Oh phew, I got scared for a second there. Thanks man
No it's not o_o You have to pay for it, only the 31 days trial is free or if you have a cracked version... I bought mine as well. The official site: https://www.systemax.jp/en/sai/3
"After the 31 days trial period expired and if you'd like to continue using PaintTool SAI, you need to purchase a "Software License"."
And Sai is great, I agree with UzukiCheverie , I use it for my comic as well, but yeah, you need to use either Photoshop or Clip Studio to have nice speech bubbles and text. But it's great for painting, the lines are waaay nicer than in PS!
no 31-day trial on it since I'm using it for years now o.o
The only way you could have a free version of SAI without paying for it is by getting a cracked version. Doesn't matter if you didn't get it from a place like piratebay, if the website you got it from isn't the official SAI website and didn't cost money, it was cracked. Cracks are how you get around those "give us your license keys!" forms and the only way you can license and register your product without paying for the license key itself, and the cracks are provided by other people, who sometimes provide keygens to actually validate the license forms without a license key you paid for (this is getting into illegal territory lol)
So yes, you have to pay for SAI. It's not an expensive program though, definitely not the hundreds of dollars you'd be shelling out for Photoshop. Clip Studio Paint goes on sale a lot too (I think it's actually on sale right now for $15.008, which is how much I paid for it as well the last time it went on sale). CSP also comes with toning tools :3
paint tool sai is honestly awesome. the amount of brush possibilities are huge, and for art its better than photoshop (which was originally intended for photo manipulation)
drawbacks:
- the vector tool aint up to much, no boxes feature etc, dont do line art on it
- honestly, youre better off using a different program when it comes to lettering, although it is possible to use sai. you cant insert text, you have to screenshot/paste
- no gifs afaik
- less layer options (eg overlay or screen*) than, say, photoshop or paint.net
besides that, honestly id recommend it, its great, it gives a brilliant image, try the free version first and see what you think.
*sai has both of those, it doesnt have say colorbum or burn, but it has overlay, shade, luminosity, screen, binary colour, lumi&shade
I use SAI myself and love it, it's pretty great for drawing and has tons of brush options
However, its one big flaw is no text tool, which made it pretty annoying for making comics (which is why I'll probably be making comics in Manga Studio from now on - before that, I added the text in GIMP and pasted it over)
SAI is really good an comfortable, but it does have many limitations. If you think you may need photoshop in the future just get that instead. At first was a struggle, and i missed SAI a bunch but now that I am learning it I'm not switching back. It won't cost you more than a mc donalds lunch once a month. It's totally wor4h it
Sai is great as a lightweight, easy-to-use drawing program. It lacks a few essential tools that Photoshop has (text-tools, for example), but it is otherwise really good - it's definitely easy to learn how to use. I used it a lot, and I still love sketching in it, even though I've otherwise switched over to Manga Studio/Clip Studio Paint.
If you're looking for a more serious tool to make comics specifically, I heartily recommend Manga Studio/Clip Studio Paint - it is amazing. And I think the sale Uzuki mentioned is still on. It is WELL worth the money, and will be able to do pretty much everything Photoshop can do. The only thing it lacks is a native CMYK-format, but unless you plan to print your comics, that won't be much of an issue.
When Sai 2 releases whenever that will be it will have a text tool and perspective guides and much more. Here is the official site http://systemax.jp/en/sai/5 Also, the only problem I have with clip studio paint is it isn't very good on low spec computers it requires twice as much ram to run and can't be run on more than one pc
I love Sai. It draws great and has smooth brush strokes. But t has some flaws like a small amount of blending modes, and no possibility of putting text in your drawings. But luckily it correspondents with programs like Photoshop.
It's currently in beta, and the latest version can actually save... but only as bmp and .sai2 (similar format to .sai, can only be used in sai2) ...I guess you COULD just save as bmp and then save it as something else in another program, but that sounds like a hassle... If you already have a SAI license you can use the same one for this. The text tool, from what I've tried, isn't the best but at least it HAS text now.
It's still in development, it just goes... veeeeery slowly. I think it took over a year between the current beta release and the previous one?
I use sai all the time and I love it but I mostly use it to make fun paintings and such I actually draw most of my comics by hand because proportions are hard for me to do with a tablet. /=
It's got a realyl nice painterly feel if you like to color things and I think the water color tool is amazing. I say it's totes worth trying
I use sai for my entire comic making process, and I'll say straight up that if you think it's limited it's because you never learned how to actually draw. The program has amazing brushes, all the tools you could possibly need (except a text tool I'll give you that), and you can create anything from super simple cartoons to hyper realism with it if you just, well, know how to actually draw.
It does have an equivalent of a burn and dodge layer (shade and luminosity) (also I was pretty sure burn and dodge had been confirmed for bad tools because they just don't look good but I guess whatever floats your boat), if you can learn how to draw a simple circle dialogue bubbles aren't a problem, and getting good blending really isn't hard as you can adjust the setting to make any of the brushes a blending tool. (You can even create and add your own brushes if you look up a simple tutorial) It creates some of the smoothest lineart there is, too, so I'm honestly not sure what you guys are going on about with it not being good for lines. Heck it even has one of the best stabilizers I've ever seen.
I will also say that you should buy the legal version. It really is not expensive, and it's a great program that deserves support.
Uh, no, I know how to draw, and I think SAI is limited because a.) it lacks a text tool and certain shape tools (there is no circle tool, and unless you are da Vinci and you can draw a perfect circle freehanded, then a circle tool is a nice thing to have), b.) it lacks many of the layer and blending modes available in, say, Manga Studio/Clip Studio Paint and c.) There are no perspective rulers, which are immensely helpful, and while I know it's perfectly possible to draw good perspectives without those tools, they are extremely useful tools if you can get them, and d.) its magic wand tool is not the greatest.
A better, larger program won't teach you how to draw, that's true - but SAI is lightweight, especially if you're going to draw comics. And I say this as someone who has completed professional illustration jobs using only SAI, because that's what was available to me at the time.
I will give you that it does amazing lines, especially compared to Photoshop - but compare it to Manga Studio/Clip Studio, and it comes up kind of short.