12 Best Digital Art Software for Creatives

Adobe Photoshop’s first version was introduced in 1990, and since then, it has dominated the market. Today, professional digital artists around the globe love this versatile tool that boasts a gamut of unique functionalities.

Aside from being a powerful photo editing tool, Adobe Photoshop is perfect for designers who create websites, banners, logos, icons, and product packaging.

However, the most notable thing about Adobe Photoshop is its plethora of cloud-based tools to enhance illustrations, photos, and 3D images.

In a nutshell, Photoshop is the most versatile graphic design, drawing, editing, and retouching tool out there. Plus, it works excellently with drawing pads.

Features

Here are some of Adobe Photoshop’s most noteworthy features.

Cloud-Based Tools
Adobe Photoshop has always stayed ahead of the competition. That's because of its constant updates, including cloud-based tools for enhancing photos, illustrations, and 3D visuals.

Paintbrush Tools
If you're doing any type of digital illustration, Adobe is arguably the best tool. It has a wide range of built-in effects that can turn images into paintings.

Advanced and Unique Features
The newest version of Photoshop comes with some cool and unique features:

• Paint Symmetry mode to create intricate and symmetric patterns
• Multiple undo levels
• Frame tool for easy masking
• Intuitive editing tools
• Live blend mode preview
• Useful plug-ins

Cons

• Subscription-only price model
• Steep learning curve
• Not ideal for batch work with photos
• Requires you to have excellent specs

Pricing

Here are Adobe Photoshop’s pricing plans.

• Photoshop Plan – starts at $20.99 monthly
• Photography Plan (1TB) – starts at $19.99 monthly
• All Apps Plan – starts at $54.99 monthly

Corel offers different creative software plans, including a drawing app called Painter, a cross-platform application aimed at professional artists and students.

Painter has a subscription-only model and is also available as a one-time purchase.

This software emulates real-world art with its jitter reduction and static bristle brushes, complemented by its function that allows strokes and dabs to look hyper-realistic.

This downloadable app is available on Windows and Mac. Plus, it’s compatible with popular software like Photoshop and Wacom-enabled devices.

Features

Here are Corel Painter’s notable features.

Massive Collection of Paintbrushes
This drawing/painting software allows you to create custom brushes and palettes and import these from other artists.

Additionally, it has over 900 brushes, including blenders, textured brushes, pattern pens, and dab stencils.

Unique Functionalities
This digital art software converts photos to digital paintings and uses images as “clones” to paint a canvas. In addition, its “Brush Accelerator” mode allows users to paint significantly faster by optimizing CPU/GPU settings.

Symmetrical Illustrations
With kaleidoscope and mirror painting tools, you can reproduce brushstrokes on the opposite side of the canvas, helping you to create symmetrical illustrations easily.

Cons

• Lack of advanced features compared to competitors
• Occasional functional bugs
• A bit pricey

Pricing

Here are Corel Painter’s pricing plans.

• Painter – $199 yearly for a subscription; $429 for a one-time purchase
• CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2021 – $859 one-time payment
• CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 365-day Subscription – $439.99 annually

ArtRage is an excellent digital art software for Windows and Mac users. Its app versions for iOs and Android are also ideal for professional digital artists who are always on the go.

In addition to collaborative workflow tools, ArtRage 6 boasts an extensive collection of painting features, including pens, pencils, oil paintbrushes, and editing tools such as filters, custom brushes, and layers.

But one unique feature is its “Action,” which allows you to record your work and play it back to recreate your painting.

It also comes with collaborative workflow tools that are excellent for group projects.

Features

Here are some of the notable features of ArtRage.

Affordable Digital Painting Software
All versions are available as a one-time purchase, with the mobile apps and lite versions being particularly affordable.

Multiple Support Options
You can easily find support on the website, including video tutorials, manuals, online groups, and forums.

Extensive Collection of Painting and Editing Tools
With ArtRage, you can paint using watercolors and oils and use advanced features like shading pencils, pastels, and blending modes.

Arguably, its most notable feature is the “Metallic Tinting” that adds reflectivity to your pigments.

Cons

• It’s a bit awkward to handle when using screen brush resizing options.
• Using intensive brush design tools may result in slow and unstable performance.
• It’s slower compared to other competitors.
• The free demo version does not allow users to save their work.

Pricing

Here are ArtRage’s Pricing Plans:

• ArtRage Vitae Desktop - $80 (one-time payment)
• ArtRage Lite - $29.90 (one-time payment)
• ArtRage 6 - $59 (one-time payment)
• ArtRage Vitae Mobile - $4.99 (one-time payment)

Canvas X Draw is a vector drawing tool for Windows, iPad, Mac, and iPhone users. It works superbly with pressure-sensitive tablets, allowing you to control your digital artwork's line thickness and opacity.

It has sophisticated features, including stunning fonts, color and pattern fillers, a pen tool to draw freehand, and shape tools for precise geometric shapes.

Features

Here are some notable features of Canvas X Draw.

Regular Updates
Canvas X Draw is not just a versatile digital drawing tool but also a continuously improving software. For example, its developer recently released the “Perspectives tool” that allows users to draw 3D objects easily.

Easy to Use and Learn
Canvas X Draw is a comprehensive drawing tool that’s fast and easy to use and learn. That’s why many aspiring graphic designers include this software in their “essential starter kit.”

Functional Tools
The software has functional brush tools that fill shapes with solid colors, patterns, images, and gradients.

Other notable tools

• Transparency effects
• Enables the use of PDF as a background
• Image crop with memory reduction

Cons

• Occasional bugs
• Limited ability to blend layers (photos, colors, and text)
• Some users prefer the former individual purchases to the current annual subscription

Pricing

Here are Canvas X Draw’s pricing plans.

• One-Year Subscription – $99
• Buy It to Own – $299 (one-time payment)
• Special Rate - for companies needing more than 10 licenses

Clip Studio Paint offers sophisticated drawing and painting tools that allow users to create modern and traditional-looking masterpieces. However, it's more popular among manga and comic book artists.
Another notable feature is its wide selection of watercolor, gouache effects, and brush tools that let you create sharp and realistic digital paintings.

Features

Here are some notable features of Clip Studio Paint Pro.

Sensitive to Pen Pressure
I highly recommend this digital artwork solution if you want something that supports more than 8,190 pen pressure and thousands of customizable brushes to capture your personal style.

Features to Support Your Personal Art Style
Clip Studio Paint is an affordable software for anyone who’s into digital illustrations, character art, comics, and concept art.

Realistic Painting Effects
The software offers a wide selection of watercolor and gouache effects to create realistic digital paintings and a collection of brushes that work well for watercolor painting.

Cons

• The interface is a bit complex to use.
• There are too many unnecessary options.

Pricing

Here are Clip Studio Paint’s pricing plans.

• Clip Studio Paint Pro - $49.99
• Clip Studio Paint Ex - $219

Professional artists love Procreate’s extensive selection of brushes, wide format support, and affordability. However, it comes with a notable limitation—it only works on iPads and has limited mobile versions for iPhones.

Also, this tool only works best with the Apple Pencil. But if you're already an iPad user, this is a logical and affordable choice.

Features

Here are some of Procreate’s notable features.

Packed With Powerful Tools
Procreate is a drawing and digital design app perfect for detailed artwork, thanks to its wide selection of brushes, typography tools, templates, and blend modes.

3D Painting Tools
The iPad-compatible app supports 3D painting with its special paintbrush tools and texturing functions to add details and depth to your characters and environments.

Continuous Autosave
With this feature, Procreate records your work and turns it into a time-lapse video you can share in your drawing and painting tutorials.

Cons

Compatible only with iPad devices

Pricing

You can purchase Procreate with a one-time payment of $12.99.

One of the best drawing apps and editing tools out there, Affinity Photo works on iPads, macOS, and Windows. Unfortunately, it has no Android version as of this writing.

Meanwhile, its interface and features are somewhat similar to Photoshop and easy to use.

Affinity Photo supports RAW images, does layer-based digital artwork or drawing, and offers sophisticated tools despite being an affordable Photoshop alternative.

Features

Some noteworthy features of Affinity Photo.

More Accessible
Affinity Photo is much more accessible than Photoshop because it’s compatible with macOS 10.9, Windows 7, or later. Plus, it only needs at least 2GB RAM to perform.

Photoshop-Like Features
Affinity is often seen as an affordable Photoshop alternative because they share similar features. Additionally, it has excellent Photoshop compatibility.

Cons

• Lacks some high-end features you can find in Photoshop

Pricing

Here are Affinity Photo’s pricing plans:

• macOS – $40.99 (one-time payment)
• Windows – $40.99 (one-time payment)
• iPad – $11.99 (one-time payment)

With its unique features, such as wet diffusion, drying, and color blending, Rebelle 6 Pro is arguably the best tool for digital artists looking for hyper-realistic art software.

Another bonus is that it's cheaper than some high-end competitors, including Clip Studio Paint and Corel Painter.

Features

These are some of the fantastic tools you can find in Rebelle 6 Pro:

Tools for Real-World Art Techniques
The art program includes a palette knife effect, a drop engine to make watercolor painting more vivid, oil and acrylic painting tools, and blow effects.

Wet Media Art Tools
Rebelle products are particularly ideal if you’re into wet media art, such as watercolor, oil, ink, acrylic, and gouache, but hate the mess.

Easy-to-Use Interface
An artist named Peter Blaskovic designed this digital art software as part of his experimental drawing projects. That’s why it has an easy-to-use interface and natural painting tools.

Cons

Rebelle’s main drawback is that you can’t use it on mobile devices.

Pricing

The software costs $149.99 (one-time payment).

Adobe Fresco comes with sophisticated features and a massive selection of brushes categorized into three groups: Pixel, Vector, and Illustrator brushes.

Compared to other Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator, Fresco is more streamlined and easier to use. After all, the company has positioned it as a user-friendly, versatile mobile digital art app.

Features

Here are Fresco’s key features:

Real-World Painting Effects
One of Fresco’s most exciting features is the Live Brushes which can recreate the effects of real-world painting with either oil or watercolor.

Sophisticated Drawing Tools
As a digital drawing application for iPhones and iPads, Fresco has different animation options, touch gestures capability, and other functions that speed up your workflow.

Simple and Easy to Use
Adobe Fresco is so simple and easy to use that you can retouch a digital image in no time—you won’t get lost in a maze of tools. But if you need more features, it integrates with more advanced Adobe products.

Cons

Adobe Fresco has no Android version.

Pricing

You can download Fresco for free, but you need to pay $9.99 for an annual subscription to access its more advanced features. However, you’ll get it for free if you subscribe to other Adobe product plans.

Black Ink’s developers are not trying to appeal to traditional artists who want the feel of paint on paper. They designed this art software to cater to comics artists and professionals who need to collaborate with their teams.

Think of it as a non-realistic GPU-based painting application.

This digital art tool is only available for Windows and does not cater well to amateur designers.

On the other hand, it offers significant value for experienced visual artists, thanks to its custom brushes which you can share if you're working with others.

Features

Here are the features of Black Ink:

Custom Brushes
Artists can create custom brushes and even build their personal collection of these tools to speed up their design process.

Collaboration Tools
Black Ink has collaboration tools to make it easy for artists to work on group projects.

Impressive Performance
This digital software has a GPU rendering engine to help you draw fast with finer details. Aside from its faster performance on diverse picture resolutions, it has preview options to check brush settings.

Cons

• Only available for Windows systems
• Not ideal for beginners
• Updates are not quite regular

Pricing

Black Ink costs $59.00 (one-time payment).

This free digital art software is best used with drawing pads. The only issues are the lack of a mobile version and a dedicated customer support team. However, there’s a dynamic community to back it up and provide support.

Despite being a free painting software, Krita boasts an extensive brush collection, text capabilities, and other sophisticated art tools.

Features

Here are Krita’s noteworthy features:

Extensive Collection of Brush Types
Krita has more than 100 unique brush types with different smudge and shape effects. In addition, you can import texture and brush effects for a more personal art style.

Digital Painting Tools
First introduced in 2004, Krita’s initial use was to provide generic photo retouch and manipulation tools. But since 2009, its developers have started introducing sophisticated painting tools.

Powerful Performance
This painting and drawing program is great for creating concept art, comics, and paintings with textured and matte effects.

Cons

Krita lacks some of the high-end features you can find in Photoshop.

Pricing

Krita is free to use.

Considered the best Photoshop alternative that’s free, GIMP offers functional tools and allows users to change its source code and distribute any changes they make.

GIMP, which stands for GNY Image Manipulation Program, is similar to Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. In fact, most Adobe product users will find it easy to adjust to this free digital art software.

So, if you’re not ready to buy some fancy software, GIMP is an excellent choice.

With its massive collection of features, including drawing/painting tools, color correction, cloning, and image enhancement options, it’s a competitive solution that won’t cost you anything.

Features

Here are some of GIMP’s notable features.

Free and Open Source
As an open-source alternative to Photoshop, GIMP allows users to do as many things as its more popular (and expensive) competitor. Plus, it has a decent number of editing tools, layers, and brushes.

Another advantage of being open-source is that GIMP supports plug-ins, which further extends its capabilities.

Feature-Rich Free Art Software
Despite being a free digital painting and drawing software, GIMP offers sophisticated tools that serve professionals, from manga artists and photographers to illustrators and comic book artists.

Additionally, this open-source digital art tool has sufficient editing tools that make it easy to manipulate and retouch images.

Photoshop-Like Features
GIMP and Photoshop both use Levels, Masks, and Curves. These similarities make it easy for users to transition from one product to another. However, GIMP has a slightly steeper learning curve than Adobe products.

Cons

• Has a steeper learning curve than Photoshop
• Limited third-party plug-ins compared to Photoshop

Pricing

GIMP is a free-to-use, open-source digital art software that doesn’t require installation.