Sketcher was one of the earliest "natural media" raster graphics software applications. It was released in the early 1990s by the US company Fractal Design Corporation for the AppleMacintosh.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. It is considered one of the Big Four of technology along with Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
The Macintosh is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. since January 1984. The original Macintosh was the first mass-market personal computer that featured a graphical user interface, built-in screen and mouse. Apple sold the Macintosh alongside its popular Apple II family of computers for almost ten years before they were discontinued in 1993.
This software simulated the behavior of various types of paper and art materials such as chalk, pastels, pencils and brushes. Even though color Macintoshes existed at the time, it ran in grayscale. A rationale for this may be that, while color support existed in the computer, large grayscale monitors were considerably less expensive than color ones, with color sometimes costing three times as much for an equivalent size display. Likewise, Sketcher sold for a lower price than Painter ($99 vs. $299)
Following Sketcher, Fractal Design added color support, new features, modified the interface somewhat and released Dabbler. Sketcher was discontinued shortly afterwards.
Dabbler is natural media drawing software aimed at beginners. It was initially developed by Fractal Design Corporation. It is a simplified version of Fractal Design Painter, and included multimedia tutorials and a fullscreen interface. Dabbler was released as "Art Dabbler" after the MetaCreations merger, and rights were eventually transferred to Corel. Dabbler operating system is Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows.
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Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for macOS and Windows. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, it has become the de facto industry standard in raster graphics editing, to the point that it has also become a generic trademark leading to its use as a verb such as "to photoshop an image", "photoshopping", and "photoshop contest", although Adobe discourages such use. Photoshop can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing, and several color models including RGB, CMYK, CIELAB, spot color, and duotone. Photoshop uses its own PSD and PSB file formats to support these features. In addition to raster graphics, Photoshop has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics, 3D graphics, and video. Its feature set can be expanded by Photoshop plug-ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and offer new or enhanced features.
In computer graphics, a raster graphics or bitmap image is a dot matrix data structure that represents a generally rectangular grid of pixels, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium. Raster images are stored in image files with varying formats.
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Fractal flames is a member of the iterated function system class of fractals created by Scott Draves in 1992. Draves' open-source code was later ported into Adobe After Effects graphics software and translated into the Apophysis fractal flame editor.
Corel Painter is a raster-based digital art application created to simulate as accurately as possible the appearance and behavior of traditional media associated with drawing, painting, and printmaking. It is intended to be used in real-time by professional digital artists as a functional creative tool.
openCanvas is a raster graphics software developed and published by PGN Corp. It was originally released as freeware in 2000, but moved to a shareware model starting with version 2. All functions are available during the limited demo period.
A higher performance version "openCanvas Plus" has been released simultaneously since version 3.
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A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a decision based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the software license, the feature set, the merits of the user interface (UI) and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable for artistic work while others are better for technical drawings. Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.
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GrafX2 is a bitmap graphics editor inspired by the Amiga programs Deluxe Paint and Brilliance. It is free software and distributed under GNU General Public License.
Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs, or editing illustrations with any traditional art medium. Graphic software programs, which can be broadly grouped into vector graphics editors, raster graphics editors, and 3D modelers, are the primary tools with which a user may manipulate, enhance, and transform images. Many image editing programs are also used to render or create computer art from scratch.
Ultra Fractal is a fractal generation and rendering software application. The program was the first publicly available fractal software which featured layering methods previously only found in image editing software. Because of this the program has become popular for use in the creation of fractal art.
SAI or Easy Paint Tool SAI (ペイントツールSAI) is a lightweight raster graphics editor and painting software for Microsoft Windows developed and published by Systemax Software.
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