0 Comments Art Review: Serif DrawPlus

Program - DrawPlus X8 (Serif (Europe) Ltd.)
Tested version - v14.0.1.21 (final)

Price - $24.99 to purchase (discontinued, but still available at the discount).
Systems - Windows 7/8.1/10
Official website - http://www.serif.com/drawplus/

Raster or Vector - Vector

Ease Of Use - This is one of the programs that is simple to get started after having a look around, but setting up some options and finding everything is a daunting task.

The program does include a great Help file (menu Help -> DrawPlus Help). Online officially the manual is available, tutorials, and a forum. A search online doesn't seem to offer anything more than spam sites and illegal links anymore since it has been discontinued.

I purchased the X5 boxed version years ago as it was toted as a usable tool for freelance work by one of my university professors. It however quickly become a shelf dust collector for various reasons. I was hoping DrawPlus was improved at the X8 level, but overall little has changed. Perhaps that is why it has been discontinued and their new Affinity Designer software (my review) took over.

All software is subjective to hardware installed, so with that in mind here is my current workhorse PC (A updated HP Z200 Workstation) specs I used for testing with all updated drivers...

CPU - Intel Core i5 CPU 660 @ 3.33GHz (2 Cores, 4 Threads)
Memory - 12 GB DDR3 total
Graphics - EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti SC (Superclocked GM107) 1 GB (DDR5 memory)
Space - 2.5 TB hard drive disk space
System - Windows 8.1 Pro

Program Speed - Most tasks are nearly lag free. Page Zoom and scrolling around the page itself however can be very choppy. Changing the settings from the menu Tools -> Options -> Drawing Quality had no noticeable change.

Page Options - Annoyingly it defaults to a size when starting a New page (8.5" x 11" letter). To manually adjust the page size, in the main menu click File -> Page Setup. In the Page Setup window (seen above) the page Width, Height, Background color, a single set of Margins, and Color Mode (RGB or CMYK) are adjustable.

The maximum page size is 3937.008" x 3937.008", and as vector has no dpi/ppi settings until export (depending on format).

File Formats -

• Open - ARW /CR2 /CRW /ERF /KDC /MRW /NEF /NRW /ORF /PEF /RAW (RAW camera), DPP (DrawPlus Drawings), DPA (DrawPlus Animation), DPX (DrawPlus Templates), PDF (Portable Document Format), DWG /DXF (AutoCAD), AI (Adobe Illustrator), EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), SMF (Serif Metafile), SVG /SVGZ (Scalable Vector Graphic)
• Save - DPP (DrawPlus Drawings), DPX (DrawPlus Templates) 
• Export - BMP (Windows Bitmap), EMF (Enhanced Metafiles), EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), GIF, J2K (JPEG 2000), JPG, JXR (JPEG-XR), PNG, SMF (Serif Metafile), SVG /SVGZ (Scalable Vector Graphic), TIF (TIFF), WEBP (WebP), WMF (Windows Metafile), DWG /DXF (AutoCAD), PLT (HPGL)

Plug-in Support - No.

Customizable Shortcuts/Menus/Icons - Yes keyboard shortcuts, toolbars, even menu items, docked windows can be moved /closed /added, and more. Not quite as customizable as some Corel software I reviewed, but rather close.

Layer Options - Options include Paper texture, Visibility, Add layer, Delete layer, Move layer (Up/Down), Auto-select objects, Edit all layers, and View all layers. Right-clicking brings up more options (seen above), and so does double-clicking a layer (Layer Properties 2nd image).

Color Selection - Color wheels, sliders, boxes, bars, numerical inputs, RGB /HSL /CMYK /Tints, and more (1st image). The Swatch palettes are just as impressive with their wide-range of selections including colors, various gradients, bitmap images, and vector objects (2nd image). Both images contain four of each window, and they have even more options.

The last image is the Color Palette Designer available from any solid color palette (clicking it's mini color wheel button). Besides editing or creating new palettes quickly, it has several color harmony options that can be selected to help make a palette easier.

The only downside here is the custom created palettes which are exportable, do not work with any other program that I have tried. However using a screenshot and using the image to eyedropper them into another program's palette works, but is time consuming.

Brush Options - First image is the typical vector Pencil tool, and the Line window that changes basic options (where to adjust the square ended lines to round ends). Options are Color (stroke), Size, Line type (Beginning /Middle /End), and Smoothness (works on graphics tablet or mouse, and adjusted after finished). After drawing the object is selected and in the options Close Gap becomes available if needed, and useful to ensure all objects are closed.

The second image is the Brush tool for a more traditional look. Unlike the Pencil tool the object lines are not closed. The Line window options mostly work on the Brush, but are much more subtle changes. The Brushes window is where to find the Brush presets for the look you want. The basic options are Color, Width (stroke), Opacity, and Smoothness.

Brushes can also be customized, by clicking the Brush icon from the options near the main menu or double-clicking a Brush from the Brushes window. See the two images above for the options, depending on Brush type.

The problem here however is the brushes can not be exported. So unless you can find the custom brush in the program folder to manually import/export them, those brushes are more of a one-use type.

A look at the process of creating lines with the Brush tool. In the image above the first is the basic look as the line is being drawn. Then after the line is finished the Brush texture and Smoothing is applied. Next using the Node tool the line is completely adjustable. Lastly, selecting the line with the Pointer tool, then clicking any of the Brush presets changes the line texture.

Common Necessities - Other tools that are primarily tools, and is surprising lacking in some software making it necessary to include them briefly.

Paint Fill - The Flood Tool (SHIFT + F) is what you want unlike the other bucket tool. It is rather hidden and not mentioned in most help, so I must admit I was frustrated with trying to fill objects for the longest time. With the option Inflate/Deflate it can ensure no gaps are left.
Eraser - Two options Nib (Round /Square /Diamond) and Width (size). It does good; however, it can only erase from a single layer at a time.
Image Zoom - Onscreen buttons, shortcut controls, menu controls, Fit Page, Actual Size, etc. It includes zoom in/out on the mouse scroll wheel when holding the CTRL key. Zoom range 4% to 5000%
View Rotate - No. While all objects are vector and can be rotated manually without degrading the quality (endlessly too), it lags so badly that it is not worth doing.
Selection Tools - Just the Pointer or Node tools to select entire objects, or their nodes.

Text/Font Options - Unlike nearly any other vector program, the DrawPlus Text tool is more like a bad raster text tool (including faked font Styles like Bold, Italic, etc). The typical text options such as kerning, leading, tracking and other options that make a vector program best for text /lettering /dialog - really fail here in DrawPlus.

Most of the options are hidden away in the main menu Format -> Paragraph, that opens a Text Style window (see the above image) - which is not dockable or otherwise handy either. Looking at the options and testing them it becomes obvious why they are hidden. Many of the advanced text options are either missing, limited, or apply to all the text making it useless in most cases.

The only work around here is to create and select the text, then in the main menu click Tools -> Convert to Curves, and manually adjust the character objects.

Drawing Aids - The various vector node Tools, Vector shapes, Movable page Ruler (and measuring points can be altered) with Guidelines, 3D Planes (to create faux 3D objects using the tools from the 1st image - Pencil and Brush do not work), Instant 3D on simple shapes (that can be rotated in 3D /color altered /up to 8 light sources /and more from the tool options), and of course a page Grid.

Extras - Items that are targeted to people making community newsletters, teachers giving out student achievements, and such. A page decoration Border Wizard, Gallery of vector drawn art, and PageHints (with custom notes which may be useful in limited situations).

Pros -

• No software subscription costs.
• Docked tools/windows - I really dislike floating tools, and hate multiple windows.
• No program stability issues or crashes - although, lag during zoom and page movement is too common.
• The sheer range of customization available to nearly anything.
• Brushes and Flood tool work surprisingly well (even if it took me a long time to find the Flood tool versus tying to make the useless Fill tool work).

Cons -

• Discontinued
• The Text tool is bad even in a raster program, but in a vector program is unheard of and disappointing.
• Options are scattered in various docked or menu windows, and make finding many options more difficult than they should be.

Recommended Use - Great if you can get around the limitations for creating many types of finished artwork.