paper. ### 6. PaintTool SAI - Better for artists than graphic designers **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Quirky P. | Student, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 11, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** As an artist, I enjoy the ability to create digital illustrations with ease. There are many different brushes and tools that are necessary for those who like to make digital art and digital paintings. It could be used for logo creation and other illustrations for graphic design, but I would suggest using Illustrator instead, since it's more about precision compared to Paint Tool SAI. Paint Tool SAI feels less limited compared to Illustrator, so I like it more. A final bonus for the program is the ability to have custom brushes, and change settings for brushes. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** I dislike the price, since it's a little expensive, but it's an amazing digital art program for what it is and has so many options. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** I recommend using Paint Tool SAI with other programs if you want to create logos or graphic design projects, because certain fonts might be accessible in other programs, and you might want to format it in different ways. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have realized that Paint Tool SAI is a great program for many artistic possibilities, whether it be making a logo or an art piece. The ability to customize many different things a sort of advantage which is something I appreciate. ### 7. A Review on PaintTool SAI. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** loise k. | Digital Painter, Chemicals, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 19, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** It's possible to open multiple view ports to the same document. There is also a set of vector drawing tools intended for inking which are used to create amazing designs. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Since i started using this software i haven't experienced any problems. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** I have experienced uninterrupted work with this tool. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows the user interface to open multiple documents. Its easier to create and design graphics paint them with favorite colors. This software incorporate various raster drawing tools such as the Airbrush. ### 8. Such a great product **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Graphic Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 24, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Sai is absolutely amazing for digital painting. It is so responsive to the pressure and movement of the pen and it’s great. Once you get the hang of it, it isn’t hard to use at all and you make amazing paintings. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** What I least like about Paint Tool Sai is its outdated interface. It doesn’t look like Sai has been updated in forever since it’s launch maybe even. The flip side of this is that it is simple and there’s not that much that needs to be learned. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Thus software is easy to use, clean, and helps create professional level digital paintings. Additionally, you can’t go wrong for it’s price. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I’ve found out how to create beautiful paintings on a digital software that provides a great alternative/collaboration to Photoshop. Without PT Sai, this might not be quite possible. ### 9. Often shutting down randomly **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Graphic Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 12, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Easy to navigate tools and gives you the opportunity to customize them **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The interface is bland, its too bright and can be eye straining. If there was a lock or unlock feature for the in app tools to let your workspace float over your desktop that would be neat. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you are a professional, dont use this! This is better for beginners as its more straight forward and easy to navigate. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been using Paint Tool sai for almost 9 years now. I have used it for a while as im more comfortable with but have not seen much benefits from it. Its good for starting out graphic illustrators though! ### 10. Simple, but enough **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mechanical or Industrial Engineering | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 23, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** It is a very simple tool available on every Windows computer that can do basic tasks like cropping, combining, re-formatting images **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It is not a professional tool for drawing, and the pixel of the lines being drawn is quite big, making it hard to draw curves **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is my go-to tool when I need simple image editing or simple designing, illustrations for reports and image cropping. ### 11. Could be better than Photoshop for artists, depending on your skillset **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sandra C. | Freelance Illustrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2019 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I like how accessible this program is. It's easy and intuitive to learn compared to Photoshop, because this program is specifically for painting and doesn't include different photo-editing tools I will never use. There is a color wheel that you don't have to dig around for, there's a transform/rotate type tool to let me see the design from far away, and there are many different custom brush sets that are easy to download and implement. It is also much cheaper than Photoshop. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** There isn't a lot to dislike. As a student however; I was confused because they offer a month-free trial (which is great!) BUT once the month is over you are locked out of the functions immediately, and as a result, I lost some artwork because of that. Only buy this if you have the money and are a working professional, there are many other free programs to learn the world of digital art on. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you already have Photoshop, I don't think this is also a necessary tool. That being said, there are additional features not included in Photoshop, and because this is a tool designed specifically for illustrations and artists, the layout is easier to navigate. The pay is cheaper than Photoshop, but still expensive. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** This program allows me to share files with clients through jpg or png, and adjust the pixel size in order to prevent stealing and re-selling (by making the resolution lower up close, the quality diminishes if one was to take the image and re sell it on a t shirt site for example). It also allows me to share files with colleagues at different companies, if it is a joint assignment, and they can then pick up where Ieft off. ### 12. One of the Best for Japanese Inspired Art Styles **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Devon B. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I used PaintTool SAI for years, and it was absolutely one of the best programs for anime/manga style artwork. The lines are beautiful and crisp with the pen and brush tools, while the blur and watercolor tools are to die for. I haven't seen a program that quite compares with SAI, especially for its price point and ease of use. It has all the essentials. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The biggest issue for me was the lack of a circle tool/polygon tool. If you have an older version of SAI, you will have to manually create circles. SAI 2 apparently fixed this issue. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used SAI for years to draw my artwork and it made my life so much easier. Everything could be done quicker than in Photoshop and produced a wonderfully crisp, sharp result! ### 13. My views about PaintTool Sai **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Giovana L. | Graphic Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 19, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Not so hard to use, if you have experience with other drawing programs, getting used to SAI won't be hard, ease in creating and customizing brushes, and my personal favorite, how easy is to rotate and invert. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** I use SAI for about two years, and I never found something I dislike. Mouse linework may need some improvements, but I use other programs for this, so it doesn't bother me that much. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** I believe PaintTool Sai is a perfect choice for those starting with digital illustration since this is the program focus. Other advantages are the number of tutorials online and community support. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** For work, I use only to create illustrations. For personal or hobby, I use to edit sprites from old games. ### 14. Transitioning from Photoshop was a pain, but the program is solid! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Arts and Crafts | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 17, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Sai is a pretty solid program -- it does everything it absolutely needs to with little fussing about. It's simple -- open a canvas, and start drawing. With tools like Watercolour brushes, transparency, line weight, and so on. While it's very baseline, I find that the simplicity of the program keeps me on task and allows me to simply work without fussing about in things like filters. It also has a build-in pen-stabilizer, which is an amazing feature! **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Inherent in its simplicity, so to is the lack of otherwise standard tools -- things like creating a perfect circle, or warping selections are lacking, as well as some basic colour adjustment features such as level adjustments. Maximum canvas size is also restricted, and can cause huge problems when opening or saving files, especially after reinstalling or switching to another computer. Occasionally, it also just... refuses to work with my tablet, though I have a feeling the issue is half with wacom as well. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you're switching from Photoshop, and the layout of the panels is frustrating, Window > Show Layer panel to the Right actually helped me a lot. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** My painting and sketching abilities have vastly improved while working with the program, and the simplicity of it helps keep me on track. I also find it much easier to avoid that horrible 'Digital Art' look. The pen stabilizer also helps a lot. ### 15. excellent software, easy and functional **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Leonardo P. | diseñador grafico, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 17, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I like your comfort at the time of drawing, you can rotate the canvas at your comfort, with little practice you can make drawings as comfortably as if you drew them on a paper **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** I think that you need more variety in the range of effects in the brushes that you can offer, and that the formats are compatible with other software, in spite of that, it is a very useful tool **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use this software to create illustrations that I can use in attractive designs for clients. ### 16. PaintTool SAI Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luan A. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** PaintTool Sai is easy to use, you can find a plethora of tutorials online, you can easily flip and rotate the canvas, don't consume much memory, stabilizer helps if you are working with a small tablet. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The interface is cluttered, brush options can be confusing at first, you can only apply blur with a brush. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** PaintTool SAI can be an alternative if you're running on a tight budget or want software where you can hone your skills. SAI offers a free trial, so you can test before purchasing. Also, I recommend you to search videos about SAI, it's amazing to see how a simple tool can be so powerful. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use SAI to sketch, create illustration and to draw character sheet for 3d modeling. ### 17. PaintTool SAI Review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Isabela N. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 08, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I love the fact PaintTool Sai has a native stabilizer, it has clean GUI, has dozens of options to configure the brushes and pencil the way you want, you have Color Wheel, RGB Slider and HSV Slider to precisely pick the color you want. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The lack of effects, as Gaussian blur, but you have a blur brush, vector needs improvement, and if you don't change the default hotkeys, it can be confusing. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you are wondering if PaintTool SAI is the right tool for you or it has the features you need, I recommend searching for videos of people drawing using PaintTool SAI and tutorials, this way you can see the full potential of this tool. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use PaintTool Sai to create sketches and illustrations. ### 18. Outdated but still useful **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Games | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 05, 2018 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Simple and lightweight program for illustration. Plenty of options for custom brushes with a few filters. Not too complex, so it's easy to use. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Limited layer limit and limited canvas size. Runs out of memory quickly with large file sizes. Not many graphic design options such as a text tool or shape tool. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Upgrade to PaintTool Sai2, it's a big improvement to the program. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it to draw character illustration for a video game company. It's cheap but effective for art. ### 19. A software for noobs and manga fans **Rating:** 1.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tayna M. | Social Media, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2017 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** It is a easy program to use, you learn fast most of its features and it is reacheable. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It is not so well equiped like Krita and Photoshop, and it has a status of being a software for noobs and manga fans, which I agree strongly. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you need a software with stabilizer and good tools for digital art/painting I do not recommend PaintTool SAI, I recommend Krita, that has stabilizer, it is a open software, free to download and it is very similar to Photoshop, which can help your adaptation if you wish to change to Photoshop in the future. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've used it in the beggining of my carreer on illustration, because it was easy to use and I was learning. At the time, the best feature was for sure the stabilizer. ### 20. sai the best **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** beronica c. | graphic designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2017 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Is an excellent program of basic and average illustration, has a fairly easy to use interface, I can alter my bar of brushes and create as many as I want, it is very comfortable when using my tablet, i can have many documents open at the same time and the program is very light my pc does not get slow when using the button to flip the view is the maximum, it is also easy to use and locate each tool, i can create my own color chart and have access to it all the time,being able to work with layers is the maximum for the organization and also have the option to alter them, the stabilizer greatly improves my pulse by making any stroke which is one of the best things that it has. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** For being so simple, is also very limited in certain things, for example there are not many layers modes to choose from, there are not many formats to export, if you work with mouse is complex and you do not take full advantage of it, does not contain text or gradient application, i can not print from sai, which is very uncomfortable because I have to export the artwork to other programs and change colors **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** With this program it will always be necessary to have another support for certain applications that it can not perform but in general you just have to try it and it is very easy to get used to it, you get a lot of money if you have a digitizing tablet **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I can do quality illustrations in a simple and fast way since knowing the tools is very easy. My clients have been happy with the results ### 21. Best Graphic Program I've found **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** J Marie D. | Self Employed, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2017 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Easy to use, great for artists. The layer system makes it so that you don't have to worry about messing up the lines you already did. It works with tablets, and has multiple ways that you can input the colors you want, from an eyedropper, to RGB, HSV, and a color wheel. There are a lot of different brushes available to use for different stroke types. Layeres can be changed in Opacity, as well as style. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The layers are fairly simple and - unlike Photoshop - you cannot apply a function styling to them, to add embossing, stroked outline, glow, etc. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** This is a tool for artists, not for photo manipulation. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** creating graphics for website ### 22. Great Software, But Not Well Supported **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bobby F. | Illustrator, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 20, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Sai is by far the most comfortable program to work in. Sketching, inking and painting in it feels like a dream compared to Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. It offers stabilization and some lovely blending tools you'll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. The simple interface makes it a delight to work in as well. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** This is maybe the least supported program I've ever used. It is 32 bit, and will only use up to 4GB of RAM. You also cannot exceed a certain size canvas, which is extremely frustrating in many cases. The RAM thing might be the biggest problem - I very frequently get trapped in SAI and cannot save or export my work due to this problem. The toolset is also very limited - no gradients, no text, and brush sizes cap at 500px. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Do not rely on SAI as your only program. Save your files, FREQUENTLY. Also, download Doxy/Onta's brushes - they're beauts. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Not many, to be quite honest. SAI is a very limited program and unfortunately does not aid in many business problems. As a freelance illustrator, I do find that I'm able to quickly and comfortably draw in it, however there are frequently issues that force me into other programs such as Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop. ### 23. Paint Tool Sai Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anna K. | Medical Secretary, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 05, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** - one of the best color blending visually, - light software size, - psd compatible, - 2 window options, - really easy to use, - line correction stabilizer, - really easy interface, - ease of creating and saving new brushes, - compatible with most systems and tablets, - there are lots and lots of sai tutorials and brush settings, and the community is really welcoming and helpful, - it can me copied on a pendrive and moved between machines - no need for reinstall. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** - no shape brushes, - the line tool doesn't have the "close/connect" option for making closed shapes, - no text function, - can bug out from time to time, but most of the things are easy to fix (like restarting the software, or cleaning the drivers). **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Sai is for artists who prefer more "free" style of drawing, as it lacks the vector component. But the original functions in the software make it worth the use. Compatible with most systems/tablets as well. The price is very affordable, comparing it to the mainstream software, it's cheaper than it's worth. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** after switching to sai from photoshop, work is easier, as the program doesn't lag as much, opens and saves files faster, as well as having better color blending. ### 24. great for Line inking **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 20, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Stabilizer is great, making your line smoother and more elegant. LineWork Layer is my fav. It's very easy to modify the pen pressure, thickness of the line, and very easy to change shape, 10 times better than Photoshop bezier based pen. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** doesn't really support Mac. That's the biggest draw back. The brush setting is a bit confusing. I am so used to photoshop brush settings, it's little hard to get my head around with so much options. I guess the several good preset with LESS options are better. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you need a stable hand, SAI is the way to go. It's perfect for Manga style inking. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Illustration, line inking, comic. ### 25. My Go-To Illustration Program **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lisa W. | Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 09, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I know a lot of artists use Photoshop or Illustrator to draw digitally, but since SAI is specifically geared towards drawing, it's a lot more user-friendly and direct. Also, it takes up much less RAM and is portable, so I can use it whenever and wherever I want. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** There isn't much to dislike with such a cheap and efficient product. It's a much more affordable alternative to many of the other programs out there. However, I do wish that there were more brush or editing options. Also, the vector functions aren't as sophisticated as in the Adobe Suite. One problem that I often have is getting the pen pressure to work. Sometimes, the program doesn't respond to the drawing tablet that I'm using. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** This is a great program to ease into digital art. It's direct and efficient. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use PaintTool SAI to create both personal art and illustrations for clients. It's useful for quick sketches and to give a more painterly feel. ### 26. Great tool for quick tasks **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Catalina C. | Illustator, Animation, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 04, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The brushes on paint tool sai are definitelly it's stronger point, The default brushes are amazing and you can create your own. the other thing amazing about paint tool sai it's the color scheme visualitation, the sample menu and the color mix tool. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It lack of vectors and few blending modes limits Paint tool sai to be just a sketch software. A sad thing since Paint tool sai has one of the most beautifull brushes i've ever used on a ilustration software before. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Consider what you want it for before purchasing it. Paint tool sai only works with bitmap (even thou it has a vector tool). I recommend it for sketching more than any other thing since all the strokes feel more oranic here than in other softwares like Photoshop. it can be used for illustrating aswell due it's brushes, but i've seen betters softwares for coloring since Sai lacks of many blending modes (It has about 6 blending modes). **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used to make storyboards on sai, but since i adquired a software better for it, i now use sai just for sketching. ### 27. The easiest paint canvas to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Drago H. | Web Designer, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 27, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Paint Tool SAI is a painting tool. Mainly for drawing and painting, and not editing. Paint Tool SAI experience is just like the real pen and paper experience. the drawing is fluid and if you use pen tablet, you can customize the speed of your pointer so you can make it more accurate just like using real pen. You can customize brushes, see other people setting or make your own. brushes setting is very complex yet simple. you can even customize the effect of your pressure pen, is it more size of your brush, or even the thickness of your paint. You can even have layers just like other photo editing program. what makes it more to liking is that you can have two kinds of layer. Vector layer and normal layer. for mouse user is easier to use vector layer, because the vector making is very simple to use, you can even add pressure pen effect for the lines that you make in vector layer. You can even save the file in various format, such as .PSD or .AI. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Paint Tool SAI so far is the best drawing program that I ever use. but for some reason, searching for it n the internet is much harder than the other app. You can easily find the trial on the internet, but physically finding the physic product is hard. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** I recommend to anyone who is an artist or who like to do a digital drawing. Paint Tool SAI is very easy to use even for beginner. is it for drawing from scratch or just doing the coloring. Paint Tool SAI is a great painting program. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** just as the name sound, Paint Tool SAI is painting program. so Drawing and painting is much more easier using this program. making vector or making bitmap art in a single program is very useful for game designer and artist. ### 28. Smooth and Great **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Viennarz C. | Web Application Developer, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 29, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The smoothness , realistic of strokes and pen pressure when using with graphics tablet. It responds well to the pen without strokes delay or also know as 'Brush Lag'. I love personally the Pen, Brush and Watercolor because it feels similar to traditional medium. The blending is great. It can save to different formats like PSD, JPEG, PNG and SAI. The software is not memory hungry or very light that you can open other software. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Has limited features and lack of layer order functionality. Layers in a folder cannot be moved. Some bugs and crashes sometimes when the file is very large or working on a very high resolution. Not much community and no big improvements in every new version. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Perfect for a touch of traditional feel . Great for Lineart and sketches. Very Light software. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Lack of functionalities and software crashes when there too many layers and very high resolutions. ### 29. Excellent for sketching **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ronztoon A. | Freelance 2D Animator and Illustrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 11, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Paint Tool is a simple tool, it's almost like doing it all in the traditional way, only with paper and pencil. The touch with pencils is superbly accurate on a graphics tablet, it is more sensitive than more advanced programs such as Photoshop and allows you different types of lines and strokes. When you save any file, it is very light and you can export it to almost any format while preserving your strokes and effects. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** What we do not like about this program is that many things are not as automated as the integration between coats. I think they have potential but have lagged a bit behind with respect to new versions. However, if that version is the one that has been found suitable for the time, then it is good to remain so for a while. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** It is a quick and easy program to use, there is so much to learn, just your graphics tablet and drawing. If you like it simple and traditional, this is the program. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm part of illustration and animation in a production house, and when doing the storyboarding, it is very comfortable and easy to perform them quickly and accurately. ### 30. Use PAintTool SAI for the last 7 years and still love it! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anna K. | Illustrator, Fine Art, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 26, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** There are two features in Sai I prefer the most: 1. Brushes. I don't know why, but I really can't make coloring as soft and smooth in Photoshop as I do in Sai. Their brush settings really simple and obvious and to change them is really handy and quickly. 2. Stabilizer. This function helps me A LOT when I have to create very accurate and neat lineart. How I understand it, it is a speed of how your tablet pen draws the line. And again, it's so handy and you can go through speeds (0 - 22) easily. 3. I adore Flip Horisontally in SAI 4. I do like SAI has the variety of how to view color palette: color wheel, RGB slider, scratchpad, user palette and other. You can switch on two a more at once. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Again, there are several things that make SAI not ideal program)) 1. You can't work in CMYK color model, only RGB. It's a HUGE minus. 2. It's a bit complicated to work with layers. For example, you can't select several of them to change together - to put them higher/lower in the layers list. It has a "link translation/deformation/filtering to working layer " and this mark allows you to work with several layers, but it's less convenient as in Photoshop. 3. I'm not sure, but my version of program (or system because I don't know what influences on it) doesn't allow me to make a brush in any size - it has like a limit size and usually it's not big enough. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Try it) **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm an illustrator and coloring of my pictures I prefer do in SAI. But sketching and color sketching I always do in Photoshop because it's easier do changing of shapes/sizes/etc there. SAI allows to save your works in the most spread formats - no problem here. In common, SAI is cool program, you just have to know how to work in it and find out some secrets :) ### 31. Great Application! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raúl Eugenio Tadeo Y. | Graphic Designer, Human Resources, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Well. Paint Tool SAI is a very light, but capable application focused on art, mostly. The simplicity of the interface and the various tools make it a very good choice for beginners and experienced artists alike. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** the disparity of having to "switch gears" to put it somehow in simple words. This meaning that if you are using other design/art programs and then go to SAI, some shortcuts change by default (although you can customize those too), causing some confusion if your workflow becomes natural and almost automatic. Another weak point would be the lack of blending modes and different layer options, especially if you compare it to other Programs like Adobe Photoshop. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Expect the basic stuff only at first and learn the tools. Experiment with them, they're easy to use and customize. I'd say the learning curve for this program is really, really, easy and straightforward. It also works very well with graphic tablets. Some features are missing in here, but the compatibility and saving formats available makes up for it, as you can easily open your files in any other art/design application if needed. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Well, as a Freelancer Artist, this is a very solid option for a multitude of art solutions i need to manage. The customization between tools and shortcuts is very nice and the workflow is very simple and natural once you get the hang of it. ### 32. PaintTool SAI is an easy and simplistic program for creating art **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stefanie L. | Lab Technician, Chemicals, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** SAI has a very user-friendly interface which makes navigating through functions easy. It's like a more simplistic version of Photoshop, just without all the fancy filters or tools. It was not at all difficult for me to adapt to. I personally love the various brushes and tools. The brush tool in particular actually blends colors together automatically for you (whereas in Photoshop you have to do it manually). The tools come with many options that allows you to customize them and also create entirely new tools that can be personalized to fit your style. Custom brush shapes and textures can be downloaded for free around the internet to create even more unique tools. Also, you can save files in SAI as PSD's, which allows easy transfer to Photoshop for editing without losing the layers. Helpful if you need to go back and forth between SAI and Photoshop. Lastly the View Rotation button is a Godsend. It allows you to rotate your canvas, making it easier to create certain brushstrokes without having to constantly use the Transformation tool. Also there's a button that flips the canvas horizontally, which is helpful to view your drawing in an opposite way to catch mistakes, again, without having to "transform" it constantly and loosing the quality of the image. Overall it's a nice program for drawing. And its cheap! **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It doesn't have many functions other than tools for drawing purposes. As I mentioned before, it does not have special functions like filters or other editing tools that Photoshop has. It's a basic drawing program and not much else. Some of the custom settings for the tools can be confusing as to what they do and how they effect the brush strokes, but it just takes a bit of tinkering with to understand how they work. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** PaintTool SAI is great for digital painting and creating vector-like drawings. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** SAI helps me create a cleaner piece of artwork faster and easier, whereas it's more difficult to create the style I desire in programs such as Photoshop or Corel Painter. ### 33. About PaintTool Sai **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lara M. | Diseñadora Gráfica Senior, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Sai allows a broad compatibility of files, so normally I start with my hand sketch exported, or direct digital sketch in Sai, and once I decide to use complex tools, I can save the file as a .PSD to continue in the other program, which is really useful. Why do I insist that the simplicity and quickness are virtues in Paint tool Sai? Because it has varied and effective tools for processing lineart, -whether in possession or not of drawing hardware like a graphic tablet- such as Line, Curve, and Pen. These specific tools used to DELINEATE are coupled with the possibility of constant manipulation thanks to its automatic NODES, resulting in a perfect layout and personal taste. Now, technically speaking, Sai is a free software specifically designed for drawing that you can download in various languages according to your needs, completely free and not at all heavy. You can open an image in any color mode, save as .jpg and .png with transparency, you can choose to work full screen, you can verify keyboard shortcuts, configure the image size and canvas, and more. In my opinion, Sai is made for convenience, and that's wonderful. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Do I have something to say against it? Not that I can think of. I use Sai more every time, and I have familiarized with it without a problem, I'm really happy with this program and the ability to link it with Photoshop, I think it's my favourite item to compose a drawing on, since I mostly prefer to do colouring there. That means that I'm not using SAI to its maximum potential... Can you imagine? **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** So, for those who are used to working with Adobe programs and wish to broaden their horizons in illustration, I would recommend Sai with absolute confidence. I could say that Sai and Photoshop are allies in the process of illustration: both share certain keyboard commands, the use of nodes, the ability to work in layers and some really useful blending modes, effective selection tools, both work with layer masks, to name a few. Both programs complement each other to achieve limitless image results. Well, I hope that if you use this program you'll find it as useful as I do, and that you'll be able to exploit it to the fullest. So long and good luck! Do not forget to visit my Behance profile, if you want to see some of my doodles and other works. https://www.behance.net/lymworks **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I need to draw everytime in my job. Today, Sai is the software I use the most for my pieces since I discovered it, and I've been liking it more with each day since then. This is mainly due to the ease in the handling of tools and variables, I think it is much more functional and tidy than Adobe Photoshop for processing Line Art. (Normally, all my works are made with the use of Sai and Photoshop) ### 34. Digital painting, the way it should be done. Magnificent! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sumit R. | owner, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 20, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** PTS has a straight forward approach for digital artists. While I was searching for some lightweight PS alternatives, I was amazed to find it had only such tools which I needed for artworks only, may it be simple line-art illustration or a painting on a large canvas. The developers tho knew what a professional artist/illustration may need, so they designed this digital painting software the way it meant to be used. There is canvas flipping and rotation, it feels like I am working on a real work-space - not on a computer screen. Have I told about the awesome color blending you can achieve in PTS? Easy Paint Tool Sai - really made my workflow easy. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** There is no limit to human expectations, tho I am mostly satisfied with all the features provided by PTS, I had expectations for rulers and guides. Tho I learnt in latest version perspective rulers have been introduced. The most annoying thing I face is the panel placements. I use a laptop for drawing - for some tools (say normal brush) when I need to toggle dense/size/blend, I have to turn off the color selector to bring that portion visible. If color selector, toolbar and tool options were in separate panels, it wud be great. So a redo on the UI wud be great! Lastly PTS is dependent on physical memory - more ram you have, more layers or larger dimension you can play on. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you are looking for a paint program which wud include all (even not used frequently) graphic, photo enhancement and manipulation features, then please don't go for PTS! But if you are a serious professional artist and focusing only on digital sketching and painting AND want an effective painting program - this is your weapon. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was looking for some simple sketching/scribbling softwere which wud come handy for quick concept sharing with my clients. And my search ended when I found PTS! Now for any creative project like Illustration, cartooning, comics or any kind of artwork - PTS is my tool. ### 35. a GREAT drawing program from amateur to refined! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sara C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 19, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The flow of the brush is really soft, plus the stabilizer make the cleaning part really easy. The watercolour tool blends amazingly and you can export and save files to make it compatible wit Photoshop for example. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Since it's a drawing program, not an editing one, it lacks some little things like an ellipse tool. Honestly all the filters you might want to 'spice-up' your piece **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** First of all, This is a software for ONLY Windows, it loses it's pressure driver if used with an emulator and as it was mentioned, since it's mostly a graphics-software, it might require some tweaking extra software like a newer Photoshop version for adding borders and effects, or Clip Studio Paint for working with comics. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a freelancer and depend on several drawing and editing software, Paint Tool SAI it's inexpensive for what it offers. Plus you can add more to your stash. ### 36. Paint tool SAI for artists **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Victor B. | Diseñador gráfico, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 19, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I'm a big fan of paint tool sai use it for sketching and artwork , style is my favorite manga and comic .I love the simplicity of the program , eh I tried other programs like photoshop, gimp study manga and none liked me as much as paint tool sai **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** the paint tool sai program lacks text tools , reticles , perspective, color mode CMYK , tiff file option and predesigned basic shapes , circle , triangles , boxes , stars and illustrator **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** The program is easy and simple to use highly profecionales allows you to work , would recommend to novices and profecionales paint tool sai is a great tool for illustration, thoroughly recommended **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Currently, I use this program for sketches, line-art, paintings, illustrations, comics and desing concept for t-shirt, character designs, t, logos, banners, mascots and icons . This program and my simple tablet has help my work more simple and fun ### 37. Painting made easy!! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daryl G. | Cashier, Retail, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I am a big fan of speed painting and drawing and PaintTool Sai is a great tool for getting the job done fast and effectively. I mostly use it for character designs, comics and illustrations and Adobe Illustrator for vector the final image. The learning curve for this program is good where any user can catch on within hours. I myself have learned to use this painting program in a variety of ways including photo editing and .gif animation (drawing each frame on a separate layer then animating the layers in Adobe photoshop). Users can personalize quick keys to their liking and special textures can be added to layers. I also teach an afternoon class on cartooning using PaintTool Sai. There are communities online with tutorials and unique settings that they share and manipulating brushes is helpful. I personally use 16 distinct brushes including actual watercolor and acrylic like textures and a special 64 color palette that mimics the golden age comic book coloring format. The sky's the limit when using this simple and easy program. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The only things I find rather annoying is the lack of type texting and rulers/guides. This program is great for freehand illustration but terrible for strict work where every detail must be appropriately measured. Hand lettering isn't my forte so I try my best to leave space for adding text in another program (usually adobe illustrator.) **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Invest in a good pen tablet and check online for any updates from the site or community. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Currently, I use this program for sketches, line-art, paintings, illustrations, comics, character designs, visual development, logos, banners, mascots, icons and simple animation. This program and my simple intuos tablet has help my home business grow. ### 38. Love this program, somewhat almost close to perfect. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shadia A. | Freelance Artist, Arts and Crafts, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I personally like the the stabilizer function, it helps me with creating smooth lines that I don't get with other programs, The watercolor and blur brushes are the best one's I've seen. I usually don't get such a smooth blending with other programs. It has modes to make the canvas textures as well as textures for the brush. The brush textures can be adjustable on how much of the texture do you want in your brush. It allows you to flip the canvas, which is a function I haven't seen in another art program as far as I am aware. Its very easy to use specially for beginner artists. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It lacks some layer modes and layer effects that Photoshop and Manga Studio have, so its a bit annoying having to constantly go back and forth between programs to use certain tools. It only has painting brushes and has a severe lack of special effects brushes (stars, hatching, flowers, etc) and sometimes minimizing a texture effect on the brush renders the entire brush useless, so you would have to shut off the effect entirely. It also lacks rulers and grinds which could be helpful if an artists wants to do perspective drawings. Tools like layer effects, binarization, pixelation, etc are all lacking in this program. There is also a big issue with consuming so much of your computers RAM, that it wont allow me to save my files in any format but PSD. It lacks CMYK compatibility and wont open a file that's been saved on CMYK. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you want to use this program I also recommend having Manga Studio or Photoshop at hand so you can edit and have effects if you use those. Aside from that its a great program for beginners of digital art. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** This artworks allows me to deliver my art as fast as possible without sacrificing its quality. ### 39. Preasant revelation **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ana Patricia R. | Graphic Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** -The software interface is very intuitive. Is easy to deduce how to use every tool. - Be allowed to change the tool settings in a huge variety of combinations brings a lot of possibilities. You can play freely with every texture. - BLENDING **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** I think it could be useful to add more effects on image adjustments or filtres. Even it could be nice to add some physics tools, like that effects that add lights and shadows based on global lights or perspectives. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** You really should try to use it. At first it didn't represent so much to me because I used to think i was too basic. But I started to play with settings and tool mix and I fell in love with. The software is really useful and if you start to play with it, you can discover a huge range possibilities. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** It brings me a freely management of tools. The property of blend strokes creates more natural effects, like traditional painting. It had helped me in discover new techniques that I couldn't in other software. ### 40. Potential under simplicity **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David F. | Diseñador/Ilustrador, Graphic Design, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The easy-to-use once it's on the screen, the lineart tool which I'll always be a fan of and mostly, what had me using it even when there were some other good options out there: The water tool. That thing alone made me a SAI dependent for a while, I admit. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The fact that it is still not a professional tool at all due to the lack of features that, even if I was happy with it when I was still studying my degree on Graphic Design, started to feel necessary once I started to look for actual work. Those features are, summarizing: -Lack of basic editing tools such as text, poligonal lasso, among others (which Photoshop had but I hate it for painting so I had to switch between both constantly). -Lack of CMYK color mode and good color profile support (which is an big issue for professional artists that also switch between programs). -Canvas size limit due to memory limitations (sometimes it doesn't matter the size if the work is simple). -Lack of multilanguage support. -Lack of dark UI support (very usable, relaxes the users eyes). **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** It is a good tool for beginner, even if you are working on a professional environment, but consider that its own color profile doesn't match anything else on other program so it is hard to get optimal results if you are switching between tools. Game assets and stand-alone illustrations that can be done solely on SAI, are perfectly suited to work professionally, **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mostly any related to illustration using digital painting. I'd add some animation support if I could myself since I've used it even for animation frames. ### 41. PaintTool SAI is my favourite software to draw with. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Karmi P. | Visual Content Designer, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** It has brushes (e.g. marker tool, brush tool), effects (e.g. fringe, luminosity), and textures (e.g. watercolour A & B) that I can't find anywhere else. Discovering them, experimenting, and applying them changed the way I looked at art and my style as a whole. I've grown dependent on these features to give my art a certain edge that can't be reproduced or mimicked in other programs such as Photoshop or CorelDRAW. Other awesome features include: - A unique colour blending system which is fun to play around with. It's different from other programs, so it'll also give different results. - An easy way to flip the canvas. Extremely important for us nit-picky folks. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It's tricky adding new brushes, patterns and textures, especially when you just want to draw and you're not really inclined to go through the hassle. I find it more difficult compared to Photoshop, so I just don't bother and stick with defaults. Features that need improvement: - CMYK definitely needs to be worked in. I take up an unnecessary amount of time and computer memory exporting to Photoshop just to get my work print-ready. - I've experienced file corruption. I've never figured out why it happened and there's no way to restore the file. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Look up tips and tricks from other artists also using SAI. There are little cheats and features that pack a punch once you find out they exist. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** One of my most important works was inspired by hand drawn watercolour illustrations. If I used a different program, I would've needed new brushes and separate watercolour textures, but SAI already had the everything I needed by default. I think it's the best software if you're going for a more organic-looking output. ### 42. Simple and at the same time very good, I like it simulates traditional techniques **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Felipe D. | Ilustrador, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** It`s easy and simple to use, it has good tools, it simulates very well traditional techniques. I liked a lot to use it for inking and digital coloring. Specially I used one brush I liked very much, better than the Photoshop standard brushes. For example, I used a lot this software for this project, with better results in the "Maple Syrup Page": https://www.behance.net/gallery/23026607/The-Canadian-Leaf-Comic-Book The color gradation works very well with the pen pressure of my Wacom tablet. Also I liked a lot to use thsi software for inking. Here a sample: http://fav.me/d55vng8 Again, I prefer make the inking with Paintool Sai than Photoshop. The result is more similar to inking traditionally. You can get a clean line and again it recognizes very good the pen pressure. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Only I didn`t like that if I have fonts in a psd file, after the coloring, if I wanted to edit the texts I couldn`t do that. The other thing that there`s not a version for Mac that works fine (I had OS X 10.9). I tried to get Sai for my Mac and didn`t recognize the Wacom pen pressure. I also tried to contact to the creators of the software or get technical service for solving the problem but I couldn´t. Only for that I didn`t put a mark of 10. But if it could get a new version of Paintool Sai for latest OS X of Macintosh I would get back to using it. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Anyone. I used this software for making illustrations, comic pages. I didn`t use this software for business. ### 43. PaintTool SAI: easy but great tool for drawing & painting **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Petra v. | Writer / Blogger, Media Production, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** PaintTool SAI is fast and easy, everything you need for drawing and painting is already there. Next to this you can create your own brushes and edit options like density, opacity, texture, shape and the amount of blending. Talking about blending: I found that this works a lot better in SAI than in a lot of other drawing applications. Next to that, you have a build-in stabilizer for smooth lines. For me, as an illustrator, SAI is absolotely very useful. You can also save in Photoshop file format, so you can continue editing in Photoshop if needed. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** It is difficult to add new brush shapes/textures, you'd have to change/add things in the file folders instead of in the application itself. I personally don't need it, since I use their given options, but it might be complicated for others. Another thing that bothers me is that some of the layer blending modes tend to behave different than that of other drawing/painting software. "Luminosity" works great in SAI, but when I open it in Photoshop it opens like "Add" or something else that does not have the same effect. The pen tool is a bit weird to me, it makes good curves but you can't easily change thickness of the line etc., so I wouldn't recommend it for that. Also, you can't draw in CMYK in it, so you'd need to convert it later if you need it for accurate printing. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** You can try it out for a short period of time, so try it if you like! **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** - faster drawing because of better performance; - brushes blend/paint a lot better than other software; - color picking is easier because of standard wheel - pleasant experience: it does what you need as an artist, makes it easy to use - cheap price ### 44. It's a great paint tool, but a bit outdated. **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Glen F. | artista digital, Entertainment, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 04, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** I like it's lightness and the simplicity of the tools, I especially like the color blending capabilities which leave an oil paint feeling when using the tools. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Is doesn't have continuous support, it already feels outdated with some limitations on image size. The texture options for the brushes need an overhaul. It lacks circle selection, font support, rulers. It needs an overhaul to the distortion and selection tools as well. Lacks more modes in the tools (overlay, lighten, color dodge, etc.) **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Paint Tool SAI is a good but very outdated application but it seems there won't be an update in a foreseeable future, so I would recommend using Paint Storm instead which is a very similar tool with updated and improved features and has constant updates, and costing only half the price of SAI. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** It was my go to application until not long ago, it was a friendlier and light application to paint with even though it had some limitations in its features I was able to create art easily and far more satisfactory than I ever did with Corel Painter. ### 45. Perfect for a wide range of Artists **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Emma H. | Trainee Designer, Publishing, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Being an artist myself, I have spent time searching for a decent art program that can provide the tools that I need to create; and Paint Tool Sai does that extremely well. A program with smooth lines, intricate detail, and vector artwork is great for any digital designer - especially those interested in manga art, but also other types of styles as well. Other things which are beneficial from using this art program over others include it's price. Incredibly affordable, with its 31 day free trial that accompanies the download - just to give you a taste of its power. It also supports pressure sensitivity, which is something nearly all modern digital artists need to get the strokes they desire. Also, works well with touch screen computers. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** What I find is a gripe with using Paint Tool Sai as a primary drawing station is that it can be difficult to edit drawings when you have finished them - unless you plan to draw all sections of your images on many different layers, don't expect to have the flow and control over your lines that other rival programs may offer as a base. Also, the layout can get finicky rather quickly, and unless you know the software already, it can be a pain to learn. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Consider this - do you want to be able to draw smooth lines, with the ease to edit and change them, all the while it still looking pretty good? Paint Tool Sai is your go to. Perfect for manga art, as well as a whole range of other art styles. A very workable program, and for a good price. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have realised the benefits of drawing in vector without the constraints of using Adobe Illustrator. Adobe illustrator is for just that - illustration - but lacks the usability of a art and drawing program - as opposed to design. What Paint Tool Sai offers in retaliation of this is the workability of a program like Photoshop, but the vector and design ease of Illustrator. ### 46. Looks like beta but I love it. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ivan E. | Ilustrador, Animation, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The quality of the line art and pencil tools works incredible smooth. Inking with SAI and blending colors its so nice. You can't do that kind of lines and mixtures using Photoshop,vbut the good one is that SAI is compatible with Adobe, so you have the best of two worlds. Another one good point is that SAI doesn't needs much ram or memory space. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** I dislike how limited are the tools, like the lazo and the arrow to move objects. Also the thumbnail in the layer shows blank even is not blank. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you loke smooth lines and good custom brushes you'll love SAI. Even looking like a Beta software is good enough and is COMPATIBLE with photoshop, that makes it better. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Inking comics and doing comercial Illustrations. ### 47. Easy and fast to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Thais "Magnta" C. | Illustrator, Fine Art, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 23, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** The software is really simple and fast to use. It's really soft for the computer compared to other softwares loke PS. With everything you need. Big amount of possibilities with brushes. My favorite is the perfect pen stabilation for the best lineart. It can be use by begginers and profesional artists because is super easy amd fast to understand to understand, it's not overwhelming like PS' layout. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Lack of text tool. Gets stuck when the file is too heavy having too many layers. Canvas maximum around of 8000x8000. Waiting for SAI2 but slow progress. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** It's the best for illustrations, not so much for Graphic Design you'll use PS anyways. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use the software for all my illustrations. ### 48. Easy and Hassle Free Digital Art **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Arpita B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Painttool SAI has an extremely simple user interface. It's stability option is a blessing for people who are just getting used to using graphic tablets. You can customize brushes and experiment a lot with stroke styles and save the ones that you prefer. It also has a very active community online to discover and use new brush settings. Plus, the lineart options are fantastic once you get accustomed to using them. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Not a lot of 'effects' options. Tools can be hard to get used to. Definitely needs more tools such as Ruler and Text. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you are looking for a software that is most similar to drawing with traditional media, please give PaintTool SAI a chance. It might take some time to getting used to, but you will be extremely satisfied with the result. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a fashion designer, I have realized that sometimes it is easier to use the lineart on Paintool SAI to do do illustrations and flat drawings. SAI is a lot more close to traditional drawing media than other softwares currently available. ### 49. Great product, definitely worth the purchase **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jorge "Meguro" P. | Freelance Digital Artist, Fine Art, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** Super light and fast. Perfect for sketching/flats/coloring. Brush stabilizer is very helpful for control. Anti-alising is quite remarkable. Vectorial lines are smooth and everything feels more natural. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** Memory issues when working with big files. The non-existing ability to save and keep different brush settings ie: Photoshop's tool presets. No CMYK. Brush customization in need of improvements. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** Easy, cheap, fast, lightweight, works well with any additional painting/editing software. Great brushes, blenders, color mixers. Merging certain effects in layers might seem a little complicated at start and in certain situations but once you get the hang of it everything works fine. Vector tools are excellent. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** Comic covers and illustration. Faster workflow especially when sketching. ### 50. SAI **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Animation | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2016 **What do you like best about PaintTool SAI?** SAI is a vector based program, and comes with a stabilization tool so any line art produced always looks extremely crisp and sharp. It has a wide variety of brushes and anyone can mimic just about any kind of painting style. The brushes will blend colors together and give textures that are brilliant. The program is quick to load and does not take a lot of ram, unlike many other paint programs. It also has quite a few of the same layer features Photoshop has and a somewhat similar interface. It has a color wheel which is a wonderful feature. It also has the ability to save in a Photoshop format so you can import all your work to Photoshop and add to it there or import Photoshop files to it. Just keep in mind it will convert any text to a regular layer as there are no text tools in the program. **What do you dislike about PaintTool SAI?** The biggest thing I dislike about SAI is it has no text tool and lacks certain features that necessary for graphic design. The program has also not been updated in several years so newer tablets often have problems working with it due to the program not reading the updated drivers correctly. In keeping the old drivers, sometimes you will randomly lose pen pressure and will need to reboot the program. **Recommendations to others considering PaintTool SAI:** If you are a painter or cartoonist and looking for a good alternative to Photoshop, give SAI a try. It's a pretty nice little program aside from some of the weird quirks. Do keep in mind it's a bit outdated, I have heard they are working on a new release, but I am not sure when they plan on releasing it. It's been said they plan on adding text tools and a bunch of new features. Load times diminish and you have the option to save in several different formats, including PSD. That is super handy for if you need to add text to something and want to keep your layers. Rarely would I get lag when using large brushes, unlike Painter or Photoshop. That is one of the things that sold me on it. **What problems is PaintTool SAI solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's quick to load, the line art is wonderful and therefore I've been able to work quickly and produce great looking line art. It has improved the speed at which I work. The brushes that blend are much easier to work with than Photoshop and again have sped up my workflow. Because it's fast to load and takes into account how much ram you are using it doesn't lag or freeze very often, and I find that extremely useful in comparison to Photoshop. ## PaintTool SAI Discussions - [Hello. I would like to know if there is any tool for highlights? Any brush you recommend?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/hola-quisiera-saber-si-hay-alguna-herramienta-de-brillos-algun-pincel-que-me-recomienden) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View PaintTool SAI pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/painttool-sai/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-13+08%3A39%3A08+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=955ac9f4-a6da-4889-bfa9-3202d52b0be3&secure%5Btoken%5D=c83067ab97badd0611b6d8bf6543aba2beed3191bd68c193084c6111baa0229b&format=llm_user) ## Top PaintTool SAI Alternatives - [Sketchbook](https://www.g2.com/products/sketchbook/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (173 reviews) - [ArtRage](https://www.g2.com/products/artrage/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (73 reviews) - [Procreate](https://www.g2.com/products/procreate/reviews) - 4.9/5.0 (70 reviews)