Sketchable 5.0
Sketchable, the best-selling sketching and drawing app on the Windows Store, released its latest update! Sketchable 5.0 comes with a bevy of new features, performance improvements, and a modernized UI experience. This is the fifth in a long line of major releases, nurturing the app from a simple sketching program in 2013 to the robust feature set today.
Sketchable 5.0 includes several new editing tools, chief among them is Selection. When designing this feature, we wanted to give Sketchable users something unique. Our goal is always to push the boundaries of what is possible by focusing on high fidelity animations centered around touch and pen first interactions. With this in mind, we pioneered a novel approach to manipulating a complex geometric shape with real time feedback. Now it is possible to add, remove, intersect, outside, and xor a complex polygon with real time feedback. This new implementation allows users to see the exact manipulation of the selection as they edit it, maintaining their creative workflow.
Another eye-catching addition are color swatches. It’s no secret that color is crucial to creatives. Being able to quickly find or access a set of colors hinges on this and is bolstered by the ability to import .aco files. Need a fall color palette to complete that landscape piece, well now you can simply import it and get straight to painting. And the improvements don’t stop there, other notable drawing improvements are the addition of the expansion of symmetry tool and brush smoothing.
Symmetry is a valuable tool in a digital artist toolbox. Its most common form is the one or two axis reflection. This makes drawing faces or symmetrical shapes like a vase, 50% more efficient. Simply because you only have to draw half of the image for the full one to appear. This is where Sketchable 5.0 makes the common exceptional with the addition of snowflake symmetry, up to five sectors, and up to ten with rotational symmetry! These tools create beautiful, intricate patterns with little to no effort.
With all of these great tools to help create and manipulate images, getting the basics down is import as well. Something as simple as a perfect line can be challenging for the most experienced artist, but with Sketchable’s new smoothing features, line-drawing is easier in three different ways: basic, smoothest, and leash. These options provide an improved experience with little to no compromise in performance. The leash even offers an interesting workflow that allows one to drag their stroke around by a visible “leash” facilitating fantastically fluid strokes.
Advanced users inevitably search for ways to streamline their workflow. In traditional desktop programs, efficiency is engendered by keyboard shortcuts. However, with the transition to tablet driven inputs centered around pen and touch, these shortcuts have fallen by the wayside. Gestures attempt to fill the void, but the industry has not learned any gesture more complex than those utilizing two fingers. Sketchable’s innovative solution incorporates over 130 voice commands with their partner Keyboard shortcut. Giving power users the efficient workflow they crave in a modern world.
Perhaps an easily overlooked but crucial detail of Sketchable is that it is ARM 64 compatible. This means it will run natively on Microsoft latest flagship device, the Surface X, providing a lightning-fast and uncompromised experience. The perfect software to put your new device through its paces this holiday season! Download Sketchable here!
