MangaLabo for Windows

User Reviews

• My tool of choice for inks

  MarkOakleyComicsDecember 30, 2012

  Pros

  -Excellent Memory Management. Great for older machines with limited RAM. Specify bit depth of individual layers, 1, 8 and 32 bits. -Brush Stabilization: allows for smooth ink linework. A must-have for digital artists. Photoshop fails hard here. -Intuitive Vector Tool. Doesn't have the granular control Photoshop offers, but it is infinitely easier, even fun to use. -Canvas Rotation; uses CPU power, so any old machine can use this tool. Photoshop requires an advanced graphics card; my Tablet PC doesn't meet the specs, so that feature is off limits. MangaLabo to the rescue! -Cut and paste images back and forth between art programs is no trouble. -Stable. Manga Studio 5 (aka Clip Studio Paint), for instance, is new a and wonderful favorite which gives Photoshop some stiff competition in terms of features, but on my older hardware and OS, it crashes/freezes *every* time I use it. MangaLabo, by contrast, while not as rock-steady as Photoshop, is about 97% reliable. -Affordable.

  Cons

  -A bit slow. Not good for pencil work, which tends to require lots of quick hand movements. Basic layouts like this are best done in Photoshop or some other sketch program which is faster on the uptake. (This speed bump isn't a problem with inking, which an artist tends to do more slowly.) -Limited file format control. This is a common issue with many art programs. Photoshop is by far the best when it comes to being able to control how files are saved, including compression and layer options and metadata if you wish, all done very quickly. I use MangaLabo's native .mdp format to save work in progress, but it is essential to cut and paste finished work into Photoshop to create files suitable for press. -Limited selection tools. Again Photoshop is best here; selection tools provided by Adobe are excellent, next to none. -Ugly. The GUI used by MangaLabo is very old-school and clunky. not a pretty program by any means.

  Summary

  MangaLabo is not an all-in-one piece of art software, and it could use some tweaking and polish to make what it does offer better. But it's like that one favorite wrench or pair of pliers in your tool box; strong and very useful. I use it all the time for its two or three features not available elsewhere, and I do the rest in Photoshop. The two programs used in tandem make for a complete cartoonist's workshop. I recommend this software for those reasons.

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• Easy Vector Drawing!

  BelloBooksJanuary 14, 2012

  Pros

  Easy to learn for complete beginners and pros; uses very little hard-drive space for installation and RAM for running, but most of all it offers scalable vector inking of sketches, which is a must for lossles composition and resizing of quality comic panels!

  Cons

  Thrice as expensive than its 'sister' MangaStudio 4 [MS4], sold new at ca. $20 on Amazon, which offers 3x more functions and effects needed for manga and comic creation. It's not sold on Amazon.com for global marketing.

  Summary

  All-in-all, if MangaStudio is too complicated for you, then this is your 2nd best option. If it were the price of MS4, it would beat it on the market at once. That's the only reason I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It's a great product for kids 12 and over, perfect also for pro artists! I tested it on a Tablet PC and Wacom tablet, and it does the job under any stylus.<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Jan 14, 2012<p/>PS It's not sold on Amazon for global marketing ;-)

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