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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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.

Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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? Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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 Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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 Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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 Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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.) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

-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 Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.