sbp 2009? 90 dollars for an upgrade? really?

[eblubeta]

hi.
long time sbp user/fan.
I was excited to see that there was Finally an update to the app.
its a good thing that SketchBook pro found some support in autodesk land.

but I am HIGHLY, and I can't make that as intense as it Should be, Critical of the price vs the actual features.

90 dollars for some minor (so...... minor) features. and thats for an upgrade!!! Its nearly 200 dollars for the whole thing!!!

Ok, Ok, maybe you can justify to me $200 for the package out of the gates. new users would be getting alot of new features. But 90 dollars for what amounts to a dear little bit of polish, leopard compatibility, tighter Photoshop integration, and a Fill bucket?

you are joking. You have completely missed the mark, Fallen short of the goals as described... three years ago? and to add insult to injury... the price is outlandish.

now, tell me that you've added the ability to Non-destructively rotate the canvas... then we start talking about the price being close to reality.

[cheungc]

Hey ebluBeta,

Sorry to hear that you didn't find enough value for yourself in SBP 2009. A lot of work did go into getting solid Mac UB and Vista support, plus a selection of features to improve workflow (preserve layer transparency, flood fill across multiple layers, PSD read/write, + minor enhancements and infrastructure). Not all features have the same value to all users, so it is too bad this release didn't meet your expectations.

As a fan though, hope you stay tuned. There is more to come, as we are already planning the next release... so your input and feature suggestion are appreciated.

c. Message was edited by: cheungc

[Sleek]

Hi
I definitely agree with eblubeta concerning rotating canvas. That's my favorite function in Painter and the one I miss the most in SBP. And it's been around since about...1989 ? 20 years. Actually I believed it was patented by Corel or prior owners and you couldn't add it !

Concerning price it's hard not to agree with eblubeta : Painter Essentials cost 49E, ArtRage 25$ and SBP 179E. And Painter was given with every Wacom shipped so actually it was free. But I'm slightly off topic here as the subject was upgrade price.
I do like SBP and I'm glad you added photoshop-layers. I don't feel integration with Studio is tight enough still.

I hope SBP will keep its simpleness and not become bloated with "moving flames" or the like.
JP Message was edited by: jpberlencourt

[eblubeta]

Hi cheungc,
Thanks for a timely and personal response, its always gratifying to hear directly from the devs, and I'm glad you took my post as it was intended, as constructive criticism rather than a petulant tirade. I'd like to comment on a few points if I may.

First lets just get this out of the way... stability, Every software company puts forth a great deal of effort to make a solid application (one would hope), the reality is Bugs sneak in to every app, and UI concepts are refined. Thats why we have point upgrades. Point upgrades are free, because the user paid good money for quality software, and it is implied that the software dev does everything in good faith to make that a reality. Sometimes, that means that the ideal isn't always embodied in the shipping product, and the devs graciously follow up with fixes/tweaks. Its very hard for me to accept at face value that I have to Pay for what are essentially bug fixes. I have already paid for a quality product, and if i do not have a quality product, as implied by bug fixes... then it is a serious ethical breach to charge money for it. Is it illegal? I don't know. But it is a critical point for me, where I ask myself if I can continue to do business with a company that is trying to blackmail me.

So while I, and all users appreciate the hard work and attention required to make a good product, lets never again refer to bug fixes, as features. There should always be bug fixes, interface tweaks, and the like, but they are simply not features.

So whats left over?
Better PSD support
Layers that work slightly More like Photoshop
a flood/fill tool- again... oddly Like Photoshop.

I can see that a lot of work went into these things. I personally know from trying to retro-fit the psd file format myself how hopelessly convoluted it is. I know that some people will really appreciate the tweaks, and the new flood tool.

Its simply not worth 200 dollars, or a 90 dollar upgrade price. I'm not comparing it to art rage (which btw, I think is crap, I'm sorry to those who feel otherwise) or Painter, or any other product. I'm weighing the advances made, vs. what you are asking me to pay.

I originally chose SketchBook Pro over Painter, because they were charging so much extra for things that don't make any difference to the overall value of the app. I don't care about image hoses, texture effects, layer masks. I wanted the core app, a light fast reliable natural media app. This was where sketchBook Excelled, and sadly, these latest tweaks, which, I am certain, are helpful to some, are NOT (in my book) relevant to the core of SketchBook Pro. I own Photoshop, I don't need another one. I hope you guys see the light, pull back, and reverse this course. SketchBook, is in a class of its own, and adding a crufty feature list of me-too-isms would only ruin it.

peace guys,
-eb

[milowerx]

You have to remember that Autodesk inherited this app. They have to get used to it before they add a million additions. Now I don't know about you but I would rather have my bugs fixed and some new features right now rather than wait another two years before seeing a full blown new app.

I'm not sure about what you use SBP for or what you think the core user group is, but for me, the two small additions as you call it are really REALLY useful to what.

Before they added the Bucket Fill, if I wanted to color something in, I would have spent hours coloring in just like the old days with markers. Kinda silly on a computer. As time is money for me, subtract two hours from my deadline and I can make an extra 600 bucks. That's triple the price of SBP.

Worth every penny.

Add in PSD support which lets me import and export into Photoshop and retain layers? Also extremely useful and saves me money.
Again... worth it.
I'm not sure what your profession is but trust me when I tell you that you do not speak for all SBP users.

If $90 is too much for you to spend you might be in the wrong business.

[squeakydave]

I'd just like to chip in here.
First up It is really good to see SBP has not been abandoned. I was so excited that I tried to buy it online.
Sadly because I live in the UK this is not an option. To buy it from a reseller it is £200...
*£200!* that is (at the current exchange rate) $368.126.

Some one is having a little bit of a joke surely?

Now I think I might have to bite the bullet and spend that money because SBP is pretty much the only drawing app that works properly on my tablet PC but I give you fair warning that I and my fellow UK citizens are feeling royally ripped off. Actually I am guessing that you don't sell many units in the UK so it is probably just me.

Rant over.

Dave
www.squeakypics.co.uk

[eblubeta]

it takes you 2 hours to make your brush bigger and swipe it across the screen 5 or six times? really? and you charge 600 bucks for THAT?

The target, or "core", market for SBP is the guys who DO draw with markers and Want to have THAT workflow on the computer. They want the randomness you get from working on paper. They don't need anything that works different from a marker, there doesn't need to be an elaborate interface... For SBP, anything that doesn't emulate paper, and markers is a waste. its like, adding an extra syllable to a haiku... it ruins the whole thing. I'm not adverse to saving time, but your example is laughable, and easily remedied Without adding a bucket tool.
the bucket tool has no analog in the real world, it has no stroke pattern, it has no randomness, it simply does not emulate anything.

I am thrilled SBP is not dead, but I stand by my assertion that it is now being steered in a direction that makes it into a glorified Photoshop clone. I already own Photoshop, so there is no value in forking over 90 bucks on something that wants to be, but isn't, what i already have. Oh look, Photoshop Now has a rotate canvas feature...

[Sleek]

Hello Edward,
I'm certainly not an expert as you are in SBP, and you made your point very clear. Keep the sketchbook metaphor, this is just a sheet of paper and a handfull of pencils, adding features will just degrade the software rather than upgrade it. "Less is more". Very clear. Excellent.
But I disagree on one point : to you "rotate canvas" is just another one of those "Photoshop me-too-ism". Well you certainly must be using a Cintiq screen/tablet then. You want to rotate your "sheet": you rotate the screen. Or your are very talented with a regular tablet !
Because it's kind of biomecanical : with the way an arm is made you are more confortable doing sharp curves, long curves and straight lines with different orientations. Or concave/convex curves. Don't you agree ?
With my workflow a Cintiq would be a smaller and more expensive screen like 98% of the time. But I still want to switch from paper sketching to tablet sketching, because it just makes sense in an all digital workflow.
So either SBP is just given with every Cintiq, as there always as been some kind of Painter with Wacoms, and that's it. Kind of an elitist and narrow market. If the market is to narrow will Autodesk put efforts in it ?
Or with a slight modification (that Cintiq user will just ignore), I rotate my tablet/I rotate my sheet, it's really "tablet usable".

What do you think ?

[eblubeta]

Jean-philippe,
generally speaking, I think canvas rotate features are a valuable feature for any natural media application, for all of the reasons you mentioned. Before Autodesk purchased Alias, Sketchbook was slated to have this feature in the very next revision to the app. It was frankly, the only thing I ever felt was missing from SBP. Painter had it, but nobody else did. People had been clamoring for the feature since Sketch Book made the jump from a pure cintiq workflow to a hybridized desktop workflow.

then Autodesk came in and Sketch Book languished for a few years. No updates no information. the team was broken up, and Autodesk "evaluated" Sketch book's viability. then Autodesk took hold of sketch book and steered it into some very muddy waters.

Then Adobe announced the feature list for its upcoming cs release. canvas rotate was among those features. Sketch book could NEVER compete with photoshop, and adding features Because Photoshop has them, is just ridiculous. It means you are always going to be on the bad end of an unfair comparison. Photoshop having achieved the ONE feature SketchBook Could have had years ago at about the same time SketchBook did, thats a clear sign of just how far away sketchbook is from its roots.

SketchBook is no longer a leader in interface, or workflow, they have decided to simply follow the herd, and ape what proves successful for the other natural media applications.

oh, and as for how I get around Not having canvas rotate... I rotate my wacom tablet 😉 takes a bit to get used to, but you can manage it.

[squeakydave]

Follow up to my UK Upgrade price
Well, I got sbp and to be honest it is worth every penny to me. I don't know how I managed without it. It is just so focused an works really well on my tablet PC.....Speaking of which:

Rotate canvas feature. I would love it! Although I have a TPC rotating it when drawing those difficult to get to lines I encounter some paralax which means it gets hard to be accurate. So it would get my vote

[Indigo901]

I downloaded the trial version of SketchBook Pro yesterday and it I have to say it is not too bad. However, some issues.. I can only find user manuals in Chinese or Japanese in the installation folder!? I can not find any downloads for manuals on Autodesks website? Nor is there any contact support for the software.

I appreciate the simplicity of the program like others already have mentioned, but still there is (at least for me) some major question marks..

For instance:

-tumble/rotate canvas in an arbitrary angle (not just rotating individual layers)?!! Mentioned 1000 of times but still!
-draw straight lines in any desired angle (not just 90- and 45deg)?
-create customizable brushes?
-type in own shortcuts?
-sel multiple layers?
-sketching using symmetry tools? Not integrated or what?
(Just to mention a few obvious points after playing around for a short time).

Digital sketching has some major advantages from regular sketching, why not make the most of it? I’m not comparing with Photoshop (it’s not for sketching), but it seems like AliasStudio has some sketching advantages going for it, why not sbp?