Shareware Spotlight Featuring GMX-PhotoPainter

In The Spotlight: GMX-PhotoPainter

by Al Harberg of DP Directory

GMX-PhotoPainter transforms a digital photo into a watercolor, oil painting, pastel, or pen and ink drawing.

GMX-PhotoPainter at a glance:

GMX-PhotoPainter from Gertrudis Graphics is a Windows application that lets you turn a photographic image into a painting or drawing. It is a stand-alone program, and not a plug-in that requires you to own PhotoShop or other graphics software.

Start with a photograph from a digital camera or scanner, a 3D rendering, or a picture from an imaging application.

Select the hand-drawn artwork style you'd like to create. You can choose pen and ink, crayon, watercolor, oil painting, bristle brushes, or pastels. Each selection has pre-set values that allow you to become productive immediately. You can fine-tune all of the drawing tools. You control the width, transparency, stroke length, size, density, texture and thickness of the brushes. You can select the optimal color sampling technique. The 3D brushes have settings for depth, softness, and elevation. You can adjust precision, scan width and border limits. The bristle brushes let you select fluff, dots, large threads, or short threads. For pen and ink, you can adjust the line thickness and lightness.

In other words, hobbyists like me can spend years experimenting and having fun. The "undo" button makes me fearless in my artistic selections.

The other feature that is ideal for people who aren't professional artists is the program's unique AutoSketch function. GMX-PhotoPainter performs a topological analysis of the image’s content, and builds a matrix of flow direction vectors. In simpler terms, it looks at your photo, and makes intelligent decisions about how an artist might draw it. With AutoSketch, the program determines the direction of the brush strokes, automatically. It does a credible job of quickly turning a photo into a painting or drawing.

Graphic artists and digital painters, on the other hand, bring an understanding of an artist's manual tools to GMX-PhotoPainter, and can learn to create artwork with the desired effects. To experienced artists, the programming tools are intuitive. You can adjust settings and values, and see the results immediately in your drawings. I'm sure the multiple "undo" button works for professional artists, too .

The artwork that you create using GMX-PhotoPainter is independent of the resolution of your handiwork. After creating your masterpiece, you can select the size that you require for the finished work. The program doesn't simply re-size your artwork. It actually re-renders it, which means that the re-sized painting has all of the quality and detail of the original.

If you're a professional artist, you need to experiment with GMX-PhotoPainter to see if you can use it to create web art for your clients. It's an affordable tool to have in your toolbox. And if you're a creative person who wants to turn family photos into pen and ink drawings, or add unique artwork to your company's web site, you should give GMX-PhotoPainter a workout.

• GMX-PhotoPainter
• System Requirements: Windows 98/NT4/2000/XP/Vista
• Visit Gertrudis Graphics Web Site
• Download GMX-PhotoPainter NOW!

About Gertrudis Graphics:

Since 2005, Buenos Aires-based Gertrudis Graphics has been developing and marketing graphics software for artists, business people, and home users. In addition to GMX-PhotoPainter, the company also offers Gertrudis Pro, Gertrudis Ps, and Gertrudis for Dogwaffle. Visit http://www.gertrudisgraphics.com/ to learn more.