Manga Studio... is it worth it?

[AnnaLandin]

I'm just gonna chime in and say that yes, it's worth it.

I can't make a call on whether you should go with 5EX, though - I only use the regular version. I do own a copy of Manga Studio 4 EX, though, and I do love that multi-page function, as it allows me to get a good overview of an entire story, or an entire chapter, at the same time, and files them all away in one easy-to-find place. But there's no reason you couldn't get by without it.

[Spitfire]

Apart text handling, you can't rotate text in MS5 without rasterising it first and then you can't edit the text with a text tool anymore.

[Spitfire]

Thanks for telling about this feature, I didn't know how it worked in practise

[scythe]

Hang on, Photoshop doesn't have perspective rulers like the Clip Studio Paint one. As far as I know at least. You can't, for example, create an editable, 3 point perspective ruler which your brush then snaps to as you draw.

That is unless I'm gravely mistaken.

[ToonDoctor]

Sorry for being a contrarian. I don't like the interface at all. It is convoluted and it took me hours to draw one simple illustration that could have taken me 20 minutes in Flash. I hate how I had to deselect selections, or didn't have quick manipulation tools offered when I tried to perform operations. If you haven't use another program like Photoshop or Flash for over 15 years, like I have, you may get used to the backward and cumbersome interface. But if you're used to optimized drawing interfaces where you don't have to actively select a tool or deselect it, then maybe it's a good program for you.

I then spent about an hour trying to convert the one illustration I did in a suitable format for Flash. It was a time waster. I bought it because of the $15 sale. It was a good try, but my comic would take me days to draw if I used this program.

Now, I research user experience and usability in my other life. So I usually have little patience for apps that have less than optimal experiences. Most users tend to blame themselves when they don't pick up how an app works quickly. They think that they are not smart enough or something like that. Usability experts tend to argue the opposite. The designers of the app are the ones that don't get it. Since life is so short, and I have limited time to draw, I'm sticking with my other programs, even though they were not made for comics.

Again, my opinion comes from someone who has worked on Adobe products since 1997. This product was clearly not made for guys like me who have no more time to learn how to use such a complex app and demand clean workflows. If you know nothing else, you could give it a try.

[Silerna]

It's more like what you prefer the most to use. I personally pick paint tool sai over Mangastudio. I don't need much fancy tools or things to make my comics. I only need photoshop for my backgrounds instead, because of the filters I can use.

[Spitfire]

Deselect selections..? cmd/ctrl+d ? There is plenty of good key commands in Manga Studio as well.

I've read a book by Steve Krug so I can say that neither Photoshop CC or Manga Studio 5 has interface that doesn't make the user think. They are way too versatile programs to have everything in with in thinking distance of your second click.

But I can relate that you don't want to learn a new program, though I still find it bit unfair to say that it makes a program bad.

The interface can be customised fairly far as in many programs these days.

Also Manga Studio has very quick manipulation tools, if you mean resizing a sketch or such, just M to get your last used marque tool, or select from the now visible menu your favoured type of marque and make a selection. After that a bar shows up with options to: deselect (I use keycommand: cmd/ctrl+d), inverse selection (keycommand: shift+cmd/ctrl+i), expand selected area, shrink selected area, clear (the area), Clear outside selection, scale up/down/rotate (free transform the area, for the layer keycommand shift+cmd/cntrl +t), Fill (set main drawing colour as flat colour to the selected area), new tone (create raster tone for the selected area) , and lastly but least you have the button for settings(!!) to include or exclude other options to this...

You might have given up too soon

[serenitysquirrel]

Also note he does his comic in Flash which is a whole different pony than a painting program altogether.

The MS interface is all drag and drop. You put everything right where you want it and need it so you can get to it quick, or use the keyboard shortcuts. I never bother with keyboard shortcuts though.

[Spitfire]

Whole different pony....giggle....can't stop playing with the idea of riding a prancing Manga Studio and giggling

[ToonDoctor]

Hi. In most Adobe product, to deselect, you just need to click on the side and the selection is gone. With MangaStudio, I had to find the deselect tool every time and click on deselect. Flash is as much a manipulation tool, where you can resize, move, skew elements on the go. But not having a quick deselection tool slowed me down to a crawl.

Another problem I had was trying to change the colour of a selected element quickly. It took me several passes to do so. It shouldn't be this complicated to perform such basic operations.

[Spitfire]

I'd argue that a key command (which is the same in photoshop) cmd/ctrl+d is equally as effective as clicking to the side, at least if one can use ones left hand on the keyboard.

There's also the option to resize, move and skew in MS, both rasterised and vector based drawings. Of course some features one has in illustrator go way beyond what one can do in vectors in MS, but vice versa, MS has some very advanced features in vector graphics that aren't in illustrator.

To change a vector elements colour I need to select the element and choose a new colour from the colour sliders...to change a raster based objects colour I'll have to lock the pixels first and then cmd/ctrl+a and press the fill. Did you try this?

I still dare to claim that you gave up just a little too soon to make a fair assessment, but of course your opinion doesn't require validation

[doktormostro]

Spitfire: I didn´t know that! Thanks for the info. I think i never made text in it lol

Scythe: Photoshop doesn´t have perspective rulers as doesn´t have automatic halftones or frame drawing (i dunno how to call it) But all can be done in his own way.. more tedious in my opinion =)

[GenderFluid]

I liked it. But I personally would want the newest one, which I think is Manga Studio 5.
PaintTool Sai works well too.

[kotaotan]

MS5 is amazing and sped up my process by about two hours. Seriously look into it.

[jonufele]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[scythe]

Yeah I looked and looked, and didn't find anything comparable. I still prefer drawing in Photoshop, but the sheer amount of perspective work I do makes that unworkable a lot of the time.

[PotooGryphon]

Yes! Totally agree. Hot keys are... well, key, @ToonDoctor.

Being able to quickly select/deselect tools with a keystroke significantly increases how fast a drawing can come together. It's some of the first things they taught us to memorize in art school, actually. And since Adobe is so known and used, most programs like Manga Studio, use the same hotkeys so artist have a faster time adjusting to the program or at the every least give you the option to customize the hotkeys to ones better suited for you.

Personally, Flash drives me nuts how the brush size changes depending on whether you zoom in or not. Can't stand that one bit. haha So definitely kudos for mastering that Flash brush.

[159julialee]

I personally use Corel Painter. I used Manga Studio before because Painter was over my budget, but when I discovered some discounts here http://www.painterartist.com/en/pages/coupons/
I was able to get it for a much lower price that was in my budget and I am glad I did.
I find Painter to be much simpler and better

[conbon100101]

Yes, yes, and yes.
Clip Studio is amazing. Runs smooth, has so many convenient options plus you get ASSETS with it, which gives you an endless amount of free pens, brushes, tools and more to download if you want/need something extra. I think there's sales going on at Smith Macro right now too, so use that to your advantage!