
Review
Autodesk Inc. is known for developing professional-grade designing softwares for engineering, 3D design and entertainment purposes. Sketchbook is their advanced 2D illustrator software chosen mostly by visual designers working on digital domain. It offers very natural drawing experience through its dedicated set of drawing tools and highly intuitive user interface.
The unique feature of Sketchbook is its wide range of supported devices. It is available for desktops powered by Mac and Windows and touch screen devices running on iOS and Android. That is, you can transform your ideas to napkin sketches digitally on-the-go and you won’t have to rely on graphics tablets always.
User Interface
Like any other Autodesk product, Sketchbook has also got streamlined user interface. Lion’s share of the screen is left blank for workspace and only a few necessary tools are made available on the screen. Most tools are hidden under quick access spots for making the primary screen look tidy and minimal. If you are working on a device with large screen and screen rotation support, you can switch between portrait and landscape orientations easily. For smaller screens, portrait will be the only option. But still, you can take control over the finest details of your artwork through its gesture zoom, which enlarges the canvas up to 2500% of its original size.
Sketchbook is designed to provide authentic and realistic drawing experience as close to marker, pen, pencil or brush on a normal paper as a virtual canvas can produce. There are about 14 preset Brushes in Sketchbook other than Flood fill tool and stamps, which support synthetic pressure sensitivity. That is, colors will get fade-off to the sides as on real paper. Brush stroking is always steady and smooth. You can work flawlessly using mouse, drawing tablet, touch screen or anything it supports.
What makes it great?
The software is enriched with a number of geometric drawing tools such as French curve, Ruler and Ellipse tool in addition to the highly customizable DIY (Do-it-yourself) brushes.DIY brushes include different sophisticated pencils, paint brushes, markers etc.for unleashing your maximum creativity. All versions of Sketchbook share the same renowned paint engine created by Autodesk. Overall, you won’t have to leave off your ideas due to insufficiency of resources.
In this new version of Sketchbook, a small mistake won’t destroy all your workflow as it supports layers in addition to undo and redo functions. Layers let’s you set each part of your drawing as different objects. Background layer coloring, Multi-layer selection, layer grouping of up to ten levels, advanced layer blend modes etc. are supported so that you can perform great partial or complete image selection, manipulation and transformation with ease.
Perspective guides are improved so that you can lay down the layer to perfect perspective within seconds. All-new perspective guides include Fish eye, 1-point, 2-point and 3 point modes. Now it is very easy to set vanishing points by simply dragging the transformation points to desired areas. Horizon lines can be adjusted inside or beyond the canvas.
Another main feature of Sketchbook is the presence of classic Photoshop selection tools such as magic wand and marquee tool, which enables quick selection. Distortion is also available. Gradient tool is replaced with Dynamic Flood fill tool which can produce radial, solid and linear gradients using rotatable points within the shape.
Sketchbook pro allows its users even express motion as in a flipbook using drawings as frames. Thanks to the collaboration with Maya software team that enabled this traditional animation workflow in illustrator environment. Animations are carried out using a minimal key frame timeline as in older versions of Adobe Flash.
Autodesk Sketchbook 7.0.1.58 Features
Here are the twelve great features people loves in Sketchbook!
- Large workspace with screen orientation support
- Multi-touch support and zoom level up to 2500%
- Layer grouping and blending functions for creative minds
- Add picture as layer directly from gallery or camera
- Outputs are saved directly to the gallery in mobile devices
- About 100 great drawing tools with great precision
- Text can be included in any layer
- Classic Photoshop tools and free transform function
- Hand drawing and doodling support
- Show your talent to the world using social media and deviantArt plug-in
- Copic Markers and Copic Color Library for producing best results
- Perspective guides can be handled like transform tools in Photoshop
System Requirements
Before jumping to download button, please make sure that your device can run it. Minimum system requirements are provided here.
-For desktops:
- OS: Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, 10.8
- Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8
- Processor: Any processor with 1GHz speed
- RAM: 1GB or more
- Graphics Card: At least 128MB with 720p display support
Pressure-sensitive pen or drawing tablet is recommended by Autodesk for taking the full power of the software
-For tablets and mobile phones:
- Android: Ice Cream Sandwich minimum, 1GHz processor
- Apple: supports iPod touch, iPhone and iPad running on iOS 6 or higher
Conclusion
Autodesk opens a world of infinite possibilities in front of digital drawing enthusiasts through its hundreds of brushes and tools. With great range of supported devices, you can carry this digital canvas on-the-go and produce professional-level outputs easily like napkin sketches. Sketchbook has two versions namely Express (free) and Pro (paid).Demo version of Pro is also available.
- Pressure sensitive tools for more precise drawing
- Smooth strokes with paint spreading
- About hundred great drawing tools
- Layer support for better workflow
- No pen-tool as in Photoshop
- No 3D drawing capabilities available
- Puppet warp is not available
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
I am using it for art to impress my family and show them my artistic potential. I also want to make a facebook page so my work will be shared internationally
design and draw what ever image i want to sketch.and also for my education purpose for high computer graphic designer as a career in the future