PD Particles 9 Reviews

PD Particles 9 is a cheap painting program. As far as I'm aware it's the only piece of art software like this on steam that is this cheap so if you have limited needs or just want a bit of relaxing fun then it's an ideal buy. If you are more serious about your art then you will probably want PD Howler by the same company. Some of the drawbacks are no layers and a lack of accurate colour picking. The UI is also a little inconsistent and weird. The brushes are really great and customizable though, which is the best part about this program. If the program is on sale and you just want to draw, this is a no-brainer, buy it now.

This software is absolutely crab. Positive: 1. Good looking particles Negative: 1. It's in fullscreen, nobody needs fullscreen for a graphic software 2. You are not able to draw on transparent background (and save it as png), if I'm wrong, the useabilty of the software is even worse than I thought. So you cant reuse the particles in other software 3. The software is crashing all the time, is not in the taskbar, so minimize it, and you have to minimize all other windows to get it back (why?!?) I just want my money back.

not the best app ive ever used. but not the worst. alot of bugs. but nothing game breaking. i really wish i could give a nutral rateing. but since there are more good parts than bad im give it an upper

I made a guide to the keyboard shortcuts for this program in the Community Hub. A light version of Howler.... has essentials, but compared to Howler, has very little. Compared to most digital painting software, it has a truckload of tools. 'run as administrator' mode may be required. All tool grouping and keyboard shortcuts are non-standard and will make sense after a while. My 4 year old loves to use this program as of recent to paint. My wife also enjoys using this program to paint. It's a lot more than people think it is. It's too bad people aren't playing with it more to see that Update: While the content in buffers appears to not save while in buffers, I've found that the Swap buffer will save when using the lyr save option. The brush buffer(store brush) saves out and imports separately. Update: As of more recent testing, I'd say DCI 2K Native(2048 x 1080) is as large as you should go if you're planning to use the various plugins(k), like starfield. Update: As of most recent testing, PD Particles seems to handle A4 720ppi on my computer. (It does not handle A4 1200ppi on my computer.) To put this into numbers, normal HD is 1280 x 720, nice HD is 1920 x 1080, yet A4 720ppi is 5953 x 8419. [i]However, PD Particles does not handle 9921 x 14032 (A4 1200ppi) on my computer.[/i] There are no negatives at this price. In what ways is Particles unequal to Howler? Particles lacks a great many filters which Howler has and the depth of many filters that are available when compared to Howler's version of those filters. Animation Cells(animation cells inside of custom brushes are in Particles) and Video Editing are not present in Particles, but are present in Howler. Creating mountains and clouds through generated 3d extrusion/beveling and effects in Howler using the 3d designer is not present in Particles. 3d extrusion for graphs, walls, and roughed out cities is in Howler through Puppy Ray, but is not in Particles. It seems to me that Howler 10 has more processor available to it for functions, perhaps it is better at utilizing the GPU when it needs to or perhaps it is better at utilizing the CPU more fully when it needs to. There are more menu options for the various buffers in Howler 10, you can simply do more with various buffers in Howler 10 than in Particles 9 because the menu options are there to select. In what ways is Particles equal to Howler? The brushes. Particles has the particles, bristles, orbicles, foliage brush types, and the fx buffer brush styles, the animated custom brushes, and the detailed customization of the brushes. Saving custom brushes as images so the transparency works in the png file format is present too. If you focus on painting and appreciate the unique benefits that digital brushes can offer, then Particles is as good as Howler in many ways. If you live in the highway lane of digital shortcuts, then Particles isn't a good fit for you. In what ways is Particles unequal to natural painting? If you're used to the brush... digital is... never perfect, but it has it's advantages that are worth experiencing. However, if you do chinese/japanese painting with multi color loading, direction and pressure and rotation determining your gradients on the fly, use speed to create effects of hardness, and do everything in one stroke watching the watercolor lighten slightly each stroke till gone, and only loading the tip when desired to keep a thin dark for a leaf or part of a flower petal ...then there is nothing out there that does this. Maybe someday, but for now, the emulation just doesn't exist. The speed emulation exists on Fresh Paint by Microsoft and there are other attempts to create this... but if you do this style of painting, don't expect a digital equivalent, because there isn't one available. Update: I recently learned of a professional app in the Windows 10 store called Expressi which attempts simulate all of what I said couldn't be done in the programs that I knew of. That app Expressi is around $100 and expects a Wacom tablet with Pen that has tilt and an appropriate GPU. (It is most definitely installed as a trial on my computer... as I don't want to forget the name of such a unique app.)