Best Products for Digital Art

[dislikely]

Okay I need a good list of products below $300 that are great for digital art. Like digitally coloring and making drawing. It would also be helpful for this products to be able to make buttons and icons and make pics transparent.

I'd love the suggestions, pretty much any company, I'd love at least one of the suggestions to be adobe. Thanks!

[Kami]

GIMP. Absolutely free, and I've seen some AMAZING art done on GIMP, with almost all the capabilities of Photoshop.

gimp-artists.deviantart.com/gallery/23875084
browse.deviantart.com/digitalart/?q=GIMP#/d1e81j5
lasianicole.deviantart.com/art/Ian-Somerhalder-GIMP-Painting-162647420?q=1&qo=1

Also, I recommend a tablet. You don't need something super expensive. The tablet I do all my art on cost under 100USD.

[Andrea]

Jul 1, 2010 13:59:02 GMT -8 Kami said:

Also, I recommend a tablet. You don't need something super expensive. The tablet I do all my art on cost under 100USD.

I also recommend a tablet. My sister had one for when she was doing a lot of drawing, and it was really good. It wasn't too expensive either. I'm pretty sure it was around $150.

[Kami]

Jul 1, 2010 14:02:30 GMT -8 Andrea said:

Jul 1, 2010 13:59:02 GMT -8 Kami said:

Also, I recommend a tablet. You don't need something super expensive. The tablet I do all my art on cost under 100USD.

I also recommend a tablet. My sister had one for when she was doing a lot of drawing, and it was really good. It wasn't too expensive either. I'm pretty sure it was around $150.

I don't even see the need for one that expensive. Granted, I want a cintiq (1000USD+) but that's because character design is my intended career field.

the bamboo fun is 99USD before tax, it's what i have, and It comes with PS Elements and Corel Painter, so you won't even *need* to buy an additional graphics program, unless you want to upgrade.

[Andrea]

Jul 1, 2010 14:18:29 GMT -8 Kami said:

Jul 1, 2010 14:02:30 GMT -8 Andrea said:

I also recommend a tablet. My sister had one for when she was doing a lot of drawing, and it was really good. It wasn't too expensive either. I'm pretty sure it was around $150.

I don't even see the need for one that expensive. Granted, I want a cintiq (1000USD+) but that's because character design is my intended career field.

the bamboo fun is 99USD before tax, it's what i have, and It comes with PS Elements and Corel Painter, so you won't even *need* to buy an additional graphics program, unless you want to upgrade.

If they come cheaper, then yeah, I definitely wouldn't get one that's that expensive.

That Bamboo one sounds like a great deal! I'd definitely go with that.

[dislikely]

Thanks for all the advice about the tablets, guys. I'll see about that but as for right now, I just need digital computer software. GIMP sounds great and all but I'm getting any software under 300 USD for my birthday. And GIMP is free. So I'm gonna take advantage of this moment and get a really good legit one.

Any Suggestions?

EDIT: spelling error psth..

[Toshiru]

Or you can get the PS 30 day trial. Just reinstall your OS when your trial runs out.

[dislikely]

lol, is that what you do?

[Toshiru]

Yep, and it had work out great for me. =P

[Trill]

I've heard great things about the Wacom products!

Cintiq <3 I actually did a project on that back in my Marketing class. TONS of great features, but the price limits who actually is able to use it. The target market is definitely professionals in the field of digital art.

I should sell my commercials/presentations to Wacom in exchange for the Cintiq.

Wacom's Intuos tablet has a lot of the same features of Cintiq for about a third of the price.

[Kami]

trill - yeah, that's exactly why i want a cintiq. @_@ i've done some pretty cool stuff on paper, and it just doesn't really transfer over well when I can't look at what I'm doing. @_@ that's not to say it's impossible, but I would really prefer the pen-to-paper (or in this case, screen) aspect, instead of trying to figured out how to stare at the monitor and draw without looking at my hands.

I'd definitely say then, if you want to take advantage, get the cheapo 99USD tablet and buy a collab of low-grade PS CS (one or two would work), and low-grade corel painter (since you said you wanted digital colouring).

Personally, if I had 300 bucks to spend on design stuff, I'd spend it getting an awesome tablet, and not worry about the program.

[dude]

If you're a student then you can get adobe software with huge discounts on retail price - just have a look at their education store. If you're not a student then you might be able to find some older copies of photoshop which are within your price range, but as people have suggested you might just be better off using gimp or a photoshop trial to make sure that you're certain this is an investment that you want to make.

[dislikely]

Wooooooooooooooooh!!!! I'm getting the Photoshop CS5 Extended Student Edition [Mac] AND Bamboo Pen!!!!!!! as you can tell, I'm happy.