ArtRage is a free painting product designed to simulate the feel of real paints in a digital environment.

It provides an easy to use environment for playing with Chalks, Oils, Pencils, and other traditional artistic tools without the expense or mess of their real world counterparts.

NOTE: ArtRage 2.6 is available via the Auto-Update system in ArtRage itself.

Here are some key features of "ArtRage Starter Edition":

· Each of the tools in ArtRage is designed to work like its real world counterpart (minus the smell of paint thinners, and that piece of glitter you just can’t get out of the carpet).
· Thick paint smears and blends, pencils and chalks smudge, and markers work just like they do in the real world. Many of the tools can be adjusted to give different effects. You can paint with thinned oils, use wet or dry markers, soften your pencil and control the hardness of the crayon, and much more.

Stencils and Rulers:
· Stencils and rulers let you make precise shapes and lines while still painting freehand.
· Place down as many stencils as you like, then paint over them and the paint will only touch the canvas through the holes.
· Lay down rulers and have the brush stick to their edges to create straight lines or smooth curves with any of the ArtRage tools.

Metallics:
· By turning on the Metallic Paint option, you can work with spreadable, blendable gold and silver oil paints, sparkling glitter, silver leaf sprays and more. Any of the ArtRage tools can be switched to Metallic mode for a wide range of different effects.
· Metallic paint still blends with normal paint, and smears and smudges just as easily. Thin metal coating can be applied to any texture using the airbrush, or you can build up thick metal lumps using the Tube tool and Oil
· Brush to add more depth to your metallic image.

Tracing Images and References:
· ArtRage makes it easy to recreate photos or other images using its paint tools. When you load a Tracing Image the original is projected on to your canvas so that you can use it as a guide while you sketch and paint.
· Better still, you can tell ArtRage to choose the correct colour for you, so that when you start to paint you know the colour you’re getting is the right one for where you’re painting in the image.
· For users who just want a reference while painting, you can pin an image to your canvas and scale, rotate and position it as required.

Other Features:
· Metallic paint still blends with normal paint, and smears and smudges just as easily. Thin metal coating can be applied to any texture using the airbrush, or you can build up thick metal lumps using the Tube tool and Oil Brush to add more depth to your metallic image.
· Layers: Paint on transparent layers to build up more complex images without the paint blending with your underlying work. The texture of the underlying paint will still show through, as if it were dry on your canvas. ArtRage also provides full support for all 23 Photoshop layer blend modes.
· PSD Support: Import and export PSD files, with their layers intact.
· Custom Colours: Load and save custom colour set and colour pickers to fine tune your colour work.
· Crop & Resize: Crop and resize your paintings during work.
· Simple, Intuitive Interface: The ArtRage interface is easy to understand and doesn’t get in the way of your work.
· In fact, it even gets out of the way while you’re painting...
· Customisable Canvases: Change the grain, colour, and even metallic nature of your canvas at any time during your work.
· Canvas Positioning: Move, Scale, and Rotate the canvas to your preferred angle.
· Tablet Support: ArtRage uses your tablet’s pressure and tilt support where available.
· Tool Cursors: Every tool has a cursor that tells you exactly how big the tool head is, to make it easier to see what’s going to be applied.
· Multi-Monitor Support: ArtRage supports multi-monitor systems.

Requirements:

· G4 Processor or better / Intel CPU
· ArtRage works with a mouse, but it works best with a graphics tablet or on a Tablet PC

Limitations:

· ArtRage 2.5 Starter Edition gives you only 8 painting tools and lets you create, save, and print as many pictures as you like and doesn't limit their size.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Multitouch Support Implemented: ArtRage 2.6 now supports the same Multitouch functionality as ArtRage Studio and Studio Pro. Multitouch gestures can be used for moving, scaling and rotating the canvas, references and stencils. This system supports Win7 Multitouch and Wacom touch systems.
· Extended Language Support: ArtRage 2.6 now supports a wider range of languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Greek, Turkish, Russian, Latin American Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian Portuguese. Manuals are available in English, French, German, Italian and Turkish.
· DPI support has been added for all exported image types.
· Updated preferences to include Ink Services on/off support in the preferences menu and to prompt before checking for updates for systems that had problems when auto-checking.
· Fixed a number of internal bugs found in the 2.5 version including a crash that could occur on some machines when using the default ruler.
· Added a variety of new stencils that were previous...