by CJ Bjornson

Created on: July 17, 2007   Last Updated: October 13, 2009

There is nothing like the feel of putting a pencil to paper, or stroking a loaded brush against canvas. The visceral action is essential in the creation of art. To put oneself into the art, one must be covered with the residue of paint and charcoal. Why, then, would an artist want to leave behind the messy involvement of traditional art media to pursue those offered in the digital world?

Computers offer an immediacy that traditional media do not allow. Digital paint doesn't need drying time. A computer screen needs no preparation. The mouse doesn't need to be cleaned afterward. And computers are much more forgiving than acrylics or pastels. A mistake can be easily remedied by a few keystrokes or a wave of the cursor. And with the use of a tablet and a decent paint program, you can attain all the action of traditional tools without the mess.

But where to begin? For an artists steeped in tradition, the leap to computer art may seem daunting. The backbone of most digital and computer generated images (otherwise known as cgi) is a paint program.

The most versatile and most widely used is Photoshop by Adobe. The interface is customizable so that the artist can set out the palettes that are most useful. There is a multiple "undo" function and a history brush palette that allows the artist to fix mistakes or errs in judgment without having to start from scratch. The drawbacks to Photoshop are: a moderate learning curve, but that can be overcome with a heavy amount of research and experimentation; the need for a good graphics tablet in order to utilize the programs pressure sensitivity; it's also not cheap.

Slightly less expensive is Adobe's Illustrator program, kind of a sister program to Photoshop. This program is designed with the traditional artist in mind, whereas Photoshop is geared towards photo manipulation (as well as art creation). There is a lot of overlap with Photoshop, but Illustrator narrows the beam a bit by focusing more on illustration techniques (hence the name). Illustrator makes use of vector based images more effectively than Photoshop, which allow for images that have less of a fuzzy-edged appearance and can work within Flash animations.

A free program that works equally well as Photoshop is GIMP. It is an open source program and can be found through a Google Internet search. It is very similar to Photoshop in its capabilities as well as its learning curve. But, again, it is free. If you have the time to invest but not the money, GIMP is a resource

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