TwistedBrush Open Studio

You only need to look at a few YouTube videos to see that it is possible to draw or paint great works of art with basic brush tools. If you are not satisfied with traditional drawing applications, you should turn your attention to TwistedBrush Open Studio. The software comes with over 5000 brushes, as well as a wide range of features, which can help you give your paintings a realistic look.

If you want access to all brushes, you have to purchase TwistedBrush Pro Studio. TwistedBrush Open Studio is the software's freeware version, which doesn't come with too many brushes, but it gives you the possibility of buying brushes separately. The software is lightweight, so it can be installed in a few moments and you can run it on any mid-range computer.

The user interface has a familiar layout and easy to understand options, so it should not take long to master the application's controls. The available brushes are listed on the left side of the window, where you can also adjust the brush size, density and opacity, change its color, hue, saturation and luminosity. Different colors can be selected by adjusting red, green and blue channels or by picking one from various color pallets.

It should be obvious that you only need to select a brush, adjust it and start drawing or painting on a blank canvas, located in the central region of the interface. You can also find usual tools, like a paint bucket, color picker, gradient tools and others. They are displayed on a toolbar and you can configure them in the same area. Selected tools can be used by simply right clicking on the canvas.

Unlike other painting applications, TwistedBrush Open Studio allows you to work on layers, which are represented by small grids, next to the brush selection options. Besides switching from one layer to another or hiding them, you can also use different background textures, like paper, canvas, brick wall and many more. Layers can be manipulated as well. You can merge them, invert their alpha channels and so on. Furthermore, you can add one of many special effects, which you would expect to find on advanced image editors, like Photoshop. It is also possible to create masks, from an image's luminance or alpha channel or create images or alpha channels from an existing mask.