AKVIS ArtWork for Mac

User Reviews

• Very good app

  sdotti_dotmacJuly 14, 2014

  Pros

  Easy app to transform a photo into an artistic work. Many languages, well made, localization and contextual aids. Photoshop Plugin available. Free upgrades and quick support if needed.

  Cons

  Not so cheap (but Akvis offers discounts and also cheaper one-task app like OilPaint and Pastel).

  Summary

  I like it!

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• Oh dear. Very disappointed.

  grh-aklJune 26, 2010

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I don't really know where to start. This tool, which promises so much and offers to do exactly what I would love to do, is an enormous disappointment. I work with my own photographic endeavors and on behalf of clients who are way more talented than I am, including the world's most popular and successful art photographer, David Hamilton &lt;hamilton-archives.com&gt;. My clients and I earn our livings trying to achieve more or less exactly what this software promises to do. It is therefore a huge disappointment that it does so little and what it does do is rather pathetic. I can achieve more in Photoshop (admittedly way more expensive and whose filters also are somewhat pathetic and amateurish.) For a start, ArtWork is so un-Mac-like. There is no justification for designing an interface that breaks all the rules, probably so the designer can show how "cool" he is. Unique little icons, childish and unhelpful, clutter up the top of the work screen. As a consequence, the menu bar is so sparse, it's almost zen-like, ascetic. The work-space contains a "marching ant" rectangle, which cannot be resized unless you also resize the image itself, so there is no opportunity to select a larger or smaller sample area, though it can be re-positioned. However, because the work area offers two views, before and after, there is really no need for the rectangle at all. The work space can scroll vertically but, inexplicably, will not scroll horizontally except by going to an arcane Navigator area, which really has no other apparent use. The Navigator seems totally unnecessary to me. Strangely and frustratingly, you cannot move the rectangle itself in the Navigator area. You therefore must use three different movements (there is a non-standard zoom feature too) in order to set up your work space, when one should be enough. Once you've set up your work space, wasting several seconds using these three controls, you then can turn your attention to setting the controls to achieve the art-like results promised. The controls run down the right-hand side are not particularly intuitive. What does "simplicity" mean? Now comes the only nice thing i can say about ArtWork â?? some of the effects it provides are not bad. you are offered three choices, Painting, Text and Canvas. I just experimented in Painting. Four sub-categories are offered â?? Oil, Comics, Pen &amp; Ink and Linocut. i would have killed for Watercolor, while Linocut seemed to do nothing. A proper PDF manual would have been a great help. I felt lost, a sure sign of non-intuitive design. Mac users often pride themselves in being able to learn the fundamentals without needing to refer to a manual. If this app would be re-designed to make it easier to use, it might be a winner. (And I wouldn't need to be a whiner!) Properly-implemented, it might even be worth more money. As I said, I would love to be able to do what the developer promises, and would happily pay more for the privilege. Until then, although this thing is not totally useless, i cannot recommend it.

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