Twisting Pixels Art Studio Volumes 1 and 2 Screen Shot are two packages that offer many natural media effects. They can be used either as standalone programs or as Photoshop Plug-ins and both of them make it easy to turn photographs and other pieces of artwork in to paintings, sketches and the like. Each volume offers a different set of set of effects with supporting effects.

Volume 1:

• Colored Pencil Sample
• Crayon Sample
• Marker Sample
• Technical Pen
• Watercolor

Included with ArtStudioPro are 25 Powerful Supporting Effects: Colored Pencil Brush, Colored Pencil Fill, Colored Pencil Inside, Colored Pencil Outside, Colored Pencil Outline, Colored Pencil Shade Outline, Crayon Brush, Crayon Inside, Crayon Outside, Marker Brush, Marker Outside, Marker Strokes, Paper Texture, Restore Original, Technical Pen Brush, Technical Pen Outline, Underlayment, Watercolor Base, Watercolor Blend Strokes, Watercolor Brush, Watercolor Details, Watercolor Dry Strokes, Watercolor Wash, & Watercolor Wet Strokes.

Volume 2:

• Oil Painting Sample
• Oil Pastel Sample
• Chalk Sample
• Charcoal Sample
• Finger Painting Sample

Included with ArtStudioPro Vol. 2 are Powerful Supporting Effects: Chalk Outline, Chalk Smudge, Charcoal Outline, Charcoal Smudge, Oil Pastel Details, Oil Color, Oil Details & Oil Brush.

Both packages offer the same features just different effects. Both offer layering so you can create complex very realistic natural media effects by layering in say oil painting with colored pencil. You can reorder the layers, hide or show them, delete them, etc. Both packages come with a wide range of presets so that you can quickly convert your artwork or photo in to a painting, drawing, etc.

Each effect has many controls and options that you can adjust and tweak to get just the effect you want. Controls like pressure, smudge, paper texture scale, paper texture (you can even use your own paper textures) and more. The preview can be zoomed in and out and you can even use a brush and eraser right on the preview image to just apply the effect where you want it or to erase it where you don’t want it.

As you add more effects layers to your images you can click on the layer and the options ribbon at the top of the screen will show you all of the controls for that layers effects. Sometimes you have one tab of controls and sometimes you have more. No matter what the controls for each effects layer are they are all right at your finger tips and easy to use.

The effects themselves are very good, they look very realistic. But because of this real world look and feel the effects can take from several seconds to several minutes to display on the preview especially when you work on large high resolution files. However when you apply the effect to the actual image it goes much quicker as a lot of the work has already been done. This is something one just needs to accept because the end result is fabulous and well worth the wait. If the effects were rendered quicker they wouldn’t be as real looking as they are. Just compare the Photoshop watercolor filter to the ArtStudio watercolor effect and you will see night and day difference and this attention to detail takes time.

If you have always wanted a standalone program or Photoshop plug-ins for converting your photos and artwork to natural media works of art Twisting Pixels ArtStudio Pro Volumes 1 and 2 is what you are looking for. They are easy to use, powerful and the end result is very realistic.

• Very realistic natural media effects.
• Powerful but easy to use.
• Lots of options for each effect so you can get just the look you want.
• Layers allow you to combine different effects, rearrange effects, hide and show effects and more.
• Paint in your chosen effect using the brush tool so only the parts of the image you choose are effected.
• Erase parts of your chosen effect using the eraser tool.
• Tabbed effects control ribbon bar has all of your effects tweaking controls in one place.
• Save and load your own presets.
• Comes with a wide assortement of presets for each effect.
• Each main effect has supporting effects, like chalk has chalk outline, chalk smudge, etc.
• Can be uses as standalone or as Photoshop plug-ins with Adobe Photoshop 7 or higher, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 or higher, Adobe Fireworks 2004 or higher and Corel Paint Shop Pro 8 or higher (Windows only).