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Pocket Artist 2.03
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By Anthony Newman, Wednesday 25 September 2002  
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Doodling is something we all love to do from time to time, but if you want to it with style, Anthony Newman recommends feature-laden Conduits Pocket Artist 2.03 for Pocket PCs.
PDAs seem to be able to handle most of the tasks previously reserved for good old-fashioned paper: PIM, note-taking, and so on. It’s even passé to doodle in electronic ink. With applications such as Idruna’s Photogenics and Conduits’ Pocket Artist, however, Pocket PCs have entered the realm of proper art creation and manipulation. These programs offer feature-sets on a par with desktop rivals such as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, and seem to enable a whole new world of pocket artistry.
 | Pick a color, any color
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Conduits’ Pocket Artist has just hit version 2.0, and has a load of new features that make it an even more mature package. In version 2.0, PSD support, layers and plug-ins are added, all of which heavily evoke Photoshop. The comparison is justifiably sustained by Pocket Artist’s continuing support for 24-bit colour and its raft of brushes, effects and options, which are far too plentiful to list here.
A number of obvious challenges present themselves when creating a program such as this for a PDA platform. Most pressing is the issue of screen size: unlike a piece of paper, the PDA user is limited to a canvas of, at most, 4 inches diagonal diameter. Most users would be restricted to 3.5 inches - a restriction of which the creative limitations on the user are obvious even to one of such limited artistic ability as myself. A similar feeling is created by using a stylus, especially a stick-thin stock-stylus. Pocket Artist attempts to maximise available screen real-estate, and zoom can be creatively used to handle a larger virtual image. Conduits has also thought hard about the stylus issue, and has attempted to maximise its sensitivity. The second major challenge is the limited processing power of handhelds, which can rear its head in the intensive operations of multi-layer, high-resolution image manipulation. Thankfully, Pocket Artist seems neatly programmed, as it handled a range of operations as quickly as can be expected.
A whole range of little touches have been crafted to make the user experience as pleasurable as possible on the small screen. The colour selector is available in all its 24-bit glory, but for those without the patience to use it fully, there is a selection of common colours available in a pop-up box. If that is too imprecise, the colour value for each of the channels can be manually set. Similarly, when selecting opacity, tapping to the left or right shifts the value in increments, while tapping and holding the indicator allows the user to drag it. If the slider is too small for precise movement, the user has a third option for selecting the numeric value - by choosing a digit for the tens and ones column. Innovative and efficient: a design philosophy evident throughout this program. The philosophy also seems to encompass a penchant for detail - the latest version includes support for anti-aliasing, which undoubtedly helps make those mini-masterpieces more professional.
 | Pocket Artist 2.03's feature set is very impressive
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As one would expect, Conduits have been thorough. From left to right on the main bar, there is the colour selector discussed above; the brush size selector; a large range of brushes, such as paint, pencil, airbrush and fill; a range of other tools, such as blur and smudge; more select tools than you can shake a stick at, and finally there is support for inserting shapes, lines and text. Oh, and multi-level undo. All this is available from a one-line bar, for maximum efficiency. Tool options are handled in a second (optional) bar, while colour options take up the third bar. All of these tools work as can be expected, and again perform with good overall speed.
Pocket Artist also has support for multiple windows, which - as every Pocket IE user knows - is a must. It is also a competent photo viewer, with support for five common image types (although not PNG). Finally, it has screen capture ability, and can set the current image as your device’s desktop background - handy.
Pocket Artist is available for Pocket PC and Handheld PCs the company's website and other popular eTailers for $49.95.
Conclusion
Despite all its features and capabilities, Pocket Artist consumes only 500 KB of storage space. The hit on the wallet is somewhat larger, at $50 USD, but this is really a very reasonable price, considering the phenomenal feature-set of this program. Seeing is believing, they say, and instead of going on about the feature set of the application I suggest you check out the work of some more capable souls at Conduits’ online Pocket Artist gallery.
- What's positive: Vast number of features, efficient and user-friendly, truly powerful
- What's negative: In price and features, not for the very casual sketcher
Overall: 
Conclusion
Despite all its features and capabilities, Pocket Artist consumes only 500 KB of storage space. The hit on the wallet is somewhat larger, at $50 USD, but this is really a very reasonable price, considering the phenomenal feature-set of this program. Seeing is believing, they say, and instead of going on about the feature set of the application I suggest you check out the work of some more capable souls at Conduits’ online Pocket Artist gallery.
What's positive:
Vast number of features, efficient and user-friendly, truly powerful
What's negative:
In price and features, not for the very casual sketcher
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| Hands-on impressions, news, reviews, prices and release dates; now all-in-one-page: |
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