CelSys have announced Clip Studio EX (formerly MangaStudio) for the iPad Pro. It's on a subscription model, which is slightly disappointing but, I suspect, just A Thing We're Going To Have To Get Used To. Free for the first six months, $8.99/mth thereafter.
The iPad Pro/Apple Pencil combo has been the best-in-class digital drawing experience since day one, but has lacked a proper pro-level art application before. If I was Wacom, I'd be shitting my pants right about now.
Requires iOS 11, and should be in the App Store now if you're running it.
Just updated to iOS11 and installed this.
I'm very busy today so have only had time for the most cursory play around, but it very much appears to be the Real Deal. Very few interface concessions to iOS — it more or less looks like the desktop app. Zoom and rotate by touch are great, though.
There's pretty much zero latency on the pens and brushes I've tried. It's very impressive.
Out of curiosity, have you also tried the new Procreate, and Affinity Photo? Those aren't necessarily suitable for the kind of work you do, but they along with Clip Studio EX seem to point at where the iPad could head.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 08 November, 2017, 12:09:15 PM
Out of curiosity, have you also tried the new Procreate, and Affinity Photo? Those aren't necessarily suitable for the kind of work you do, but they along with Clip Studio EX seem to point at where the iPad could head.
I have 'em both, and they're both great. The problem with Procreate, for digital artists particularly, is the roundabout workflow needed to get files into a desktop workflow (export to .PSD, save to iCloud/Dropbox, import/open in desktop app). Having an iOS-native pro-grade app should change that...
I love Manga Studio, the rulers and the behaviour of the brushes make it an amazing tool for drawing in general, let alone comics!
£9 a month is pretty steep though. I'm not against subscriptions, (I'm getting used to the idea), but £9 a month is significant considering the price of procreate.
As a photographer, Adobe Lightroom Mobile have done something similar, a desktop tool on the iPad Pro for £9 a month, or alternatively you can pay an annual fee of around £90. I'm much more comfortable paying an annual fee, slightly cheaper and I know I don't have to worry about the bank balance on a monthly basis. I'm speaking as someone who is transitioning from a regular income to being self-sufficient travelling the world for a year however, so I probably don't speak for everyone.
I'll be keeping an eye on this however, out of all the drawing tools I've tried I'd say Manga Studio is the most feature rich. It produces some very nice lines, although I think Procreate is fast catching up with it's Brush Smoothing technology.
One thing I've been thinking about recently is how relevant or needed a desktop workflow is these days... other than having a larger screen, how much longer will we actually need a supporting desktop workflow? I think my IPad is getting very close to replacing my laptop completely.
Quote from: mightybren on 15 November, 2017, 10:57:28 AM
£9 a month is pretty steep though. I'm not against subscriptions, (I'm getting used to the idea), but £9 a month is significant considering the price of procreate.
£7/mth. I'm not a huge fan of subscription software, but Doug (Manga Studio for Dummies) Hills pointed out that there are certain expectations on price in the App Store, and sticking a £200 software package in there would be a pretty hard sell.
The basic question is whether you'll get £7 of value out of it per month — the first six months are free (although you have to agree to the sub, and then cancel it if you decide don't want to pay) so you have plenty of time to decide whether it's worth it.
Also worth mentioning Ray Frenden's review (http://frenden.com/post/167372727092/clip-studio-paint-the-ipad-pro-art-studio-house) if anyone is wavering. Keep in mind that Frenden was no fan of the iPad Pro prior to this...
I keep worrying it's too cheap and won't get the love and attention it needs. (For a working pro, £7pm is a no brainer - price of a macdonalds. Can understand the reluctance if you only occasionally use it, but then you could turn on the sub for the month you want it and turn it off again when you're done).
I think if you're a digital artist at all, an ipad pro and this could replace a bunch of other devices (It's made me question whether I need a laptop at all - throw a keyboard on my ipad pro and Pages [apple's word processor] and clip studio and it's about 90% of what I use my laptop for)
And assuming it gets better and better my relationship to my cintiq is going to flounder.
It really, desperately, needs a way to sync with dropbox - so you can round robin between desktop and laptop. (It also needs to better at background saving documents) and I would like a way to scan directly in to it from my current scanner.
Very oddly this is the first version of clip studio that exports to PDF.
I recommend it!
-pj
Quote from: pauljholden on 15 November, 2017, 11:52:54 AM
I think if you're a digital artist at all, an ipad pro and this could replace a bunch of other devices (It's made me question whether I need a laptop at all - throw a keyboard on my ipad pro and Pages [apple's word processor] and clip studio and it's about 90% of what I use my laptop for)
Yeah. The current iteration of the Macbook Pro is useless to me, but the iPad Pro has me considering going back to a dedicated desktop system for the first time in at least a decade when the time comes to replace my current MBP.
My adventures in cancelling adobe creative cloud has me questioning this, BUT I think because it's an apple subscription, you can turn it on and off as you use it - so you're not locked in to a year once you sub. (Certainly this is how other apple subs work)
Quote from: pauljholden on 15 November, 2017, 12:44:32 PM
My adventures in cancelling adobe creative cloud has me questioning this
It's not just you. Adobe's entire cancellation process seems designed to be as inconvenient as possible, whilst gouging the punter for the maximum amount of money: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1407421
I wouldn't use Adobe's tools for any artwork or design work, but for photography there's no real competitor to Lightroom right now. Affinity Photo has some great tools, but it isn't as good and the asset management tools are missing, which are essential for someone who can take more than 1000 photos in a week. There are a few alternatives available for desktops / laptops, but the quality just isn't there.
If I had an alternative that produced the same quality and had the same feature set I would jump ship in an instant. I've seen how Adobe manages these things for a whole bunch of stuff outside of the creative sphere as part of my day job, in addition to the shenanigans some of my colleagues have gone through with CreativeCloud. In general they use a lot of dark UX patterns and will stop supporting software at more or less a moments notice.
I guess a subscription for Manga Studio is to an artist what a subscription to Adobe Lightroom is to a photographer :)
I'm thinking of attempting living with purely an iPad Pro for everything for a year, including work, while travelling. The latest MBP actually looks alright to me, but given an iPad can do pretty much everything I need it to (not quite the same as want it to, but getting there) I don't think it's worth the expense.
Definitely making my MacBook Pro and cintiq look like an expensive mess of cables. Thinking I could ditch the MacBook Pro, cintiq and iPad - just get a iPad Pro and keep my main work pc.
I just saw an email from Affinity that their vector illustration software Affinity Designer will be coming to the iPad next year :)
Quote from: mightybren on 19 December, 2017, 08:36:26 AM
I just saw an email from Affinity that their vector illustration software Affinity Designer will be coming to the iPad next year :)
I'm genuinely excited by this. Designer is the only viable alternative to Illustrator that I've found for lettering, so i'm very much looking forward to seein how this turns out. They showed a short video of it running on an iPad at least a year ago — the wait has been killing me!
okay, so a quick look at Affinity designer tells me that it's a one-off payment and includes future Updates. for £38.99- which is a bloody good price.
I may well be getting to a point where I need to actually move to a newer machine (still running windows 7 as it works with my older Adobe products) so the knowledge that If I do upgrade I may not lose the ability to make comics anymore is good...
I don't work in the creative industry or actually make money out of comics so there is no way I can afford to pay Adobe for the subs to the programs I would want...
TBH, if I didn't have a couple of regular clients who insist on live AI files, I'd probably move over to Designer. I know if a couple of letterers doing paying jobs with it.
I'm noticing more companies and agencies move away from Adobe Products for Graphic and Web Design. Where I work currently we're using Sketch as a cheaper (and better) alternative to Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator for UI design.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 19 December, 2017, 08:39:51 AMI'm genuinely excited by this. Designer is the only viable alternative to Illustrator that I've found for lettering, so i'm very much looking forward to seein how this turns out. They showed a short video of it running on an iPad at least a year ago — the wait has been killing me!
The ambition is insane. But Photo was easily the iPad app of the year, and I've no doubt they can pull of the same magic with Designer. Adobe suddenly looks very flat-footed with its strange approach to mobile. ("Take bits of Photoshop/Illustrator and repackage them, because no-one wants to do REAL work on an iPad!" Yeah, Microsoft finally realised that was a bad idea, and if even Microsoft can realise... Mind you, CC is such a mess of code, it's hard to see how it could be ported to iOS or Android without basically starting from scratch.)
Oh, and I assume everyone saw Serif's preview of the new DTP app?
Quote from: Bolt-01 on 19 December, 2017, 09:07:27 AMokay, so a quick look at Affinity designer tells me that it's a one-off payment and includes future Updates. for £38.99- which is a bloody good price.
20% off at the moment. The usual price is a shade off 50 quid. It's worth noting that Serif's business model is traditional, and so people shouldn't expect free updates forever – I suspect at some point you will get an 'upgrade' version.
Quote from: mightybren on 19 December, 2017, 09:40:41 AM
I'm noticing more companies and agencies move away from Adobe Products for Graphic and Web Design. Where I work currently we're using Sketch as a cheaper (and better) alternative to Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator for UI design.
To be fair, Sketch is on a subscription, albeit one cheaper than Adobe offers (about 80 quid vs 240); it's odd Adobe only offers a high-value subscription for Photoshop (a tenner a month) and not other single-use apps, like Illustrator.
As for moving away, I don't know anyone heavily using Adobe for web design. That market is lost. UI design is wobbly. Comics too. They more or less have a lock-in with DTP though.
Photoshop is probably the worst tool I ever used for web design.
Less Adobe the better for everyone I think. I'm still waiting for an alternative to Lightroom, which is still head and shoulders above the competition in terms of an all-in-one photography solution. Affinity Photo is a big step up from Photoshop for photography, but it's missing the asset management functionality that Lightroom has and the RAW processing capability isn't quite as good.
Aye , PS is pretty clunky for web layout - Sketch feels like a lot better fit for that these days. Dunno, I'd miss PS though... all my plugins etc.
...still miss Macromedia Fireworks though, ha ha!
Quote from: mightybren on 19 December, 2017, 08:36:26 AM
I just saw an email from Affinity that their vector illustration software Affinity Designer will be coming to the iPad next year :)
Just re-visiting this thread to update now that Designer is out for iPad Pro (don't think it'll run on any lesser-specced kit, plus I can't really see the point without the Pencil).
As mentioned in previous discussions, Designer is the only credible (IMO) Illustrator alternative... if you don't need to supply live AI files to any of your clients, then you can already definitely letter using the desktop version. There are people doing pro work with it already.
I've downloaded the iPad version and had a quick play. You can set up comic size pages in CMYK, place art, add layers. Type controls seem good, including Opentype options. Autoligs work by default. Art, fonts, etc, can be pulled in from iCloud/Dropbox — I copied a selection of .OTF fonts to a Dropbox folder and the app installed them fine.
Default save is local, but iCloud Drive is also offered. You can export to iCloud/Dropbox/Files in all the important formats. Export options are extensive, and include EPS, PDF, TIFF and PSD.
Initial verdict: I could absolutely letter on my iPad using this.
(It's looking like this, Affinity Photo, and the very impressive port of Clip Studio to iOS has finally got Adobe worried, since they've now announced a full version of Photoshop is in development for the iPad.)
The Photoshop announcement was an entertaining clusterfuck. Something had clearly been happening. Someone senior at Adobe tweeted, then denied, and then the PR came. Looks like they're spooked, but Serif has a long lead and a TON of goodwill. I also suspect Adobe will make this – as per all their other mobile apps – part of Creative Cloud. By contrast, the Serif apps are currently 14 quid each on iPad, which is ludicrously cheap.
There are some really great touch elements in the app too, which you may have already spotted. When exporting, you can drag the format buttons to other apps (including Files or Mail). Multitouch is well supported, with additional fingers used to adjust options for the current tool. Dragging over panels often performs actions, such as increasing stroke sizes. There's real attention to detail.
Now fast forward a year or so and imagine when Publisher is on iPad too. It's going to be nuts.
I imagine the steady stream of pro artists working heavily, some exclusively, on iPad Pros now must be making Wacom quietly shit their pants, too. No way this isn't putting a hole in their horribly-expensive-with-unspeakably-crappy-drivers hardware business.
Stroke of genius making the bog-standard iPad Pencil-compatible too. Not suitable for all pros, and not as powerful as the iPad Pro, but still a decent machine and good for people who'd like to dip a toe in the water. I'm not keen on the screen (which is more iPad Air than iPad Air 2), but for 320 quid, it feels like something approaching a bargain (rare for Apple). And desktop-grade creative apps are increasing in number and quality. (Procreate also recently got a major update, and continues to impress. I'm now waiting for the semi-inevitable announcement at some point about the iPad more smartly supporting external displays for artists, sound editors, video editors, etc. You know it's coming within the next year or two.)
So, yeah, Wacom finally have a proper rival, and Adobe's strategy is now looking decidedly dodgy. Right now, you can buy Affinity Photo and Designer for Mac and iPad, for a one-off total (all four apps) of 96 quid. So that's under two months of Creative Cloud, or three months of Photoshop/Illustrator on Creative Cloud. And of course, they only work on the desktop – not the iPad. If you want Photoshop and Illustrator for iPad... you basically buy the Serif apps!
QuoteJust re-visiting this thread to update now that Designer is out for iPad Pro (don't think it'll run on any lesser-specced kit, plus I can't really see the point without the Pencil).
AWESOME! Thanks for the update Jim, and the review! I'm really excited to give Designer a go on my IPad. Support for Open Type is a real plus.
I've been working exclusively with my iPad Pro for about 6 months now. It's replaced my laptop for pretty much everything, and it's great to know there's a full vector app that can produce print ready artwork.
Not strictly art-related, but seems appropriate to add it here...
Affinity Publisher (DTP challenger to InDesign) goes into public beta today. You can download it here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/
I've not had time for more than a cursory glance, but if it's as solid as Photo and Designer, then it should be worth a look. This is the desktop version (Win/Mac) but there's an iPad version planned somewhere down the line.
Probably also worth noting that Affinity apps have a common file format. That means you can open it in any of their apps and carry on working. No faffing about converting things between various formats and losing things to rendering and such like.
It'll be very interesting to see Publisher on an iPad. There are very few holes in pro-oriented iPad land now, but DTP is one. (CAD is another, beyond the basics.)